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He could do this.
They’d talked it over – they’d all agreed. Misako said it would work. Zane had run the numbers and said there was no chance an off throw would kill Lloyd. It was the best tactical decision. It was, most importantly, what Lloyd would want.
Kai still hesitated, eyes fixed on his little brother and worst enemy both in the same body in the skiff ahead of him. He held his deepstone shuriken high, ready to throw, but…
When it hit, it would rip through skin, tear the muscles beneath, send hot blood spilling to the snow. He didn’t usually think about the damage his weapons did to his enemies, but this wasn’t an enemy.
This was Lloyd.
Lloyd, who was being held captive in his own body and was probably in a world of hurt already. Lloyd, who Kai had promised to protect. His little brother, who had begged him for help the last time he had been able to speak.
I can’t hurt him.
But that wasn’t an option. It was either throw the shuriken and spill some of Lloyd’s blood so they could patch him up on the ship, or leave him at the mercy of a crazy, vengeful ghost for gods only knew how long.
Kai knew what he had to do.
That didn’t make it any easier.
Hatred, most of it for himself, some of it for Morro, weighed down his heart as the shuriken left his hand.
His aim should have been true, but Morro saw it coming and raised his hand, calling upon the wind to throw it off course. Kai just barely caught it as he leapt off of his makeshift sled to land on a tree stump closer to Morro’s skiff.
Morro was laughing like he’d just heard the best joke in the whole world. “I didn’t know you had it in you! I should’ve known his memories were painted with naivete!”
Kai jumped onto the skiff and tackled him.
Morro, naturally, saw it coming and dove to the side, letting Kai fly right past him and almost throw himself off the front of the ship. Kai spun to a stop right on the prow and ran right back at him.
Morro stepped aside and swung for his neck.
Kai dived in close, turning it into a grappling match. In a close enough fight, with enough different attacks flying left and right, if Kai was just fast enough, just surprising enough, maybe it wouldn’t matter that Morro could see his next move.
He only needed to land one hit.
And, if only by luck, he managed it – somewhere in the flurry of anticipated blows, Morro missed one, and Kai rammed the spike of his shuriken into Lloyd’s shoulder from behind.
They were standing face to face, the Sword between them with the blade moving toward Kai’s face, one of Kai’s arms wrapped around Lloyd holding his own blade and the other raised in front of him to block the Sword. As soon as the deepstone broke his skin, Lloyd went rigid and fell forward, shaking, and the hand Kai had holding his weapon was suddenly devoted to keeping his brother upright.
The Sword slipped from Lloyd’s hands and clattered across the wooden planks at his feet. Kai held the shuriken steady with one hand – some half-remembered piece of training told him he would make the wound worse if he pulled it out – and gripped Lloyd’s good shoulder with the other, guiding them both down to their knees on the deck of the ship.
Lloyd pitched forward and screamed, something green and sickly bleeding through his skin, the wind pulling black dust from his hair. When he opened his mouth, a much thicker wave of the green stuff poured out, and he howled, wrenching back and forth despite Kai’s best efforts to hold him still, as if he was trying to escape something inside himself.
Then Lloyd was himself again, half-conscious in Kai’s arms, and Morro was standing over both of them, unarmed but looking supremely angry.
“Ah,” Kai said. “I… really didn’t think this part through.”
He considered tearing his shuriken out of Lloyd’s shoulder and throwing it at the ghost. He considered the fact that he was technically surrounded by water but didn’t have the powers he needed to use it. He considered spitting. He considered the cliff he could see hurtling toward them at highway speeds out of the corner of his eye.
“The Sword,” Lloyd mumbled. “Take… take the Sword, Kai…”
Oh, right. That was theoretically the reason he was here in the first place, and it was lying behind him, well away from Morro. The ghost dived for it too, but Kai got there first.
Then he grabbed his little brother and hurled himself off the side of the skiff, letting Morro go flying off the cliff as he tried to angle himself so his own body would break Lloyd’s fall.
Kai’s last clear memory was of staggering onto the Bounty, Lloyd clutched in an awkward bridal carry, shuriken still in his shoulder. By now Kai didn’t remember why he was leaving it there, but he had a vague feeling it was important.
