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Nya always wrote her own destiny.
She had done so when she asked Kai to stay at the monastery, when she became Samurai X, when she accepted to become a ninja, when she chose to save Jay and his last wish in the lighthouse. And she rewrote her destiny again when she merged with the sea. Even though she always saved others with it, it was her choice to make.
Jay always put her before anyone else.
He chose her over destiny, over and over again. He erased an entire timeline to save her life, and would, without a doubt, sacrifice the universe with all known merged lands just so he could call her his Yang forever.
After the merge, everything changed. Destiny tored Nya’s life apart and the merge separated them from each other. Jay lost his memories, and with it his love for her.
They were a broken mosaic of the lovers they used to be. There were so many old memories of them Nya needed to protect, and so many new memories they had yet to make.
New memories, always with the knowledge that for one of them, nothing would ever be the first thing again. Jay’s first kiss with her wouldn’t be the first kiss Nya once had shared with him, their first real “I love you” was left behind in their life before the merge.
Nya still thought about the first time Jay made her genuinely laugh, while he would never remember how hilarious he looked when the noodles came out of his nose again because he snorted so hard from Zane’s unintended joke in the first monastery of spinjitzu.
The destiny Nya had chosen for the two of them to become reality one day, erased itself from existence. But when Jay came back for her – that’s when she knew that her heart was right. He would always come back for her. Jay always chose Nya over destiny, even if he couldn’t remember why.
Nya was pretty sure that their souls were bound to each other. They completed each other like Yin and Yang. So, when a supernatural blast from one of Ras’ dragon icons was about to hit Nya, Jay did something he had sworn to never do after he shattered his goodness.
The former ocean blinked in surprise and slowly set her arms down which she used to protect her face – as if it would have helped her when the blast would have hit her.
Why didn’t it hit her?
Her sword, formed out of seafoam, clattered against the stone ground and Nya let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Her world fell apart, and she felt like she was dying all over again.
In front of her stood the man she fell in love with all those years ago. The man she loved despite everything destiny did to them.
Jay stood in front of her, grunting, holding the blast away from her. His face was turned away from her, hidden by his dark blue straw hat. Nya didn’t know how he was able to do that, but the burst behind him didn’t dare to cross his shoulders. Instead, it started to rip him apart – it slowly consumed him like a cursed vine, making the faded Lichtenberg-scars across his body glow mysteriously in pink. It could have been beautiful, in a way, if it wouldn’t have meant that she was about to lose him again. This time forever.
“Jay!”, Nya screamed in diseblief and stood up in an instant. He slowly lifted his head, letting her see his face. She felt his pain-ravaged smile pierce her heart once more. He didn’t wear the red goggles he usually did, so she was able to see his eyes that were always reminding her of a storm. This time, they were a dark blue and Nya could have sworn she saw tiny lightning bolts light up in his iris while the pink vines crept up along his neck. As if the dragon icon tried to turn him into a mosaic of everything Jay Walker has once been.
“Nya”, he rasped, bracing himself once more against the blast behind him, as if he could push it back. His crooked smile made her stomach flip, and she reached her hands out to him, not sure if he could even help him. He looked so much older than when she last saw him, before the merge. There were more scars that would forever paint his body as a warrior, as a legend people would one day tell their kids about without thinking that he could have ever really existed. “Go– please. I can’t hold it any longer.”
“No… I … I thought that I– that we had more time– I …”, her voice cracked like the scars on his skin. “I wanted to bring you back…”
A tear escaped both of their eyes, sliding down in unison as if they were one. The sky and the sea, forever tied to the horizon. Souls bound together, defying everything destiny wanted them to be.
Nya wasn’t sure if she could rewrite destiny one more time.
“You did.” There was a resolution on his face like she had never seen before. “You healed my goodness.” He lifted his hand to cup her cheek, his tanned skin scarred with pink Lichtenberg-scars, and gently brushed her ocean-marked skin with his thumb. She leaned into it without a second thought.
It was their thing.
It was the last thing she had done before she died, and before she went off to live in the sea.
It was the last thing he did before they went off to save the people from the merge.
It was the last thing they did as a couple, as Jay and Nya.
“You healed my soul. And now”, she gasped as a light started to glow from the place where his heart belonged, “I give it to you.”
Nya tried to catch his gaze, switching from one stormy eye to the other one, as the light from his heart started to grow. It rose from his chest, shy like the boy who couldn’t even ask her out on a date without a stutter when they got to know each other. Then, it started moving jerkily, like a flash of lightning.
She needed a moment to process what he was doing. And when she realised it, Nya could swear she felt her heart stutter.
Jay’s soul was shockingly beautiful; and for once, his element was actually slow. A blue and yellow colored lightning bolt slowly made its way to Nya, surrounded her as if it wanted to guard her, before it gently touched her chest.
His soul touched her heart. Her soul.
“I just got you back…”, she croaked, shaking her head in disbelief as her Yang started to fade. “I’m not ready to lose you again, Jay Walker”, she managed to whisper, not caring enough to hide her sobs.
Jay’s smiles were always beautiful, like a rainbow after a storm. But the last one he gave her, before his body disappeared and she felt her sword made out of seafoam and lightning materializing in her hand, ready to strike Ras down? It shattered her life into a million pieces, into a mosaic she didn’t know how to fix.
While Nya always wrote her own destiny, Jay always put her before anyone else.
And now, their souls were bound together by reality.
Together they would defy destiny again, one. last. time.