Chapter Text
Some people might be tempted to think Kai didn’t notice things. That he was too busy looking in the mirror to pick up on the little bits of life going on around him.
Well. Kai spied Jay out of the corner of his eye, rifling through the fridge.
They would be wrong.
Kai noticed an awful lot more than people thought—though not nearly as much as Cole. Cole had a sixth sense about him when it came to Jay.
Kai supposed that’s how he was with Nya, but not really with anyone else.
Still, Kai noticed.
He noticed the way Jay wouldn’t drink out of any cup he hadn’t filled himself. How, if he left the room and came back to his half-filled water glass—that absolutely no one had touched in his absence—he would abandon it entirely.
It was more than disconcerting: it was downright depressing.
The back of Kai’s head throbbed and, according to Zane, he was still suffering the effects of a minor concussion.
He grimaced, resisting the urge to rub at his head again, choosing instead to stir his noodles. Minor? He scoffed. Minor my—
“Ugh!” Kai glanced up at Jay’s outburst. “Someone ate my pudding cup again!”
Another stir prevented him from clutching his head. Seriously, couldn’t everyone just keep it down? “Why don’t you just put your name on it?”
Jay huffed. “I did! I bet it was Cole. Cole!”
Feeling his headache increase, Kai watched with relief as Jay stomped out of the kitchen in search of the moody Master of Earth, who was probably punching a hole through one of the training dummies.
They had all been rather moody lately. After everything, can you really blame anyone?
Yeah. Yeah, he did blame someone: that villainous mastermind responsible for ruining their lives.
Okay, so maybe their lives weren’t ruined, exactly, but living hadn’t been a walk in the park since the whole ordeal with the ambassador.
She would never admit it—not in a million years—but it was obvious the slow picking off of her friends one by one had shaken Nya. Kai didn’t miss the way she did quiet headcounts whenever they went out and about. Just to make sure everyone was still there.
Besides the concussion, Kai found he couldn’t stop berating himself. Getting caught by a simple blow to the head—without even putting up much of a fight—had been humiliating, not to mention painful. In his defense, they had snuck up on him, but he didn’t really feel like defending himself these days. How are you going to protect your teammates if you can’t even protect yourself?
Kai stared at the wafts of steam rising from his noodles as if they alone knew how to fix everything.
Maybe if you’d listened to Jay, or paid more attention to the taste of the punch…
Maybe things wouldn’t have gone so south.
Nice going, Kai.
Curling a fist didn’t help, it just made the anger boil faster.
Jay came away from the ordeal with the most massive hangover Kai had ever seen. Talk about headaches. He knew his own paled in comparison to Jay’s, who had been shocked at what happened to him, so much so that he vowed never to drink again.
Yeah. Right. Wait a few years and tell me if you still feel the same.
At first, everything seemed all right. Normal… Until Nya started counting, Cole started brooding, and Kai started despising the face that looked back at him in the mirror.
Oh. Yeah, and Jay started having nightmares.
They all suffered night terrors at one point or another—Kai still had plenty of his own from everything with Morro and almost losing Lloyd. He’d been on the receiving end plenty of times, too, waking to his brothers’ cries and trying to pull them out of the nightmare.
None of them had ever experienced anything like this before, though. It was almost as if Jay drank the punch all over again each night, it was so hard to wake him up. Once, Kai had resorted to grabbing his brother by the shoulders and shaking him awake.
That hadn’t worked as well as he would’ve liked…
In the end, Nya usually splashed water over his head. That worked about sixty percent of the time. The other forty was spent in anxiety as they waited for Jay to pull himself out of the nightmare.
He would wake up completely out of breath, gasping like a man about to drown. Cole would normally soothe him, or Nya.
“There’s—” A strangled gasp as Jay’s fingers locked around Cole’s. “There’s something… I’ve got to… to…” Another gasp. “Cole, there’s something I have to tell you about… about…”
Jay’s brows would furrow then, followed by a slow surveyance of the room.
