Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She was sinking into the watery abyss.

She flung out her hands, but she was powerless against the icy talons of the sea. She opened her mouth to scream, to shout out for someone, anyone. Brine was the one to greet her, flooding her throat, filling her lungs.

She thrashed, hands hopelessly clawing for refuge. She couldn’t breathe. Every inhale took in more water. She was going to die again. Not again. She didn’t need to die this time. She had no one to save. There was no point in her dying. Last time, there was a reason.

Soft, coy laughter poured into her ears as she writhed, with the sickly sweet consistency of honey. But all she could taste was salt, burning and burning.

Keep running and running, little hero, I will take you back eventually. You’ll be mine once more.

Nya inhaled sharply as she awoke, cold sweat dripping from her forehead, drenching her back.

Pale dawn light filtered in through her curtains.

She laid there, frozen in terror, as her heartbeat slowed to an acceptable rate .Until she could be certain that she wasn’t drowning anymore. Nausea pummeled her senses and she kicked at her sheets in discomfort.

It had come back when it should have been gone. Long gone. The Nyad should be dormant, buried deep under the ocean. Its voice shouldn’t be ringing in her ears. Its glistening, alluring form shouldn’t be burned into her retinas. She should have gotten rid of it for good. She turned over on her side, panting.

Lloyd’s visions must have inadvertently messed up her subconscious, making her imagine things. She took a deep gulp of air.

She thought about talking to Lloyd, but he had been so distant since Arin had left. He seemed less enthusiastic about training, he was unusually silent, and oddly pessimistic. She didn’t want to burden him further.

Head swimming, she pulled on a sweatshirt and headed towards the kitchen, mentally preparing herself for a chaotic scene.

It was empty.

The counter, usually the epicenter for a hurricane of cooking, burns, and spills, was suspiciously clean.

There was no Wyldfyre viciously munching down on eggs or wyldmelons, no Sora taking so long to decide what to eat that the fridge started beeping. Zane, the cook and mediator, was nowhere to be found. The familiar smell of Arin’s pies was absent. Well, of course it was, she reminded herself. Arin was gone. He ran through that portal after Ras.

Frowning, Nya opened the fridge to look for something to eat.

“I cleaned the entire kitchen this morning, top to bottom, you see!”

Nya swung around, whipping Frohicky in the head with her ponytail. She must be really out of it. She hadn’t heard the frog man approach from behind. She hadn’t sensed anything.

“Sorry," she gasped as she lowered her fists. “I thought I was alone.”

“It’s alright, Master of Water,” Frohicky chirped, his dewy eyes shining. “I thought I’d just display my handiwork to you, you know, considering you’re the only one in the monastery this morning.”

“Well yeah, it looks like an entirely different kitchen, Frohicky. That is some talent you have,” she remarked, then paused. “Wait, I’m the only one here? Sunrise exercise should have just started.”

Frohicky blinked.

“Well, Cole and Bonzle went out shopping with Geo and the others wanted me to tell you that they went out to the Crossroads to respond to some sort of giant fire. Arson! Nothing to worry about though, they said they had it under control. I told them, well, if you’re fighting a fire, I said, then you most likely want-”

“The Water Ninja,” Nya’s hands shook as she poured some cereal into a bowl but she managed a weak smile. “Thanks for passing along the message Frohicky.”

“My pleasure!” The frog man croaked. “I do need some help in the library later on if you’d like to join me, if the others aren’t back by then. Y’know, Keeper of the Monastery work, important stuff.”

“Sure, sure, I’d be happy to,” Nya murmured as Frohicky puffed out his chest proudly and strutted away. She prepared the rest of her meal and sat down.

Why would the others leave to put out a fire and not bring her? FSM, she could control water, she was definitely an asset when combating a fire.

Well, she thought bitterly, they brought Zane, and his ice could do the job. But Kai and Wyldfyre? The last time Kai was involved in a fire rescue, he accidentally shifted the entirety of the fire into a nearby forest, and that had caused an entirely new debacle, including Ninjago City Environmental Services breathing down their neck for months.

Her chest tightened as she watched her NINJA CRUNCH brand cereal get soggy.

