The Silent Man's Whisper [ninjago]

03 | exhausted

The sounds of continuous hitting and punching echoed throughout the monastery's courtyard.

A few birds and smaller animals were sitting on the walls surrounding the area and resting their feet whilst staring at the commotion that was going on beneath them.

"Faster," Wu said loudly, looking at his student. "Harder."

"I'm trying!" she yelled back, shortly glancing behind her before focusing on her target again and sending a punch its way.

The training dummy she was currently terrorizing looked like it was brand new, like it had never been touched before, and Nya hated it. It had to look like it was about to fall apart. Or better yet; it needed to fall apart.

Her ego was bruising immensely because of the lack of improvement she was seeing on herself and her strength.

Prior to being water, the results would've looked different, but right now, she felt weak, incompetent, and stupid for even trying.

Her breathing came out loudly, resembling some panting that would've come out of her mouth after three hours minimum of running about a year ago — not something she liked to hear after only thirty minutes of hitting a training dummy.

That only fueled her anger. She tried her best to take it all out on the dummy, but the thing just wouldn't show any signs of destruction.

Wu sighed as he watched Nya's pathetic attempts at breaking her motionless opponent. He had expected a result like that, yet actually seeing it come true was still unwanted.

He needed to put an end to it before she put an end to herself.

"Have a break, Nya."

"No!" she yelled. "I will not rest until this stupid," punch, "stupid," uppercut, "worthless," roundhouse kick, "dummy dies!"

After a kick like that, the dummy collided with the concrete ground. Its metallic head recoiled harshly which caused it to break its neck. The disembodied head was now rolling away as the fierce woman stood in her fighting stance, panting and looking at what she just did.

Wu resisted the urge to sigh again. "Very well. Take a break now."

Still breathing heavily, Nya turned around and wordlessly grabbed her light blue flask that was almost empty. She headed inside, leaving Wu alone with his thoughts.

Once she entered her room, Nya took a long sip of her water before carelessly tossing her bottle to the side. It landed on the carpeted floor, and if it had been fuller, it might have leaked out.

Nya walked over to her vanity and gripped her chair that was pushed up against the white desk tightly. She stared into her own reflection, seeing nothing but a person she could barely recognize.

Her hair was a mess, her face was red, her eyes looked drained, her shoulders were slumped, and her legs were ready to give out.

The gi she had on felt sticky against her skin, so she pushed herself off and went to change into some casual clothes. She was too tired to take a shower.

Once she was done, she looked around her bedroom. It was tempting to just lie down in her bed and curl up in her sheets.

Trying to escape reality was something she was thinking of quite a lot, but no matter how much she could try, she would always have to wake up sooner or later and face the truth — the reality.

So she brought up the entire courage she could muster and walked out of her room to go to the kitchen.

On her way over there, she passed by the workshop. It was the same workshop she used to work in with the boys and create new mechs and rebuild old ones.