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"Stop touching it!" Wyldfyre's yell ricocheted off of the walls of the infirmary as she tried to pull her injured leg away from Kai's prodding hands.
Kai just pulled in another deep breath, his anger threatening to bubble to the surface; he knew by the way she was trying to pull away from him and her shouting was a pain response that was very similar to his own but it wasn't Wyldfyre that he was mad at.
No, his anger was directed at Ras, at the new master of smoke and that weird girl he didn't recognize. There was that small part of him that always blamed the First Spinjitzu Master for starting this entire mess, but he wasn't sure that was where the blame needed to go this time.
This seemed disconnected from Ninjago and much more connected to the Wyldness, a place that no one except for Wyldfyre knew anything about and even then, she only seemed to understand the area of it where she had grown up.
Even if she knew about every inch of the vast expanse, it was not the time to question her about it with just how mangled her leg was.
"I'm trying to help, Wyldfyre," Kai finally responded after another attempt at a kick that had her hissing through clenched teeth, "but Nya, Sora and Frohickey are still working on repairing Zane, so I can't do much."
"You can stop touching it."
Kai let go to turn to the cabinets and grab one of the ice packs, snapping it before handing it to Wyldfyre who instinctively put it against her injured leg, "that's gonna be cold for about half an hour, Zane should be fully repaired by then and he can patch you up."
"You're not staying?"
"You're not the only one who needs to lay down for awhile," his thoughts drifted to Lloyd briefly who had spent the last couple of weeks wandering the monastery in a insomnia induced daze and was more then likely beating himself up somewhere, "and Nya's gonna need an extra set of eyes going through Master Wu's notes to see if we can find anything about Shatterspin or The Forbidden Five. You should get some rest."
"Fine, but I'm not gonna be happy about it."
"I don't expect you to be. I'll be back in a couple of hours, okay?"
She nodded, giving him his chance to go take care of the next item on his list of priorities.
As he went, he couldn't stop his mind from flashing back to The Dark Island, forced to listen as Zane's father did his best to repair Lloyd's broken bones the same way he had repaired the falcon.
How Lloyd hobbled on one foot and still acted as the motivation for the team as they desperately looked for a way to return to and defend Ninjago, even if there were pain lines around his lips with every deep breath he pulled in.
Kai wasn't sure how he expected to find Lloyd after their retreat, but it wasn't opening the door to his bedroom to find him sitting on the end of his bed, hands pressed against his eyes and elbows pressed against his thighs while his shoulders shook.
"Hey, buddy?" He asked, shutting the door as quietly as possible, "are you okay?"
"Y-yeah, yeah," Lloyd's sudden shift as he stood, only stopping to wipe his face on his sleeve before Kai was met with the all too familiar fake smile that he had grown used to seeing, "I'm fine."
"Are you su-"
"How'd Wyldfyre?"
"Her leg is pretty bad, it's gonna take her awhile to heal," he delivered it as straightforward as he could, but when he saw the familiar look of guilt pass over Lloyd's face, he found himself adding, "but if she takes it easy, she should be back on her feet sooner rather than later."
"Did anyone else get hurt?" He refused to meet his eyes as his green-eyed gaze stayed fixed on the wooden floor.
"Nya and Frohickey are repairing Zane, but considering he was saying real words in real sentences, I'm sure it's not gonna take too long. Sora, Riyu and Arin are all in the clear as well, I checked them over myself."
"Good, good…" Lloyd muttered, running a hand through his hair as he moved to the door, but Kai found himself gently clasping his hand around his wrist to look into the all too tired green eyes.
"Are you hurt?"
"I gotta figure out what we're gonna do next, Euphrasia got captured and I think I need to meditate-"
"But are you hurt?"
Kai should have known that the familiar duck of his head in defeat was coming, but Lloyd's response was laced with tears in a way that made his chest burn with more than the underlying anger he had been feeling since they had been defeated.
"I'm not the one everyone should be worried about right now."
"Hate to break it to you, buddy, but we've been worried about you for weeks."
He had said those exact words before, the last time Lloyd was unable to sleep for more than twenty four hours; there was a time that Kai thought time healed all wounds, but as he was forced to watch Lloyd be haunted by incoherent visions the same way he had been haunted by a ghost, he was starting to think that time just changed the way wounds looked.
Lloyd pulled away from Kai's gentle grip on his wrist before turning around and sitting back down on the edge of his bed, fiddling with the edge of the blanket as he spoke, "I'm not hiding it very well, huh?"
"No, you're not," Kai agreed and was met with another sigh, "I think you should let me in on what's going on here, because if it's scaring you this badly…" he trailed off, his mind briefly trailing off to the various villains who had held a vendetta against Lloyd, ones that were arguably worse then Ras even though he had a master of shatterspin on his side.
"It's not Ras that I'm worried about. I've fought worse than Ras, but…" he stopped, his fingers twisting around the blanket, "But in Cloud Kingdom, when he brought out that gong…I have been hearing that noise rattle in my head for weeks and as soon as I heard it, I realized that no matter what I do, I can't stop it. The Blood Moon is coming, Ras has control of Cloud Kingdom and all I did was get Wyldfyre and Zane hurt."
His breath caught in his throat and Kai took a few steps forward before kneeling down on the floor so he and Lloyd were eye to tear-filled eye.
"I know it's nearly impossible to keep you from blaming yourself, especially now that you're taking on so much and with these weird visions, but what happened in Cloud Kingdom was not on you and if we hadn't retreated when we did, things would be a whole lot worse."
"You can thank Nya for that," Lloyd reached up and wiped his face on his sleeve again, "she was the one who told me to retreat."
"I probably should," Kai offered a quick smile before standing, wincing as his knees popped when he did, "ready to tell me how badly you got injured now?"
"It's really not that b-"
"Humor me, Lloyd."
He was met with a sigh before the green fabric covering his left wrist was pulled up to reveal a purply-green mess of bruising.
"It's not broken, I already made sure of that."
"Okay, I'm gonna get you an ice pack," Kai said, patting Lloyd's shoulder a couple times before turning towards the door, "and then you are gonna lay down and do your best to take a nap."
"But the visions-"
"I said "do your best", didn't I?" He watched Lloyd slump in defeat before he reached over and set his hand on his hand back on his shoulder, "I understand that you're scared, but you're wearing thin and if we're gonna stop these guys, we all have to be on our A game."
"I'm really trying."
"I know you are, but you have to get some rest before you break. Okay?"
"Okay."
Lloyd's voice was nothing but a resigned whisper as he maneuvered onto his back and covered his eyes with his right wrist, but as much as he wanted to, Kai couldn't linger on it and settled on running a gentle hand through his hair.
"Be right back with the ice."
The silent thumbs up was his signal to go get the ice and then figure out a way to deal with the anger that was still bubbling up inside of his chest.