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As Nya washed her face, she noticed how long her hair was getting. Dark inky waves flowed against her cheeks and fell beneath her collarbone. She had kept it cut short when she had been living with the Craglings. It had been dreadfully uneven but it had fulfilled its purpose of keeping her clean while traversing an extremely muddy landscape. That had been roughly a year and a half ago.

She picked up a pin, ready to style it so that the more unruly strands didn’t fly into her eyes and mouth.

In the Tournament of Sources, she had pinned it up and worn a headscarf to keep the shorter layers from flying in her face.

She liked that style. She started to replicate it.

As she reached up to tie the remaining waves into a chunky ponytail, she remembered when she had last done this, right before she had been utterly humiliated in the tournament. She had strutted into that stadium, the buzz of battle coursing through her veins.

Only to see him standing there with the opponents, a sneer on his beautiful face that didn’t suit him.

He looked almost exactly like the man she had lost.

Except not quite.

The lightning master’s eyes had no spark, no life in them. They were a dull, faded colour. Not like the twinkling ones of the man she loved, who joked about their mismatched colour and winked too much for one person to wink.

The lightning master’s hands were still, held like blades and hung limp at his sides. The hands of the man she loved never stopped moving, twitching with every new idea and enunciating every word he spoke.

That’s how she knew he wasn’t the man who loved her. But he had to be in there somewhere.

She had nearly broken down on the stone steps, pouring her heart out to someone who wasn’t there. Who clearly had not been there for a while. And it had been broadcast to the entire Merged Realms.

Blinking back prickling tears, she decided to keep her hair down for the day.

A cacophony of shouts and weaponry being haphazardly put away announced the return of the fire fighters.

Her fists curled. She wanted a word with Kai. She could just see the stupid lopsided grin on his face as he returned and regaled her with his newest tale of triumph. It wasn’t bragging, per se, he just loved helping people, and loved when people loved him for helping people.

With a stinging realization, she was reminded of the early days of the ninja team’s existence, when she, only a young teen at the time, was left behind for days on end.

Jealousy had boiled beneath her skin as she watched her brother and his friends train to their heart’s content. An inkling of that betrayal she had felt when she learned she had had powers all along dripped through her once again.

She thought she had since proved her worth but maybe she had been mistaken. Did they think she was too delicate to handle something as simple as a fire? She gritted her teeth. She should have never told that stranger she loved him. Poured her heart out to him.

Nya slipped on her gi, stringing her yang pendant around her neck hastily.

The water draining from the sink swirled a bit more aggressively than usual as she walked out of the bathroom.

Entering the game room, she was immediately distracted by Wyldfyre, splayed out against the floor, face squished against the hardwood. She narrowly avoided stepping on her and peered down at the scruffy girl.

“Uh, you okay, Wyfy?”

Wyldfyre grumbled a response.

“She’s just mad she can’t take away the heat from a fire without accidentally melting a pie stand,” Kai chuckled from the sofa.

Wyldfyre peeled herself from the floor and propped herself up on her elbows, scowling. “YOU’RE THE FIRE NINJA, OF COURSE YOU CAN DO IT BETTER THAN ME.”

Wyldfyre exhaled a growl.

“Also, that pie stand got in my way. It deserved its fate, if you really think about it.”

Kai cackled, rolling his eyes and Wyldfyre ran on all fours to push him off the couch. A squabble ensued.

“We now owe that skeleton shopkeeper a hefty sum,” Zane sighed from the table, papers scattered around him. “I’ll add the damages to our monthly expenses. . .again.”

He glanced sidelong at Kai and Wyldfyre.

Sora perked up from the other side of the couch. “Well, we can probably work off our debt. I can try to make some sort of new device for the shopkeeper and I’m sure Arin can bake-”

Her smile faded.

A deathly quiet settled over the room. Even Wyldfyre and Kai stopped trying to mess up each other's hair.

“We aren’t gonna talk about it?” Nya said, taking a seat at the table.

“About what? That disaster of a mission?”

Lloyd had entered the room, chuckling. His gi was dotted with burn marks and ash had settled on his blonde hair.

His eyes were rimmed with dark circles.

Nya noted that her brother had a similar look to him. Had he not been sleeping since returning from Nether-Space? She had hoped he would acclimatize to being back to the Merged Lands with some ease, but maybe the whole interdimensional ordeal had taken a much bigger toll on him than she had realized.

