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kai wasn't expecting to ever come back.
seeing blue skies, green leaves swaying in the wind, the other ninja and their gi. so when he crash landed in front of the monastery- god, he didn't think it was real. mainly because it was still monochrome.
he wasn't really taken aback. it was normal, now. color would be the biggest shock.
but then lloyd shows up, and nya, and suddenly he can't see the blonde of lloyd's hair or nyas sea-blue eyes and his heart sinks. he knows he's back- at least he thinks he is.
the damage was done, and it was irreversible.
then they're all back together. jay is remembering, finally. everyone starts healing, and they seem okay, but kai is still there. surrounded by ash and dust, living on scraps and hiding from monsters beyond comprehension.
the other things start. he can't be outside at night, the dark scares him, the sight of any bug makes him shiver. the worst thing?
he still can't see any vibrant color. everything is muted, gray, except for the worst one. red.
red is blood, fire, carnage. red is his sword in the land and red is the only thing he had left there, a small red bandana that he couldn't bear to let go of. red, formerly his brand, is wrong.
then kai really starts to spiral. who's to say he's not out yet? who's to say he's not hallucinating, or stuck in limbo, or something, anything. he can't trust it. he can't trust his friends. most of all he can't trust himself, his one steady thing in the realm. despite being surrounded by his friends, he is alone.
again.
kai doesn't sleep much anymore. instead, he stays up and patrols the grounds. in the realm you couldn't afford too much rest, you had to keep moving because if you didn't, you were dead. so it becomes a bit of a ritual. everyone else dozes off, and kai does his rounds- checking out every window, every nook and cranny, every dark spot. he doesn't use his fire. his eyes have gotten used to the dark.
his friends, his family, whisper and he knows it's about him. he can't blame them. he's so innately different than what he was, so wrong and inhuman. he would whisper too.
kai is a monster. this is a fact, and one he understands deeply. a monster among humans. a monster posing as a human.
his teeth have grown sharp, nails more like claws. his once-amber eyes have darkened and they glow like an animals’. he moves silently, in shadows, skittering around like the bug creatures he hid from. he doesn't know how long he was in the realm, but he knows it was too long. the old kai would never be back. maybe he hasn't been back for years.
nya finds him, sometimes, in the night. she'll silently sit next to him in the outside doorway or the kitchen and she'll somehow have two mugs of tea with her, a blanket, and soft eyes. she doesn't seem scared of him. she should be. he's scared of himself.
maybe he shouldn't be. everyone in the monastery had dealt with the same inhuman feeling. maybe the difference is that kai was always there for them. always the big brother, always the strong and steady presence. maybe the fact that he's so wrong and so far from what he used to be makes it different. maybe nothing here is real, and he's dead, and he should give up.
the colors of the night and day, of ancient realm and his home, collide. the red stands out. no matter how dark it is, how bright it is, the red won't leave and suddenly he can't wear it anymore. he wears his gi uncomfortably, can't bear to look in a mirror. when he can, he wears a gray hoodie (at least he thinks it's gray- it's not like he can tell) and black pants. he can't wear the red in his closet. he can't look at his old pictures. kai’s not himself anymore, and he can't do anything about it.
but maybe his family can.
it's small things, but they don't go unnoticed in kai's paranoid state. cole asks him to play a few games with him, and somehow he knows when kai is getting too deep in his mind. zane, ever the observant, makes sure kai isn't alone; lets kai stay in the kitchen with him or help with chores. lloyd slips him treats- favorite candies or cool pins he found, small gifts because lloyd never really knows how to comfort people. jay, even when he's just begun to remember, turns lights on and makes sure there's no complete darkness.
jay is the one who actually knows what kai went through in the merge. jay's never been to the realm of monsters, but he's seen it. he's learned about it. jay knows, at least slightly, the hell that is that land. and it seems that jay knows that kai was even there- somehow, because kai has never told anyone and probably never will.
kai wakes up one morning and its not just black and white and red. the colors are muted, and almost completely gray, but he can tell lloyd's hoodie is green. he can see the golden of cole's eyes. he sees the sky is blue and the ginger brown of jays hair and how the scar on his face is a lighter tan, and suddenly he's home again.
he's home.