Chapter Text
‘Working hard’ was all that Kai had ever done. Get up before the sun, make tools no one bought, go to bed well after the sun set. Sure, the neighbors in town took pity on them and would set aside extra money to spend on something in their tiny family shop so the two kids wouldn’t starve, but it didn’t help. Kai was now sixteen, which meant he was old enough to not need a legal guardian, since his and his sister’s parents died.
Nya still went to school, something their parents had wanted them to both do even if it was expensive, but when they died, Kai had been forced to take up the family business, blacksmithing, or else the two kids would be separated and thrown into foster care. Kai was not going to let that happen. Ever.
~~~
That day, the day that everything started, Kai had gotten up early, like usual, gotten to work, like usual, and skipped breakfast, like usual. But Nya’s school was off having some big event out in the City, something they couldn't afford to go to, so she had gotten up too and helped him set up the forge.
“Maybe I should’ve gone into blacksmithing too,” she joked, pulling the oil barrel over to the anvil.
“Nya, it’s a big deal you get to go to school-“
She rolled her eyes. “I know, I was joking and you know it! And too bad. Today I’m helping you and that's that.”
Kai stuck his tongue out at her and grabbed a bar of metal, tossing it onto the orange coals. “Then don’t get in the way.” He nudged her off of the tool bench. He threw a leather smock overtop of his clothes, countless burn stains marring the surface.
“You’re starting already?” she asked, backing out of the way. “I think you’re moving a little too fast. The fire hasn't gotten hot yet, be patient, we have all day! If dad was here he’d say-”
“I know,” he cut her off. “Patience and experience is the only way to get better. That may work for you, Nya, but I am going to be a better blacksmith than dad ever was.”
Something else different that day was that they actually had a customer, and it wasn't someone from the nearby village. They hushed up and carefully watched as a man who had that kind of indistinguishable age walked up the path. His hair was white but he didn’t look over 40, and although he walked with a bamboo staff, it seemed more of an accessory rather than something to assist with walking.
He looked put out as he approached, eyeing them both before turning to the tools lining the shop portion of the workshop.
“Hm,” he noted one sword. “Sloppily made. Under balanced,” he said about another, critiquing and nitpicking each tool out loud.
Kai’s eyebrows pinched together. “Hey! The shop is called Four Weapons, not ‘For Browsing’. Either buy something or go peddle your insults somewhere else.”
The man’s face stayed blank. “That is too bad. I thought I would find something special here.”
Kai turned his attention back to the forge, but Nya kicked him, giving him a look. He sighed and turned back. “Let me show you our-”
But the man had vanished.
“He was just… Forget it.”
~~~
The excruciatingly slow day plodded by, every heat soaked second by the forge. Nya had insisted he eat something for lunch, but he hated wasting time being unproductive. He only stopped again when the ground started shaking.
Nya noticed it first, the low rumble shaking patterns off the table. The air around them quieted, bugs and birds hushing up. The rumble continued for some time, a breeze picking up with the ominously darkening sky. Then they heard a scream.
Their eyes grew wide, and a quick glance at each other assured them that it wasn’t just the wind. Rushing to the doorway, they looked to the village just down the hill. In patches all over the ground, the earth was rupturing and splitting open, moving, living skeletons dragging themselves out of the dirt like blind moles.
“W-what are they?” Nya asked, shocked and a little grossed out.
“I don’t know, but we need to stay here.” Kai grabbed the large doors and started hauling them shut.
“What about the people in the village?”
“Why would we care?” Kai huffed, moving to grab the other door. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
“Kai,” she stopped the door. “There are skeletons emerging from the ground. I don’t think anyone would call that ‘fine’.”
He stared at her for a second, both of their stubbornness fighting for control.
“Okay, okay,” he let go of the door frame. “Then stay here.”
“And let you have all the fun?”
They stepped out into the brisk air, but found themselves face to face with a handful of the undead. Their hollow eyes stared emptily at them, their jaws hanging loosely. Their bones seemed to be held together by invisible string, joints loose and free, but never separating far.
“H… hi.”
The closest one, also the biggest, stepped forward shakily. It moved its cracked jaw, the bone scraping harshly against bone as it began to form words. Somewhere deep in the earth, the throat-dry speech rattled to their ears, scraping their eardrums and giving them instant headaches.