“Arin,” Sora replied, barely audible. Her eyes were glassy.

“Oh,” Lloyd’s brow furrowed. “Yes, I think we should talk about Arin.”

He put his sheathed sword onto a rack and sat down. Weariness suddenly weighed down his every movement.

“To put it simply, I failed him,” Lloyd said. “I promised him to go search for his parents, to figure out what happened to them, to teach him proper spinjitzu, to protect him-”

Lloyd swallowed hard and Nya’s insides twisted. He hadn’t looked like this since Harumi. Not sad, but defeated. Fully and utterly defeated.

“You did everything you could, Lloyd,” she said, fiddling with her pendant. “Arin, well, I’m sorry to sound harsh but he made his choice in the end. He may come back, in time, you never know. It’s not like we never deviated from Master Wu’s teachings. Well. . . maybe we were right to, with what we know now about him… but-”

“That’s an entirely separate issue that I don’t really wanna talk about right now,” Lloyd sighed, massaging his temple. “Did he also want to learn Shatterspin? Is that it? I never imagined him being power-hungry but-”

“It’s my fault.”

Nya looked up from Lloyd to see Sora, tears trailing down her reddened cheeks. She reached out for Riyu.

“During the Blood Moon Ritual,” she sniffled, pulling the dragon closer. “Everyone was f-fighting and, and Arin tried to use his object-spinjitzu but it didn’t actually work and so I used my tech-powers to make it look like it did and he found out during the tournament and he…”

Her breath hitched and she buried her face into Riyu’s wing. The dragonet grumbled as he nuzzled his beak against her bubblegum pink hair.

Wyldfyre scurried over from her spot beside Kai and joined Sora in the huddle.

Kai sighed, leaning back in his seat.

“Any words of wisdom to impart, Zane?” He asked solemnly.

Zane’s eyes flashed as he pursed his metallic lips. He tapped his pen against his notebook rhythmically.

“It’s… complex,” he replied after a beat. “Arin made his choice, and perhaps his judgment was clouded by several different things, Ras, his parents, training, friendship, uhm, troubles, but he made his choice all the same. All we can do is hope he is safe and that he will come back to us if he needs to.”

The nindroid paused, glancing at the photo of his late father and a black falcon strung amongst other treasured pictures.

“It’s hard to be different from those around you.”

A wave of sadness crashed into Nya as she watched her titanium brother’s gaze shift over to a photo of Pixal.

“So, we aren’t going to look for Arin?” Sora asked, voice thick from crying.

Lloyd mulled her question over for a moment,

“We have no clue where he’s gone, Sora,” he replied, running a hand through his tufty blonde hair. “We don’t have the time or resources to search the entirety of the Merged Realms for him. Besides, I think the Tournament of Sources has shown us that we are in much greater danger than we realized. We need to prepare, train, continue to seal merge quakes- FSM knows those haven’t just disappeared, and research as much as we can. This is only the calm before the storm, and we can’t spare anyone to go on a potential wild goose chase.”

Nya stiffened, turning to Lloyd.

“I’m still going to search for Jay though,” she said, narrowing her eyes at her little brother. “I’m going to search the entirety of the Merged Realms for him. Kai and I might as well expand our search radius to look for Arin.”

Kai nodded in agreement. Nya was reminded that she still needed to talk to him.

“Nya,” Lloyd looked almost exasperated. “I need you here and I- I don’t want to lose anyone else and Jay doesn’t even remember you. . .”

He waved his hands, searching for more words.

“Wait, Lloyd, what the actual-” Kai began but Nya stood up to stop him; the kids were already distraught enough. They didn’t need their mentors arguing on top of everything else. She replied through gritted teeth.

“I didn’t realize I needed your permission to search for my yang, oh wise and revered Master. But tell me again, how many quests have we gone on to deal with your father? Or your deranged girlfriend? How many of us have risked our… our damn lives to deal with your problems alone?”

She tried to keep her voice from cracking.

Lloyd stared her down with jade green eyes, heavy with fatigue. He wasn’t budging. He actually wasn’t budging. That stupid, stubborn boy. She was going to strangle him.

“C’mon Kai, I need to talk to you,” Nya snarled.

