Roots of Earth ~ A Ninjago Fanfiction

Chapter 69: Return to Birchwood and Liana and Nya's Talk

The sound stopped.

"Show yourself," he challenged.

Silence. Then—

"Zane?"

An enormous calico feline stepped out from behind one of the older birch trees, peering through the darkness. Zane stiffened when he recognized the features of a nekomata cat; forked tails trailed behind the creature, and it was the size of a tiger.

He also recognized its voice.

"Little Leaf?" he gasped.

"Zane!" The nekomata's body shrunk and shifted, and suddenly the figure of a teenage, ginger-haired girl in tanned animal skins stood in its place, gaping at the nindroid.

When Little Leaf started toward him, Zane got a better look at the girl in the dim moonlight. His jaw fell open in a gasp. "Leaf! What...?"

Scrapes, bruises, cuts, and open wounds covered the girl from head to toe. One gash stood out prominent on one side of her forehead, and the opposite cheek was adorned in a nasty scrape. On the other cheek, three horizontal claw scratches stood out. Both knees and the palms of her hands were skinned, and a large, dark bruise made an unsightly splotch on one shoulder.

The hem of her short skirt was torn in one place, and her chest-covering was stained darkly in the torso area, where another wound lay hidden by the skins. Leaf's face shone pale and wane in the moonlight, dark shadows circling her eyes.

"What happened to you?" Zane demanded.

Her lips quivered. Before she could stop herself, Little Leaf burst into tears and threw herself at Zane, hugging him around his torso and sobbing wretchedly into his shirt. After a moment of standing there in astonishment for a moment, Zane curled one arm around her shoulder and had her sit down beside him before he started up the fire again. He got the coat he had been sleeping on and wrapped it around her, having observed her continuous shivering and teeth chattering. He wished he had some hot tea to help her calm down—Wu would definitely have had some in handy for Little Leaf.

She continued to cry for several minutes, burying her face in her hands and rocking in place, frequently hiccuping chopped sentences Zane couldn't make out. He sat down beside her and laid one arm around the young girl's shoulders, allowing her to weep. It was obvious by her appearance that she had been through some sort of horrible shock, though did not seem to be in any immediate danger. The best thing to do at the moment was to let her cry it out.

Eventually her sobs subsided and she was able to wipe away her tears and—at Zane's gentle urging—take several long, deep breaths. Finally, he deemed it appropriate to inquire. "What happened?"

Little Leaf took a shaky breath and looked up at Zane. "B— Black Blood happened." She shuddered, as if the name alone could physically hurt her. "She— she knew that I helped you—all of the ninja. She smelled my scent the night I pretended to be Lloyd. She tried to kill me yesterday."

Zane inhaled sharply. "But she's your half-sister."

"Half or whole, she doesn't care," Leaf responded with a note of bitterness. "She called me a traitor. She's done this before—killing cats who were part of our own tribe. But no one ever knew. She told me she was saving our tribe by getting rid of me." Her voice began to quiver. "She attacked me, when she got me alone on top of a cliff. She— she's crazy..." She whispered, "You should have seen her, Zane... I've never seen any creature look the way she did..."

He shushed her gently. "It is all over now. You are safe." He squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. "Is Talon in any danger?"

Little Leaf shook her head. "She doesn't know about Talon. I let her think it was just me, and that Talon had nothing to do with it. She probably thinks that if he did know about me being with you guys, that he didn't say anything to protect me." She bit her lip. "At least... I hope she doesn't know about Talon..."