“I… am Samukai… I… am looking… for…”
The siblings glanced at each other, but the skeleton didn’t continue. It looked around, or as much as it could without eyes, seeming to think of the right words.
“Where…” it paused again. Its gaze settled back on the kids. “You will... have to do.”
With startling speed it lunged at them, its thin fingers reaching out and clutching at their arms with shocking strength. The other skeletons cackled dryly like grinding rocks.
The kids yelled and pulled back, the bones pulling and ripping away. The fingers fell to the ground but shook and shot back to their owner, snapping into place like magnets.
“This isn’t happening,” Kai mumbled, the two backing up to the workshop doors.
“Won’t… last… long,” Samukai grinned his crooked teeth.
Then those teeth went flying as a giant streak of white flashed in front of the children, the skeletons shattering. Kai craned his neck up, seeing the white thing fly through the air with no wings. It grabbed the heads of the skeletons in its massive jaws and smashed them to dust, the bodies following suit and disintegrating to nothing. The giant white dragon made a loop and landed on the path, and before his eyes, in a flurry of white petals, the dragon shifted forms into the white-haired man.
Kai stood agape.
The man whipped his head around as more bones protruded from the ground, but these ones didn’t come forward. They backed up and chuckled that same awful noise. Samukai was one of these skeletons, his tall stature and cracked skull defining him.
“Heh… Lord… Garmadon… says… we have… what we need.”
Behind the now growing mass of bones, Nya was clutched by the throat, her eyes rolled back into her head.
“Nya!” Kai shouted and tried to run forward, but the earth erupted under the skeletons feet and swallowed them whole, dragging his sister down with them.
“Where did they take her? What's going on? WHY ARE THERE DEAD PEOPLE COMING FROM THE GROUND?!” he turned and screamed at the man, who looked strangely calm. “Clearly you could’ve done something! Turn into that dragon thing and-” he shook his head, realizing how insane he sounded. “I need to go after her, I can’t lose her.”
“Where they went, no mortal can go,” he finally spoke. “And if Garmadon is bringing these people back from the Realm of the Dead, then I fear things are far worse than I had ever thought.”
Kai couldn’t make any sense of what was going on.
“The ground is one of the most direct routes from the Realm of the Dead to here, souls gaining what is left of their real bodies as they go.”
“But why would they attack us? Why would they take my sister?” Kai spoke through clenched teeth.
“Because you are more important than you realize,” the man lowered his gaze to the boy.
~
“Long before time had a name, Ninjago was created by the First Master, by using the four Weapons of Fate. The Scythe of Quakes, the Nunchucks of Charge, the Shurikens of Expanse, and the Sword of Consumption. Weapons so powerful, no one can possess all four at once. The First Master gave the Weapons to mortal caretakers, granting them extraordinary power unlike any other mortals. When the First Master moved on, the Weapons were hidden with their wielders, spiritual guardians protecting them. The First Master’s very own sons were the only two beings who knew of their locations.
“I, the wise brother, followed the First Master’s wishes and stayed away, dutifully watching over the land from a distance. The other brother was different though, wanting to be among the mortals, to do mortal things with them. This brother, Garmadon, makes poor decisions, ones to make him stronger and better. He now means to steal the Weapons of Fate.”
Kai blinked a few times. “How old does that make you? And why did you come here of all places?”
Wu, as his name was, turned carefully to the boy. “Older than you would believe. And I came for you. Garmadon is using these skeletons to aid him,” he moved on without pause. “If he were to collect all four Weapons, even I would not be able to stop him. But you,” he pointed a finger in Kai’s face. “You have fire inside. I can train you to harness it, and use it. Become a master of the fire. Become a ninja.” He jabbed his staff into Kai’s chest to gesticulate.
“Look,” he shuffled out of the man’s reach. “I’m flattered that you think I’m all that, but I have to save my sister. Not get involved in your sibling rivalry.” He moved to walk away, but as he blinked, the white dragon shoved him down flat, knocking the air out of his chest.
The man turned back into a human, shaking his head. “You are not ready to fight a skeleton’s pinky bone. If you want to get your sister back, you must control the fire that burns inside. Only then would you be able to face my brother.”
Wu stepped back a bit, looking around casually. “Now, you will come with me, or I will have to drag you there by your ankles?”