She turned on her heel and the telltale sound of a kitchen sink exploding echoed through the game room.

Chapter Text

“Nya, I get it, Lloyd’s being an idiot, but you shouldn’t undermine him like that in front of the kids.”

Nya swiveled around, tears pooling in her icy brown eyes.

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” she spat at Kai. “You should be on my side in this, we need to get Jay back.”

“I am on your side!” Kai replied. “But you can’t just demean him like that, you know…”

Nya leaned against the wall of her room. The lights were still out. Her brother’s scarred face was shrouded in shadow. All that he had gone through, all of the things that never seemed to affect him, was made plain through those jagged, crisscrossing lines. She glanced down and looked at the ones decorating her hands and arms.

“I know,” she conceded finally, then frowned. “Just like you can’t leave me behind on missions.”

Kai opened his mouth, no doubt to defend his decision.

“I’m not weak,” Nya said. “You of all people should know that.”

She allowed the silence to hang between them like a thick veil.

“I was being stupid,” Kai said after a beat. “I wanted to protect you, that’s my first instinct, always is, always will be. But I shouldn’t have left you. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Okay.”

He started to turn to leave but she started forward, pulling on his shirt.

“Kai, are you doing alright?” She asked.

He let out a long exhale. “Yeah, just getting used to a regular sleep schedule again.”

“Good. I was worried about you.”

He smiled in that subtle way of his, not a manic grin, a genuine smile upon his scarred face.

She smiled back, letting go of his sleeve. “Also, you’re including me on the next mission. No excuses.”

He stepped forward to wrap her in a hug.

“That I am.”

She let him, leaning her head against his shoulder. She could never put into words just how much she still needed him. How much she still felt like a little kid, cowering behind her older brother.

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When Nya crossed the courtyard that evening after begrudgingly repairing the sink, Lloyd was already deep in his meditative state. Long, hypnotic trails of incense curled around him.

An energy crackled in the air, the hum before a lightning strike. She bit the inside of her cheek, then stopped walking.

Lloyd’s breathing, which should have been rhythmic and deep, was shallow, ragged, his hands curled into shaking fists.

Another vision.

Her heart squeezed as she ran towards him, turning his shoulder so that he could face her.

His eyes were rolled back into his head.

“Lloyd!” She gasped. “Can you hear me?”

His lips wobbled as he tried to sputter something to her.

She gingerly put him on the ground and placed him in a recovery position. Panic wormed in her throat.

“Please,” he whispered, his expression wild and blank. Whatever he was seeing, it was bad.

She tried to wake him up several times, but ended up just stroking his blond hair, trying to offer some comfort as he twisted beneath her. She had no idea how to treat this. She had taught herself basic first aid but anything else was usually left to the talent of Jay or Zane. It felt like hours that they laid there, the incense slowly burning down and worry thrumming in her chest.

She looked at his distant expression and thought of when he had first come to live with them on the Bounty. The boys had groaned about the “brat” and how he had received special treatment from Wu.

All she saw was a lost boy.

Lloyd let out a gasp and doubled over onto his knees, vomiting up bile, then taking big gulps of air. His body twitched as he sat back up and he began shivering. His teeth chattered so much the sound became a thrum.

It was June.

He turned around slowly to face Nya, his eyes a sickly glowing green.

“Don’t go,” he croaked.

He leaned forward and reached out to her, still kneeling next to him.

She took his hand gently as he exhaled raggedly. His cold hand shook in her grasp.

“I can’t lose you, you’re my sister. I can’t lose you to a stranger. He’ll hurt you, Nya, I saw it. And then he’ll be gone forever. Dead to us. That’s what will happen. I just know.”

“I can make him remember,” she whispered, then winced. She could hardly convince herself.

Jay’s use of Shatterspin was replaying in her mind, over and over. His cruel gaze surveying her blankly as he slammed her into the ground. No emotion, nothing. Not the man she loved.

“It’s been years, Nya. Years.”

She swallowed thickly.

“I know it’s been years, trust me, Lloyd. I know. And I’m so glad I made it back to you guys, but if I don’t try to find him I’ll regret it even more.”

Lloyd slumped against the ground, letting go of her hands.

“Fine.”

Nya let out a breath of relief.

