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Nya had jumped at the opportunity to teach the new recruits.
Lloyd was getting his rest after their time fighting against the armies of Imperium. With the kingdom under new rule and the empress dethroned, a bit of peace had come to the ninja. Sure, there was still the matter of the missing Jay and Pixal, but they would find them. She had to believe they would.
It was the main thing keeping her going. Through the days she would wake up to expect her other half next to her, only to remind herself he was nowhere to be found. Through the times she was working on new vehicles or repairing their constantly-destroyed ship and wanted so desperately for her best friend to be there with her, chatting about whatever the former and new Samurai X had on their minds.
But she chose to move through the days despite it. It hurt, First Master did it hurt, but she had to be strong. She was more than just the water ninja now. She was a guide and a teacher to the new ninja.
Well, most of them anyway. Wyldfyre was another story.
At least she was getting along with Kai.
Despite her reservations about her brother's teaching methods, Wyldfyre did seem to be improving. Would she ever admit that? No, of course not, but Nya was sure she was still glad to have someone to relate to in the fire department.
She walked through the monastery, looking for the other new recruits. Arin and Sora were supposed to be continuing in their training. Arin could do spinjitzu, but it was unrefined, something she hoped to begin working on. And while Sora was powerful, she needed to gain control over those powers now that she could manifest them herself.
The two weren’t in their room, so she moved to the courtyard. She could hear the two laughing about something, chatting from across the space. The training course being active was the first thing she saw, with Arin laughing on the ground as Sora stood on one of the platforms.
“You two making good on your training?” she asked as she slid the door closed again. Arin and Sora turned to her in surprise which soon fizzled out.
“Oh, hi Nya!” Sora said, waving at her with her…arm. Her…one arm. Nya looked down at Arin, who was waving with an arm definitely not attached to him. “Hey! Arin!”
“Haha, sorry! I was gonna-”
“OH MY GOD!” Nya yelled, quickly running to the course to pull the two aside. She looked at them, eyes wide and panicked breathing rearing its ugly head. “Sora, w-what happened!? Y-Your arm! It’s…It’s not…not there!” Arin and Sora were startled, waiting for Nya to do something else, but she just stood there. “Well!?”
“Uhh…well what?” Sora asked. She looked where Nya was staring at her left side, then at what Arin had in his hand. “Oh! Uhh, yeah, I…thought you knew already?”
“Knew?”
“Sora’s arm, y’know, the prosthetic one?” Arin said, gesturing to the left arm still in his hand. “Sora threw it at me to get me down. Dirty cheater.” He gave his best friend the stink eye, which she just laughed off. Arin was dragged in too, but Nya was still frozen. “Umm…are you okay Nya?”
“I-I…I need to sit down,” she said, walking over to the step separating the training course to the wooden floor with her head in her hands. Arin and Sora looked at one another in concern. Arin handed Sora her prosthetic before the two made their way to one of their teachers.
“Hey, it’s okay, really,” Sora said. She reattached her arm, a clicking noise sounding from her shoulder as she extended and curled her fingers. “See? Good as ne-OW!” she yelped. She winced as she looked down at her arm, a few wires hanging out of her elbow. “Ahh, yeah, that’s gonna need some work.”
“Well you did throw it at me and cause me to fall off the course,” Arin said. “Nina or no, I can be clumsy.”
“Oh, so you admit it?”
“Wait, no, ahh! Forget it!” Sora just laughed as Arin threw his hood over his head, eager to escape the teasing from his friend. Sora, though, stayed with Nya, putting her hand on the older woman’s shoulder.
Nya looked at the teen, worry still on her face mixed with embarrassment. “Hey, so, I kinda need this to work, so…think you can help me out? I-If not, that’s okay! I-I just…” Sora went quiet, looking down at her metal hand. “Y’know what, nevermind, I’ll just-”
“No, wait,” Nya said, putting a hand on Sora’s arm before she went inside. “I’ll help you out. I’m no Zane when it comes to tech but hardware is my specialty.” She and Sora shared smiled before turning to Arin. “You alright Arin?”
“Yeah, I’m goo-ack!” He was interrupted as he ran face-first into a pillar, falling onto the ground with a groan. “I’m good,” he said through a strained voice. Nya and Sora snuck inside down to the garage.
Once down there, they got to work. Sora was limited by her lack of arms (god Jay would’ve loved that joke no Nya shut up not now) so it was largely Nya fixing the wires and Sora instructing her, guiding with her tech powers when she could.
“So Sora, if you don’t mind me asking, how exactly did this happen?” Nya asked. She didn’t look up from her work, focusing on connecting a pair of tricky wires. They’d had to take off a few of the plates to access the internals and it was dawning on her that she may be here for a while.
“Oh well, me and Arin wanted to see who could complete the course faster. We’d been tied for a while and…I may have played dirty by launching lefty into him and knocking him down. That’s about when you came in,” she explained. Nya chuckled at the thought. She knew that she and the other ninja had had similar competitions with one another, trying to beat some type of score.