~~~
Wu made Kai climb up the impossibly high mountain that very day. He said a monastery would be at the top, but it was hidden above the cloud cover, and Kai was beginning to believe it didn’t exist at all.
“How long is this training gonna be?” Kai asked when he reached a safe-ish ledge to rest on.
“Patience,” was all the man said.
After ages of climbing, finally he reached the top which as he said, did have a monastery. High, red walls surrounded the black roofed building. The giant gate opened as they approached, the hinges creaking slowly. The courtyard itself was wide, but empty, the stones smooth from eons of footsteps.
“You will be ready when you are ready. Not a minute sooner.” Wu waved an arm and led the boy inside.
Kai looked around, not certain if coming here was such a good idea. “But there’s nothing here? How am I supposed to learn to fight?”
“Not fight. Train.” The man waved a hand and the big gate slammed shut. “You will learn to see what others cannot. And become what others cannot.”
Suddenly around them, the walls shook, the stonework of the ground shifting and changing, becoming something that resembled a training course. Rocks that looked as if they had been there for centuries created paths up the high walls and arches, and others had ragged edges and harsh falls.
“Your task is simple. Finish the course before I finish my tea.” From seemingly inside his robe sleeve he pulled out a full steaming teacup. Magic. He sat on the low steps into the building, but before Kai had a chance to even open his mouth to complain, Wu set the now empty cup down.
“Today you failed. Tomorrow, you will try again.” He stood up and whisked inside, shutting the door with a snap.
~~~
Kai was sick of this. Nya was apparently down in some realm where he couldn’t go, and he was stuck up on this random mountain, running the same stupid circuit over and over, all day, continuously being bombarded by Wu’s ‘advice’.
“Failed,” he said again, setting his cup down. Kai held his knees, trying to catch his breath and keep blood from running into his eye from where his eyebrow had gotten cut.
“Do it again,” the man said, not even looking up from the scroll he was reading.
“This isn’t helping my sister!” Kai yelled, grabbing a rock and throwing it at him. It bounced off his arm but the man didn’t even flinch.
“Do it again,” Wu repeated.
Kai sneered and stood up, grabbing one of the wooden training swords. He marched over to the man and smacked the cup of tea out of his hand. “I’m not your entertainment, old man.”
Now this got Wu’s attention. The man’s jaw clenched as he carefully rolled up the scroll. He stood and grabbed his staff, staring at the ground. Kai took a step back. In one swift motion, the man smacked him in the head with the staff and took to the air as the big white dragon, his enraged roar shaking the stones.
Holding his now doubly bleeding forehead, Kai sprinted away from the beast, adrenaline pumping through his veins and carrying him over rocks and walls out of sheer terror. It may be his ‘teacher’ but that dragon could definitely eat him if he wanted to. And it sure seemed like he wanted to. Kai pulled himself up on the wall and almost jumped off to where the ground should’ve been, but beyond the walls, it was a sheer drop to well below the clouds.
He spun around, the dragon climbing on the wall stalking towards him with blinding speed. He ducked as the giant jaws snapped over his head, pushing off the wall and onto one of the arches inside the courtyard. The dragon roared again, the sound shaking rocks and stones and making everything crumble around them. Kai barely dropped to the ground before the dragon dived at him again, dodging a rock that would’ve squashed him flat. He dove for the minimal canopy of the building, but the rumble stopped.
Peeking out from under his arms, Kai watched as all the rocks moved back to where they came from, returning the courtyard to its smooth and empty state. He looked up, expecting to see the pearly white claws of the beast at his throat, but it was gone.
“Hm.”
Kai flinched away from the man suddenly standing next to him, but Wu merely picked up his cup and opened the door.
“Your final test comes tomorrow. I suggest you get some sleep.” He stepped through, quietly vanishing into the dark building.
Kai dropped his head to the ground, his lungs screaming at him. This man was absolutely insane.
~~~
He patched a bandage over the bruised and slashed open wound on his forehead, right at his eyebrow. That was definitely going to scar. He splashed his face with water one more time, throwing his dusty shirt over the chair next to his cot. He threw himself down and was almost out instantly, as usual, but something made him pause. It was too dark to see anything, but he strained his ears, listening to the low wind outside, a bird far above the clouds, and… someone moving in his room.