“Fine?” She didn’t let go of her brother’s wrists, holding them gently.

“Yes, leave. Leave all of us, why don’t you?” His gaze hardened and he looked away.

So this was the game he was going to play. Maybe he was still a brat after all. She inhaled sharply.

“Lloyd, I’m going to carry you to your bed now, graciously. I am choosing not to leave you shivering pathetically in the courtyard for your students to find you at dawn. I am not leaving anyone, and most of all I am not leaving you.”

He scoffed and rolled over.

The words caught in her throat but she forced them out. “I won’t do that again.”

“Psh,” He crossed his arms, still lying on the ground, but his voice softened. “You can’t carry me.”

Nya cracked her knuckles. “Wanna bet?”

And that’s how she ended up carrying her twenty-something brother to bed. She even made sure to tuck him in.

Chapter Text

She was half-submerged in the shallow fountain pool, the sounds of the world muffled by the water filling her ears. A kaleidoscope of white light fell upon her, the rays painting her face with warmth. The steady cascade of water was a lullaby. The statues lining the fountain were serene samurai, carved delicately from black marble. They stood at rest.

Enjoying this?

She hummed in agreement, her eyes fluttering closed. Droplets gathered on her lashes. She wished she could stay here forever. Her hair rippled softly. Her fingers traced the lines of the stone tiles, gliding over coins.

You fight for peace and yet you find none for yourself. Isn’t this peaceful?

She sure thought so. She never got time to herself, it was always another mission, another fire to put out. Another hit to take, all in the name of peace. The peace of others.

She let herself sink to the bottom. She breathed in, inhaled all the peace.

But just as she had allowed herself to truly feel the water’s caress, arms plunged into the pool and ripped her from its embrace. She staggered upright, spluttering and choking.

“Where the hell am I?” A tight, concerned voice asked. It sounded too far away. “What’s going on?”

She vomited up water. Had she swallowed it? She could feel it in her chest, and she clawed at her throat. Out. It needed to get out.

As she heaved, her hands trembled. She wrapped them around herself as she spat up the rest of the liquid.

Her lungs were cleared but weak, spots still danced in her vision. She struggled to find purchase on the slippery tile.

She staggered, pulling sopping hair out of her face. She shakily raised her hand and water flowed out of her clothes, ears, and hair and back into the pool.

She then clambered hastily out of the water to sit on the ledge, gasping for air that could not come fast enough. It dawned on her with a wash of queasiness: she had been drowning. Her nails scraped against the marble as she gripped the ledge. She couldn’t drown. She shouldn’t be able to.

“You.”

She looked up and Jay Walker stared back at her with utter disgust. His mouth twisted into a sneer.

“You,” she managed, her chest tightening. Her voice was hoarse, scraped raw as though she had been screaming for hours.

They stared at each other in silence, mouths agape. She was back in the arena again, being examined by his narrowed bloodshot eyes. Her breath caught up to her and she exhaled slowly.

Beyond the fountain was a blank white plane streaked with opalescence. It reminded her a bit of what she had experienced when she had been cubed in Prime Empire. She was about to mention it but one look from Jay evaporated any words that had been on her tongue.

His eyes were not his at all.

The scowling lightning master donned robes the colour of a storm, but they looked ancient in style. They flowed extravagantly around his lean figure.

She glanced down at herself. She too wore similar robes, but they were dark teal, a roiling sea of fabric.

“Is this real?” She asked incredulously, standing up and trying to touch his shoulder. He couldn’t be real. The Merged Realms were vast, overlapping and illogical. But even they could not conjure up her Yang like this.

He flinched away. “You tell me, witch.”

She scoffed, regaining some composure. His pathetic jabs were nothing new. “I’m not a witch. Or did you forget that when I kicked your ass in the Tournament? You thought in that dense head of yours: her powers are so god-like, they must be magic! Am I right?”

She waved her hands around, as though summoning a spell.

Jay huffed, his ears red. “Your ability to use Rising Dragon was unexpected, that is all. In another scenario, I would have been victorious. You just got lucky.”

His voice was too monotonous, his language too bureaucratic for a boy whose parents couldn’t afford to send him to school. Victorious. Her Jay would just say W whenever he won something.