He made his way belowdeck, murmuring words he couldn’t remember now to Lloyd, who was still some measure of awake and staring up at him. He remembered finding an empty counter, laying Lloyd facedown on it.
He remembered that he had been absolutely useless when it came to treating the wound. It was Nya who ripped the shuriken out and put towels and pressure over the bloody spring it made, while Kai stood in front of Lloyd, his vision blurred and everything numb, holding his brother’s good hand and telling him it was going to be all right, that it wasn’t going to hurt for long.
Nya had pulled the shoulder of Lloyd’s gi down so she could clean and stitch the wound, and Lloyd had screamed and tried to get away when she’d first touched the rubbing alcohol to raw flesh. She and Kai had both put their hands on his back, keeping him from fleeing, and Kai didn’t remember what he’d said, but it must have worked, because Lloyd had laid back down and gone quiet until the last stitch was tied off.
The next while was a blur of walking through hallways with Lloyd leaning on him, hushed, hurried conversations with the other ninja, and helping Lloyd change out of his filthy, bloodied gi, since his injured shoulder didn’t allow for him doing it on his own. Kai didn’t find out until the next morning that he had shoved Lloyd’s bed up against his, edge to edge, so there was room for him to lie down still holding Lloyd. He fell asleep with the Green Ninja still in his arms.
Light found its way beneath Kai’s eyelids, forcing him to wake up. He sat up, rubbing his eyes and looking around. The other ninja had all woken up long before he had, and none of them were in the room.
Lloyd was still asleep. Whatever Nya had given him the night before, it must’ve been…
Wait. Nya had given him something?
…yes, he remembered now. As he’d been helping Lloyd to his feet and leading him out of the bathroom to go lie down, Nya had given him a glass of water, told him there was something in it to help Lloyd sleep. Somehow he’d gotten Lloyd to drink it, even though Lloyd really, really hadn’t wanted to.
Kai frowned as another piece of hazy, out-of-place memory caught up with him. Lloyd had been crying as he’d lost consciousness. He vaguely remembered trying to comfort him and panicking as he realized he wasn’t getting through.
Well. He didn't want to think about that. They were here now, and Lloyd was back with them, Lloyd was safe, and the drugs had to have cleared his system by now, so if he was still asleep he probably needed the rest. Kai wasn’t going to be the one who woke him.
But he also wasn’t going to leave him – he had no plans to let Lloyd out of his sight for any reason for at least the next decade, possibly much longer. So he laid down beside his brother, put his arms back around him, and waited.
He found it easier to be patient than usual. After all, Lloyd was there, and it was hard to care about a few minutes spent waiting for him to wake up when his bed had been empty for five nights too long. He was there and nothing else was going to hurt him or take him away from them in the forseeable future and Kai could feel his heartbeat where his hand rested on Lloyd’s chest. The pulse was strong and steady, despite everything.
“Hey, Kai? You awake?”
Kai looked up at the sound of Jay’s voice, then propped himself up on one elbow when he saw all three of his teammates gathered around the door. “Yeah, I’m up. Keep it down, though – Lloyd’s still asleep.”
“Yeah, I bet,” Jay said. “Nya told me what she gave him. She said he needed a stronger dose because he’s a descendant of the First Spinjitzu Master, but still, it was crazy.”
He hesitated, then added, “So were you, man. I didn’t know you could growl like that.”
Kai frowned. “Growl?”
“You would not let any of us approach Lloyd,” Zane said. “Nya was the only person you allowed to get close.”
Kai blinked. “I… I don’t remember any of that.”
“Hah! Zane, we’ve gotta go upload the video from your memories onto the ship computer! He needs to see it!”
“See what? I don’t… I don’t remember much…”
“LLOYD!” Jay shouted. “You’re awake!”
Lloyd looked up – a bit of an awkward feat, since he was lying on his stomach – flinched when the light hit his eyes, then looked over at his brothers. Then he flopped back down and pulled the pillow over his head.
“Five more minutes,” he said.
The other ninja exchanged glances, and Kai could tell they were silently discussing whether to let Lloyd rest a bit longer or drag him upstairs for the million and one questions that needed to be asked. He put a protective arm over his little brother and glared at them.
They got the hint and skedaddled.
Kai laid back down and waited for Lloyd to make the next move.
It took him longer than five minutes, but eventually he spoke. “You stabbed me.”