“Or, wait, did you mean…” Sora wondered, awkwardly standing and looking away. Nya paused her work, stepping away and walking to her. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“No, no, it’s okay,” Nya said. “Do you want to…I mean you don’t have to, of course.”
Sora took a deep breath, leading Nya to a pair of chairs at another work bench. “It was…a couple weeks after the merge. Me and Arin had tried finding scrap in a junkyard and…it didn’t end well.” Nya looked at where Sora wiggled her left shoulder, now noticing the slight burn marks around the adapter for her arm. “Had to think fast before it got uglier.”
“Sora, I…I’m so sorry,” she said. She couldn’t imagine going through that, let alone at such a young age. She was always extremely careful when she worked on machines. But…there’s definitely been some close calls. “I’ve come close to it, but…nothing like that’s happened.”
“I was being a dumb kid,” Sora said. “Too excited to find some new piece of junk that would liven up our home or finish my project. I should’ve been more careful. Thankfully I built that,” she pointed to her arm on the table, “but even then, it shouldn’t have happened.”
The two just sat in silence for a while, the quiet buzz of the lights around them the only sound in the empty space. Sora looked very guilty, very uncomfortable to be opening up this much. Nya took a breath, thinking back. She remembered stories Jay had told her of his own time in his parents’ junkyard and all of the near-misses and accidents he’d had happen.
“Sometimes mistakes happen,” Nya finally said. Sora looked over at her. “Sometimes big ones. But…we learn from them. We adapt and we change. We learn to be more careful in the future.” She looked up at the lights. “You wanna know something? My husband had some accidents in junkyards too.”
“Wait, really? Umm…Jay, right? The lightning ninja?” Nya nodded.
“Yeah. Back before the merge, his parents owned a junkyard. He grew up there. Told me all sorts of things he had built, but less about the times it didn’t go right.” She took off one of her gloves, inspecting her left hand. “When we went on our first date, he showed me his hand. 3 fingers gone and a clipped pinkie.” Sora gasped. “I never even noticed, since he had a prosthetic on. Worked like a charm, I’ll tell ya.”
Nya laughed at the memory. How Jay had been so worried about seeming “weird” to Nya, who had just thought it was cool and moved past it. He’d opened up a lot more after that happened. “We’re not careful sometimes, and it leads to this kind of thing. But I think you’re incredibly strong despite it, Sora. Hell, maybe because of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You said you built that all on your own?” she asked. Sora looked to the arm and nodded. “You’re, what, 15? I’ve never seen something so advanced made by someone that young, even if you do have the power for it. You’re incredible, really.” Sora shied away from her teacher’s compliments. Nya stood, arm outstretched. “Well, that’s enough venting for today. Come on, let’s get ol’ lefty back in working order.”
“Alright. I’ll lead if you want to get parts,” Sora said, taking Nya’s spot. She was about to protest before the teen lifted a finger. “Hey, I built it, remember? I can fix it, just makes it easier when I have a hand.”
Nya burst out laughing at the bad joke, Sora giggling along with her. Nya wiped away a tear as she watched Sora work on her arm, occasionally handing her a tool or holding a part together. By the time they were finished, the day was turning to night.
“Alright, good as new!” Sora exclaimed. She fitted her arm back onto the socket and moved around, extending it and bending her fingers. She went through some of the motions the ninja had been showing her to get stretched, all the while Nya watched her.
The girl was impressive, that was for sure. Nya saw a bit of herself in Sora. Young, confident, and ready to take on the world. At the time, she’d only had her brother, but she hoped Sora would be different.
Better.
“How about we get some food?” Nya said.
“Oh thank god I’m starving,” Sora said. As if to punctuate the statement, her stomach growled, causing her to look away in embarrassment from Nya’s laughing. “Hey!”
“Sorry, sorry,” she apologized. “Come on, let’s go.” They walked to the elevator, which was already in use. It opened and Arin stepped out, waving to the two. “Hey Arin. Sorry we’ve been down here so long.”
“Oh, it’s fine, Lloyd just wanted to make sure you’re alright. Apparently Zane’s big on being ready when he cooks.” Nya hummed at the fact Zane was cooking. “Yeah, Kai said the same thing. Is he that good?”
“Oh you have no idea,” Nya said. She and Sora followed Arin into the elevator. He looked over to his friend’s arm, all connected again.
“Hey, you got it fixed! Sorry about earlier,” he said, running his hand through his hair. Sora just shrugged and assured him it was okay.
“Sora’s pretty tough,” Nya said, further trying to embarrass the new pupil via praise.
“Heck yeah she is! We should tell you about our first mech race! We almost came in 2nd!” While Arin recounted the details of their first failed race –and Sora butted in at points to clarify– Nya just sighed. The two brought a life to the monastery she’d been sorely missing since the merge took her from her friends.
They promised herself she would find them. She wanted her new friends to meet them even more now.