She smirked but it felt forced. Yet he seethed, his hands curled with rage. She wanted to unfurl them, hold them, tug him closer. She wanted to trace the Lichtenberg figures on his arms. He would probably electrocute her.

“Still hate me?” she asked, glancing down and swishing her robes. She bit her tongue, almost fearing his response. But whatever it was, she could surely handle it. If she could tamp down her sorrow for years, she could manage to do it for a few more minutes.

He remained silent.

“Okay, be like that. Now, where exactly are we?” she asked, walking to the edge of the fountain. Her robe swished and swayed fluidly. She felt his eyes on her.

“Am I supposed to know?” Jay spat.

She straightened. Yes, he was supposed to know.

He wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I woke up over there.”

He pointed behind her. She looked over her shoulder, turning cautiously.

About fifty feet away was darkness. It swirled in an ominous cloud, curling in on itself and churning. In its center stood a white fountain, similar to the one she had been pulled out of. Instead of samurai statues, it was surrounded by famous Ninjago inventors, all holding up gears. She was pretty sure she could spot Cyrus Borg among them. Funny, Jay didn’t remember even meeting his idol.

Nya’s gaze trailed across the curving border between the light and the dark planes and she gasped with a haunting realization.

They were inside a sort of yin-yang symbol. Or possibly a dimension. Or a universe. Damn it, she should’ve actually listened to Lloyd when he was rambling about different worlds. She had just nodded along as he scribbled notes down and pointed at diagrams.

Whose cruel joke was this? What divinity had placed them here, and why? She could have sworn she heard laughter.

“What?” Jay asked flatly. She turned back towards him, swallowing her panic. If she was well and truly trapped here with him, she wasn’t about to try and convince him again that she loved him. She just didn’t know how much more she could take.

“Nothing.”

“Well I for one, would like to leave,” he said, his eyes boring into her. “Could you try to… I don’t know, ninja your way out of this?”

Was he serious?

A chuckle escaped her lips. “Ninja my way out of this? Listen, uh, Walker, I don’t think I can “ninja” my way out of this situation, unless you think a backflip or hours of surveillance will summon a spinjitzu portal out of here?”

“Oh shut up,” he replied, but she could see the faintest hint of amusement in his eyes.

Or she was imagining it.

Imagining it.

“Wait, what were you doing before this? Before you woke up here, that is.”

He blinked, his eyes becoming slightly unfocused. He grimaced as though in pain.

“I-I think I went to sleep,” he said. “It’s hard to remember. It… I think it hurts. But I was in the Wyldness and I-”

He glanced quickly at her.

“I would not dare compromise my location. All I will say is, I was asleep.”

She nodded slowly, resisting the urge to roll her eyes.

“Okay… and you woke up here too. What were you doing?”

“I went to bed,” she replied. Just after she had tucked Lloyd in, watched over him for a little while, she had walked to her room in a sleepy haze and had collapsed in her blankets. It took two hours of his chest steadily rising and falling for her to feel safe to leave him.

“Are you saying this is a dream?” He glanced around, touching his cheek. “An extremely… what’s the word - lucid one?”

“Could be,” she shrugged. “Or our consciousnesses are in another plane of existence. Some sort of alternate dimension. Y’know, like how Lloyd said he saw the First Spinjitzu Master?”

“What?”

Oh, right.

She inhaled slowly, her heart seizing.

“You really don’t remember, do you? Anything?”

His lip curled. “This charade again? I’m telling you, I don’t.”

The butterflies in her stomach swarmed.

“Nothing, Jay? Nothing? Not me, o-or Cole, your best friend, or that time we fought ghosts, or Sensei, or-”

“Enough,” he snapped. He took a threatening step toward her. “I don’t need this distraction, ninja. I may as well have been your Jay, but that means nothing. All I remember is that you left me for dead. You betrayed me.”

Nya shook her head fervently.

“But we didn’t, I didn’t,” she could feel her voice rising. “It was all Ras’ plan, don’t you see? To pit you against us.”

“You did that to yourself,” he scoffed. “You and your arrogance.”

He leaned close. Too close. She froze and scowled back. Her arrogance?