“It’s all right, Jay,” Cole would say, voice soft. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
In Kai’s personal opinion, it never really looked like Jay believed him, even though he always nodded.
Cole’s fist would clench then, a subtle yet angry gesture concealed from Jay’s view.
But Kai noticed.
He played it cool, sure, but Kai knew Cole was itching to get his hands on whoever had done this to Jay. Revenge had never been the Master of Earth’s style—that had always been more Kai’s forte—so it spoke to the sheer volume of helplessness he must have been feeling. That they were all feeling.
Their only consolation through it all was that they had successfully protected the ambassador. Well, Zane and Lloyd had, while the rest of them had floundered in agony.
And the villains got away in the end.
Kai dug his chopsticks into the noodle bowl, savoring the way the food burned his mouth. It fit in well with the rest of the pain shaking his body. The headaches, the heartaches, and everything in between.
So?
Kai rolled his eyes at his inner voice. The stupid thing wouldn’t stop whispering in the back of his mind when all he wanted was just a little peace and quiet.
So, what?
So, why aren’t you doing something about it? Why aren’t you out there trying to catch the bad guys?
A sigh rattled his lungs. I don’t know.
He had a dozen excuses. No leads, no clear picture of what the perpetrators even looked like, and no point.
For his own safety, the ambassador had concluded his visit and traveled back to Shintaro with the promise that it wouldn’t be the last time his people journeyed to Ninjago. With him gone, even the police saw no point in going after the crooks.
Kai cursed himself again, shoving the bowl away before ditching it in the sink. Eating was overrated, anyway.
Compared to everything else they’d gone through over the years, the debacle with the ambassador hadn’t even been that traumatic.
According to who, Zane? Lloyd? They seemed fine…
Not that traumatic. Yeah, tell that to Jay.
He passed Nya on his way out to the training yard.
She smiled. Then, with a subtle nod of her head, she counted him.
And it was just the two of them in the hallway.
I’m still here, sis.
Don’t worry.
Advice easier given than taken.
Returning her smile was the best he could do before continuing on his journey out into the yard. Maybe he’d try Cole’s strategy of punching out all his emotions.
If that really worked, dummy, then Cole would’ve stopped by now.
Maybe he just has a ton of pent-up emotions…
Either way, it didn’t look like anyone would be doing much training for very long if the darkening sky was any indication.
“It’s not like you’d eat it anyway.” Cole’s voice drifted across the yard, his harsh tones warning Kai that he had just stepped into a battle zone. “It was already open.”
“It’s the principle of the thing!” Jay shouted back. “I was saving it!”
“Sure, okay. Are you trying to tell me that you were actually going to go back for it?”
“I might have,” came Jay’s bitter, half-hearted defense. “You never know…”
“Just keep telling yourself that. If I didn’t eat it, it would go to waste, like always.”
“Yeah? And what’s that supposed to mean, huh?”
Cole pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. “Do you even realize how much water you waste on a daily basis?”
“Oh, what are you now, the water police?”
“And what are you, the pudding police?”
Kai couldn’t do much but massage his aching head. “It’s too early for this.”
Wind whipped at his face and he turned to study the sky.
“Guys!” he called out, not really expecting Jay and Cole to pay attention. “Looks like a storm’s coming in fast. Maybe we should—”
The clap of thunder was as vicious as it was unexpected. Despite their argument, Kai watched Jay start, his hand latching onto Cole’s arm—then quickly letting go the second he caught himself.
“Forget it,” Jay bit out after a moment. “Have fun in the rain, Cole.”
Though clearly torn between trying to make up and holding onto his grudge, Cole ultimately rolled his eyes and threw himself back into his training.
Kai folded his arms as Jay brushed past him. “You coming in?”
Cole didn’t even glance his way. “In a minute.”
A minute turned out to be fifteen and Kai looked up from his spot on the couch just in time to see a sopping-wet Cole pound his way up the stairs. The subsequent slam of the bathroom door was to be expected.
