Chapter Text
"Can't you see that you're smothering me? Holding too tightly, afraid to lose control."
-Linkin Park
PROLOUGE: THE FIRST STUDENT
"Again!"
A staff clicked against the wooden monastery floor in disapproval. It seemed to reverberate throughout the temple, adding to the weight of the word. Wielding the staff was an old man with white billowing robes and a beard. He had a calm, powerful, and regal semblance about him.
Morro couldn't move. His breathing was short and labored, and hurt with every inhale. Sweat was riveting down his face and soaking his gi. His limbs felt useless. They were aching and sore. His fingers were trembling too bad to grip his staff.
"I-I can't." Morro heaved, struggling to a sitting position. A sharp pain shot through his side and he grimaced.
Wu's expression drew shut. "You must."
Anger swelled in Morro. He had been trying to control his element for years now, ever since Wu had taken him in as a child. Concentrating on the unpredictability of the wind currents he created while simultaneously combating was difficult.
"Rgh, forget it! I'm done for the day. I've been at this for months! If I haven't gotten it by now I'm not going to get it." Morro shouted, and a vicious gale of wind tore through the room. Even master Wu had to ground himself with a stance. Morro couldn't remember the last time he wasn't in pain or his body didn't feel it would collapse from exhaustion. He forced himself to stand.
"Morro. You have not been dismissed." Wu punctuated this with another clack of his cane on the sturdy ground.
"I'm dismissing myself." Morro snarled, limping toward the door.
"Morro! I have had it with your disobedience and disrespect. I understand you are coming of age of adolescence, but this is unacceptable! You must prepare for the inevitable battle that is meant to come." Wu admonished.
Morro snorted a derisive laugh. "What battle? The overlord is trapped in the underworld! Where he has been for centuries. How do you know he'll appear in my lifetime? Maybe this whole...prophecy thing is just, I don't know, not real? This is the only prophecy that exists in the whole world or realm as you call it-
"Enough, get a hold of yourself! The green ninja must not let himself be overcome with his own emotions!" Wu shouted over the howling wind that had started to pick up as Morro had started his tirade.
Scrolls were suspended in the air, swirling around just like the pitting anger in Morro's stomach. A hanging picture frame fell and shattered. The wall of the monastery groaned in warning, and Morro calmed himself enough to where the wind died down a considerable amount.
"Hmph. The golden weapons have never reacted to me." Morro looked away, pained at the thought of him truly not being the destined one. That all his hard work would be in vain; and the fact he would always be the orphaned kid he had been when Wu found him. He knew he was destined for greatness. But was he destined for whatever Wu was trying to push on him?
He wasn't even allowed to leave the monastery. He wasn't allowed to eat certain things, he wasn't allowed to say certain things, and he wasn't even allowed outside communication because it could potentially distract him from his 'destiny.' Every activity he did was focused around training. He trained to the point of collapse.
"-Argh." Morro's legs gave out from under him, and Wu had to catch him before he crumpled to the floor. His sensei eased him to the ground, and Morro begrudging allowed it. His body wasn't giving him much of a choice anyway.
"Morro you just need to focus your emotions to unlock your full potential." Wu tried to patiently explain, but Morro was having none of it.
"I'm fine. thanks for asking." Morro snapped, brushing away Wu's hand. He was frustrated, but beneath that he was hurt. Did Wu see him nothing more than just a tool to defeat the overlord and fulfill his destiny?
"Yes of course. Apologies-"
"I can't do this anymore, sensei." Morro cut off Wu, exhaling the sentence in one breath.
There was a long pause after that, Wu's expression shifting to one to what almost could come across as confusion. Wu searched Morro's eyes for what felt like a lifetime. Finally, came:
"You are unwell. We'll get you some tea and pick up tomorrow." Wu started to reach for Morro again to help him up, but Morro quickly retracted his hand.
"No, sensei. As in, I'm done with this. All of this." The confession came easier with every sentence. It felt like a burden had lifted off his shoulders. At the same time a sense of guilt plagued him, seeing Wu's face fall when he realized just where Morro was going with this.
"I can't stay locked up in this monastery wondering if I'll become the green ninja or not. At least when I was an orphan I was allowed to eat whatever I wanted out of the trash. I've never had a birthday cake! I want to hang out with someone my age! I just want to live like a normal twelve-year-old..." Morro sighed.