“You really aren’t going to admit it? Fine. You cut my mech cables, I saw you. I saw you. And then you lied to me,” he started to pace, his words cutting into the stagnant air. “You just said that you were fixing them. You smiled at me and I believed you. That’s all I remember about you. Not your name, just your smile. That’s all I saw, did you know? Six months in a coma with no company but your leering face.”

It wasn’t her fault his mech failed, she reasoned. She had tried to fix it, she had been in the hull of the Bounty, fiddling with the battery, when she heard a child’s scream in the whirlwind that had become their city. She had leapt into action, but not before grabbing Jay and telling him not to use the mech, no matter what. He hadn’t listened.

“Jay, I didn’t do that, I swear. The Merge had just started-”

He waved her off.

“Save it, ninja. I’m done with you.”

He turned away from her and began to walk to the dark fountain.

Blood boiling, she pursued.

“Why are you following me?” Jay barked and sped up.

Nya grabbed the sleeve of his robe, jerking him back. The butterflies were gnawing viciously now, eager to escape their imprisoning cocoon.

“Let. Go.”

She swallowed the bile in her throat. “No.”

He turned and lifted his hand casually yet poised. His fingers were splayed out. The air crackled uncomfortably.

“I will not hesitate, ninja,” he said. “I may not be directly affiliated with Ras anymore, but I am sure as hell not your ally. Now give it up and let go.”

Unthinkingly, she grabbed his outstretched hand, interlocking her fingers with his.

Their surprise was mutual.

His eyes seemed to clear for a moment, focusing on her with such intent that she inhaled in anticipation.

ENDING ONE (the bad ending):

Then her arm muscles convulsed as an electric pulse blazed through them, reaching up to her shoulder and spider webbing across her body.

She seized, the burn setting in after the shock. It was tearing through her veins, flooding her nerves with pure pain.

Jay peered down at her, blue and yellow bolts arching around his frame.

She let go after what felt like hours, releasing a whine as the flesh on her arm sizzled.

“I told you to let go.”

She struggled to keep conscious… unconscious? But her mind and body were screaming and screaming. She was dead but also horribly alive.

Then she was back in her own bed, clawing at her arm and shrieking as lights turned on and concerned voices drew closer.

ENDING TWO (the good ending):
The moment was quickly extinguished as he winced and jerked away. “Enough of this. You’re giving me a headache.”

He examined his palm as if looking for a mark.

“You seem to get a lot of headaches,” she said after a beat.

Perhaps if she could get him talking, he would tell her something useful. Or it would be a way to pass the time until she was snapped back to consciousness. Maybe she was just finding an excuse to talk to him.

“Yeah, when you’re around,” he frowned, wiping his hand on his robes. But she could see the faintest hint of a smirk playing on his lips. How long had he been without a regular conversation? She recalled Arin and Lloyd telling the rest of the ninja about the Administration, how cold and lifeless it was.

“Well I think you must have hit your head at some point, because you don’t remember all the times I’ve been around,” she said as she laid down on the unnaturally dark ground.

Jay huffed and walked past her to lean against the ledge of the fountain, underneath the Cyrus Borg statue.

“I was just joking, don’t take everything so personally, Walker.”

“Hmph, as long as you stop crying whenever I tell you I don’t remember being one of the famed colour guard. Since I’m stuck here with you and all.”

She raised a hand to flip him off and then laid there, gazing at the dark marbled sky.

She tilted her head back to look at Jay upside-down. “You met him, you know.”

“What?”

She rolled over onto her stomach, flowing fabric splayed in all directions.

“Cyrus Borg. You met him about, I’d say, 12 years ago. We went to Borg tower. His nindroid daughter lives… well, lived with us. She disappeared in the Merge too.”

Jay perked up slightly. “Like.. the Cyrus Borg?” He pointed up to the statue’s stoic face. “Him?”

She chuckled. “Yeah.”

“Oh… well that’s cool, I guess,” he looked down, then back up again with a new spark in his once corpse-like eyes. “Do you know he invented wireless networks?”

“It was all explained on the tour,” she replied, amused.

“I would assume so,” he said.

It felt like weeks that they stayed there. The yin-yang realm did not have night and day, but periodically, the colours would shift, painting the samurai in black marble and the inventors in white.

All the while, the two kept mostly to their respective corners of the abode.