Kai heaved a sigh, returning to his book.
Since when do you read?
Since he found he couldn’t concentrate on anything else. Staring at his phone was giving him a crazy intense headache—like he needed another one of those—and no one else was doing much of anything.
Life always got dull when there was an elephant in the room, mainly because no one could think to do anything with each other when they were all wrapped up in their trauma.
Not that he could blame them. He didn’t feel like doing anything with anyone either.
Because that might lead to talking.
And talking meant reliving the emotions and guilt because no one really knew what to do about the issue.
No one knew how to resolve it.
Usually, Cole resolved things for Jay, but the two hadn’t stopped arguing since the incident.
Just ignore them.
Right.
That’s why keeping to yourself was just… easier.
“Hey.”
Kai glanced up as Lloyd plopped down on one of the beanbags, a comic book in hand.
“Hey.”
“Pretty bad storm out there, huh?”
“Yep,” Kai said with a nod.
And that was that.
Kai’s head hurt too much to carry on a conversation. Somehow, Lloyd knew this—and no, it was not because Kai had complained constantly about the pain. He hadn’t—and left his alone.
Left him to his book that was… honestly, super boring.
What am I even reading?
Just as he went to flip to the cover, the lights did a quick flicker, then shorted out completely, plunging the living room into darkness.
For a long moment, the only sounds came from the raging storm outside.
After that, the shouting started.
“Hey! Who turned out the lights?”
“I can’t see anything!”
“Zane, do you think you can fix it before I trip halfway down the stairs?”
Kai, for his part, turned the page.
It wasn’t like he’d really been paying attention to the words before the power went out, anyway.
Lloyd’s groan echoed through the darkness and the beanbag gave a small rustle.
“Wanna grab a flashlight while you’re at it?” Kai said, not looking up from his blackened page.
“Kai.” Lloyd’s voice was tired. “You’re the Master of Fire.”
“Hey, no flames in the house, remember?”
“I think this is the ‘dire circumstance’ exception Wu was talking about when she made that rule.”
Guess so…
The flame was small, but it lit up the room well enough.
“I can’t hold it forever, though!” Kai called after Lloyd, who had already disappeared into the kitchen. “So don’t forget that flashlight!”
It wasn’t five minutes before Kai heard the first set of footsteps.
Jay.
He’d know that stumble anywhere.
“I knew this was gonna happen!” the Lightning Ninja fretted.
“No, you didn’t,” Kai shot back with a light scoff.
And then he turned the page.
“Storms always knock out the power! What do they even do, huh? They just destroy things and-and… and take away all your power!”
“I thought you liked storms.”
“I did, but all they do is mess things up these days,” Jay grumbled, flinging himself onto the couch beside Kai.
So close, he could feel Jay shiver.
“They’re loud and nosy,” Jay went on, “and they always—”
“Mess things up. Yeah, I get it.”
Turning the page meant he didn’t have to dwell on the guilt. Focusing on trying to make out the tiny words through the semi-darkness meant he didn’t have to wonder if Jay was actually talking about the storm or himself.
Nya came next, flashlight in hand as she counted the two ninja on the couch.
And each one after as they ventured into the room.
Zane with more flashlights.
Lloyd with a comic, a couple of water bottles, and two flashlights, tossing one to Kai.
And last, but certainly not least, Cole with a towel around his shoulders and half-dried hair.
“Power shut off and killed the blowdryer,” was his only comment on the matter.
Kai took a glance around. He couldn’t remember the last time they all had gathered together in the same room.
Well, the last time after the whole thing with the ambassador, of course.
“So…” he began, not bothering to hide his smirk. “Anyone wanna watch a movie.”
This earned a few groans from his friends.
“You did not just say that,” Cole muttered.
“Great,” Jay said, “I didn’t want to watch anything until you brought it up. Now, that’s all I can think about.”