"Fate does not always deal us with a favorable hand, Morro." Wu suddenly looked his age, a casting shadow pronouncing the bags under his eyes. His forehead creased like he was remembering something painful. "However," Wu continued, "We must take responsibility for the gifts that have been given to us. Mystake told me long ago the green ninja would come to me. And that I must train him."
"Technically you found me." Morro lifted a skeptical eyebrow.
"Prophecies are not always clear. Or literal, for that matter. It is not a coincidence that you are the last elemental master of the wind, Morro. You are destined for greatness. I can see it. You must do your duty as the green ninja and protect Ninajago."
.
And that was one of many times master Wu had guilt-tripped him into staying at the monastery.
A year passed, and Morro found it increasingly difficult to convince himself he should stay. Although his elemental powers had sharpened, he still hadn't reached his full potential. Nor were the elemental weapons reacting to him.
Sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night and go visit the room in which they were displayed. Sometimes he would plead with the artifacts to give him a sign. The weapons remained almost mockingly dull.
After that, he would go on the the rooftop and stare at the stars. It was the only thing that could console him after such disappointment. Maybe he was never meant to amount to anything.
For two more years, he lived a sequestered life with no one to talk to but Wu. Birds and lizards were fun to vent to, but weren't much of a conversation.
Morro fought with Wu nearly every time he saw him. There was an underlying sense of resentment that he felt that was impossible to ignore. He was getting older, and the world still had no need for a green ninja. What if he was thirty by the time he discovered he was the chosen one? If he even was, that is.
.
"Morro. You are supposed to be meditating." Wu stood at his doorway, hands behind his back, mouth set in a thin line, the same expression he always wore when he was about to launch into a lecture.
Morro flipped a page of his book, not bothering to look up. "Yeah, I decided I'm not doing that today. I'm having a day to 'relax' to myself. You should really try it."
"Downtime is after supper."
"Okay, whatever old man. Just let me finish this chapter at least." Morro raised the book so he wouldn't have to see Wu out of his peripheral vision.
"Leisure has no place here. You must continue to stoke embers of a fire to maintain it's integrity. Much like you must maintain your form to practice restraint. Your tantrum last week caused three tornadoes. And if it weren't for your breathing exercises-"
Morro rolled his eyes, trying to tune out his master. He flipped another page.
"-Morro, are you listening to anything I'm saying? All this rebellion does not suit you. It is most unbecoming."
"You're becoming a nuisance. I said in a minute!" Morro snapped, and several of his possessions flew off the shelves.
"Morro." Wu said his name with a finality, low and stern.
"Get. out!" Morro growled. With a hard flick of his hand, the door slammed shut in Wu's face.
When Wu opened the door again, he found Morro's book neglected on the floor and the teenager stuffing robes and scrolls into a satchel. "What is the meaning of this?"
"I'm leaving." Morro muttered, not pausing in his movements. He had decided on this for a while now, however he had wanted to talk with master Wu and give him his reasoning, in hopes his sensei would give him his blessing. Now he saw his sensei was beyond reason.
He needed to do this for himself.
"You would leave the temple?" Wu's tone was even, and did not hint at any emotion.
Leaving the temple was forbidden Wu had told him. To leave meant abandoning his post and his teachings.
"Yes, sensei." Morro finally paused to give Wu a glancing look.
"I see." Wu met his gaze evenly.
He's not even going to try and stop me. Morro thought. And he didn't know why that hurt more than it should have. For all the wind he could create, he couldn't find the air to inhale his next breath. He felt an ineffable heaviness in his chest.
Morro swallowed and it hurt. His eyes stung. He recognized this feeling. He blinked away a few tears. "Thank you for all you've done for me Master Wu, but I can't continue down this path."
"Don't bother to return Morro, it seems my teachings were in vain."
Morro's head snapped up at Wu's words, but the old man had swiftly turned and strode away. He wanted to call out and retract his words, anything to make Wu come back.
But his words caught in his throat and his sentences fell apart. So Morro watched Wu walk away, each footfall like a knife in the chest, every echo following them reverberating louder than clapping thunder. The last memory he had of Wu were those trailing white robes gliding against the polished floor of the monastery.
.
.
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