They would pass by occasionally, while searching for the limits of the realm or trying to find a way out.

But he was still different. She saw some of the things that made him him, but other than that, it was like looking at an imitation of the person she once knew.

But it is him. The voice would whisper. You lost him, little hero, in your weak attempt to make a mark on your world. Would it not be better to forget too?

For a startling moment, she almost agreed.

Chapter Text

The cold metal of her brother’s arms seared into her as she thrashed. It was all she could feel, the one thing grounding her to her sickening reality of pain. 

The pain. It blurred her vision, wrenched at her stomach. Her muscles seized over and over, an unending cycle. Her heart was racing, but it was light and fluttery. It was not pumping blood. FSM. She had no blood. It had all evaporated. It was gone. She was nothing but pain. A strike occurring over and over. She could not hear herself scream or whimper over the sound of crackling and burning flesh. 

They must have sedated her at some point because the pain, although still present, had distanced itself. But the sedative was not enough to knock her out completely. 

The conversation surrounding her was muted. She was submerged in water once more. 

“...nerve damage…extent…”

“...sleeping?”

“Third degree…”

“...Jay.”

His lingering stare burned her more than any arcing bolt could have. 

How did those five years apart change him so irrevocably? 

She could picture herself in the Monastery’s garage, ankle deep in metal plating. She was trying to map out the pieces to make sure they matched the blueprints. A flash of movement from behind startled her.  

“Jay Walker, you’re going to be the end of me!” she giggled as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her neck. “I need to focus on fixing these mechs for Pix…” 

“Well I need to focus on fixing the Bounty’s nav system but how can I when you’re around?” He giggled. 

His figure faded into mist. 

Tch. He was so different then, Nyad murmured in her silky voice, her towering watery form appearing before Nya. Now he is intent on destroying both you and himself. But you don’t have to chain yourself to his sinking ship, little hero. Look to greater horizons… look to me. She stretched out her arms, a cascading waterfall flowing from each. I claimed you, do not forget. You still bear my marks. 

Nya knew. At night, the striped markings painting her skin glowed. She had wrapped her arms and legs in bandages and had worn long nightclothes to hide it from Jay. She was embarrassed of the way it cast her in an eerie blue light. She looked like a ghost. He had seen through her half-baked plan quickly. He had helped her undo the bandages, and had lovingly called her his beautiful nightlight. Only Nya could have detected the echoes of sorrow in his laugh, the markings reminding him of how he had mourned her. She caught him looking at her sometimes, as though he could not believe she were real.

“I will never go back to that abyss,” Nya snapped. “And now because of your games, I will bear his marks too.” 

Electricity shot through her once more. Blue and yellow, like his eyes. His contempt slithered and coiled around her like a Devourer, sinking its fangs deeper. 

Nyad’s form shimmered. It was hauntingly beautiful.

Yes, but his marks are superficial at best. Though you still shine with the… Nyad sighed with delight… brilliant bioluminescence of the sea, I have also marked your soul. That cannot be burned or cut away as easily as you may have hoped. 

She drew closer to Nya, pointing at her heart. 

“I-I thought I did,” Nya admitted, stepping away. “I thought I had gotten rid of you once the nightmares stopped.” 

I am what lurks in the depths, I frequently lie dormant. 

“I thought I was safe!”

You are still safe.

Nya wrung her hands with frustration.

“Don’t you dare. You’ve been trying to lure me back into the sea since I was saved.”

It is your birthright. You were not saved, but taken from it. 

“You don’t get it.”

What do I not get? Nyad’s honey-laced tone sharpened. You are an insolent little hero. I tried to show you the error of your ways, to show you the power the sea can give you. You refuse to see your true potential. 

“I already achieved my true potential. I did so a long time ago,” Nya replied coldly. “I am a ninja, not your underwater pet.”

I cannot force you to return.

“Exactly, so leave me the hell alone!” Nya shouted. “I want to live my life in peace with my family.”

You will come to regret your choices, hero. 

“Is that a threat?”

A foretelling. 

Nyad’s form shuddered and collapsed into a pool of seawater. It began to swirl, churning furiously.

As the water poured into her mouth and nose, Nya just waited for the darkness to come. She was drowning again, and she had a feeling it would not be the last time.