Kai’s heart turned to lead and tried to drop out through his side. “Yeah… yeah, I did, bud. It’s okay if you’re mad. I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s okay,” Lloyd said. “It was deepstone – I get it. He knew it would work when he first saw them. I was hoping you knew… I just didn’t know if I was remembering right.”
“Yeah, we knew,” Kai said. “Your mother told us.” Rather, she’d confirmed Kai’s wild theory and revealed that she’d known that would work all along when he’d asked after Lloyd had been missing for three days. Lloyd didn’t need to know about that, so he shoved the memory into the deepest part of the back of his mind. He’d rage about it later, when he was the only one awake late at night and had nothing better to do.
“I remember I really wanted you to get the Sword,” Lloyd mumbled. “But that doesn’t make sense now. It doesn’t matter if he can find the tomb.”
“Uh, no, you had the right idea, kid. It’s kind of the most important thing in the world right now.”
Lloyd shook his head, dislodging his pillow. “No it’s not. You need to be a Spinjitzu Master to get into the tomb. That’s why he needed me.”
“Holy-” Kai cut himself off before he could say a word he wasn’t allowed to say in front of Lloyd, not because Lloyd didn’t already know it, but because Lloyd would make fun of him for breaking his own rules if he did. “Holy crap, you’re right. You’re free, we’ve got the Sword, and Morro basically can’t do anything – this couldn’t have turned out better.”
Lloyd rolled to face him, frowning. “Wait. You actually got the Sword?”
Kai grinned. “Yep. I can multitask now.”
Lloyd snorted.
Kai sobered up a little. “But… hey… just so you know, kid… if it had been a choice between the Sword and you, I would still have chosen you. I’ll always choose you.”
“Mm… what if it’s a choice between Nya and me?”
Kai gave him a flat stare. “The answer to that question depends on which one of you is asking.”
Lloyd actually laughed at that, and Kai smiled. The kid seemed surprisingly okay, at least for the moment. Of course, Lloyd was tough, but no one was expecting him to bounce right back, not after that.
“Hey… kid… you know you don’t have to pretend to feel okay if you’re not, right?”
Lloyd looked surprised, which was a much better sign than guilty or sheepish. “Why would I not feel okay? I’m home.”
Kai reached out and ruffled his hair, and Lloyd spluttered and tried to push his hands away, but he was smiling through the whole thing. “We should go get some breakfast.”
Lloyd’s cheeks turned slightly green. “Oh, man. I don’t even wanna think about food.”
“You’ve gotta get your strength back.” Lloyd gave him a pleading look, and he relented with a sigh. “Okay, okay… I’ll let someone else try and make you eat. But you should at least drink something.”
“Actually…” Lloyd sat up, looking thoughtful. “Yeah. Could you get me like five gallons of water? I think I’m dying of thirst.”
Oh, gods. Kai hoped he was just being dramatic.
“JAY!” Kai shouted. Something crashed upstairs, followed by a faint “Coming!”
Lloyd looked several dozen questions at him.
“What? I’m not leaving you unsupervised. It’s not like our enemies haven’t gotten onto the ship before.” Pythor had even gone for Lloyd first, too.
Jay bolted into the room. He already had a jug of water. “Hey, Lloyd! I’m so glad I owe Nya money because she didn’t accidentally kill you! On a completely unrelated, heh heh, side note, can I borrow some cash?”
Lloyd took the bottle of water and stared at him, fumbling with the lid as he tried to unscrew it without sight. “What.”
Jay burst out laughing. “Oh, I’m just pulling your leg. You should’ve seen your face! Welcome back aboard!”
“Thank you,” Lloyd said, and knocked back a concerning amount of water in one swallow.
“Okay, so, here’s how today is gonna go,” Jay said. “You can get away with resting down here for another hour, longer if you come up and take your time eating breakfast. Then we’re all gonna give you the third degree about what you remember about this last week.”
“I’m gonna be too considerate to join in,” Kai said, “but I won’t stop the others unless you want me to.”
Lloyd took another one-quart sip, then put the bottle down, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and grinned. It was the sort of grin that usually made the other ninja start asking him what he’d done and how worried they should be about it.
“Oh, heck no,” he said. “I’m sick and tired of being sidelined. Let’s get out there and win this.”