Zane spoke up next. “I could always attempt to fix the breaker.”
“Don’t waste your time.” Cole waved a dismissive hand. “The storm’ll just knock it back out again.”
Jay was on his case in an instant.
Oh, come on.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Literally nothing, Jay,” Cole snapped back. “Can’t I just say something without you jumping all over me?”
“Sounded like a double meaning to me.”
Cole pressed his palms to his temples. “Oh, my gosh.”
Lloyd’s tired voice rose up once more. “Guys, can you not right now? I think we have bigger problems than—”
But apparently, Cole wasn’t listening.
Neither was Jay.
“Look,” Cole spat, “I meant literally nothing by it, okay? Geez, would you just knock it off already? First the pudding cup, now this!”
“Well, you can’t blame me for being suspicious. You’re always mad at me all the time, anyway, so how was I supposed to know you weren’t taking a jab at me?”
“I’m not mad at you all the time!”
“Yeah, you are! Look at you! You’re mad at me right now!”
“I’m not mad at you!” Cole shouted. “I’m mad at me!”
The silence that followed was so suffocating, Kai wasn’t sure anyone was even breathing.
“I’m mad at me…” Cole repeated softly, his voice cracking. “I couldn’t… I should’ve known something was wrong, but I didn’t… And then I couldn’t even open the freaking door! I should’ve… I should’ve…” Through the dim lighting, Kai watched his brother bury his face in his hands.
And then, he felt the guilt come washing back over him full-force, because they all knew no one was talking about the storm anymore. It was almost like Cole had not only been speaking his own mind but Kai’s as well.
Should’ve been better. Maybe if I had, none of this would’ve happened…
“I can’t stop counting.” Nya’s confession was both swift and unexpected. All eyes turned to her and Kai found himself holding his breath. “They picked you guys off one by one and I… I just can’t get over that. And I hate myself for it, but I just can’t.”
She snuggled closer to Jay as his hand slipped into hers.
The expression on Cole’s face couldn’t decide whether it wanted to kill someone for making Nya feel this way or crush her in a hug for taking the attention off him.
“I, too,” Zane began, “harbor feelings of guilt for my inadequacy as a Spinjitzu Master that night. I trained so hard to be… much more effective than I was…”
Lloyd went next, the exhaustion in his voice bleeding into every quiet, painful word. “I want to fix everything for everyone, and I just can’t.”
“If anyone’s to blame…” And Kai hated the slight tremble of his voice. “It’s me. Jay came to me with the punch and I did nothing. I did… I did nothing…”
The pressure building behind his eyes was entirely unwelcome, so Kai did his best to blink it away. In his efforts to banish the tears, he nearly missed the small voice beside him.
“At least you weren’t the first domino to fall.” Jay sniffed, taking a swipe at his own eyes and proving to Kai that he wasn’t the only one fighting that particular sort of battle. “Why am I always the first one to…” The next few words were so soft, Kai was sure he and Nya were the only ones who could hear them. “What’s wrong with me…?”
It was the same question Kai had asked the mirror every day since the chaos that ruined their lives.
What’s wrong with you, anyway? Why couldn’t you save anyone?
Some big brother you are.
To this day, Kai will swear that some otherworldly spirit possessed his body because he was not the touchy-feely type. Whatever the case, he reached over and wrapped his arms around Jay, stretching his left hand far enough to rub Nya’s shoulder.
And the second he heard Jay’s quiet sobs, he let his own tears fall.
Somewhere along the line, Cole joined the huge, then Lloyd and Zane. No one spoke for what felt like ages, but Kai was okay with that.
This silence felt… healing.
It didn’t fix everything. Not by a long shot. After all, one night of crying in the dark with your family didn’t really fix anything.
But it was a start.
And Kai could already see the hope begin to fill his friends’ eyes.
Hope that things would eventually get better.
Hope for the future.
And a renewed hope not only in themselves…
… But in each other.