On a String

Chapter 2

Kai kept his gaze on the lower deck, watching as the four ninja began to cool down. His face was angled away from his teacher, so the older ninja could only guess Kai's thoughts from the tone of his voice.

"It was successful, Sensei. The Puppeteers have disbanded, and their leader is dead," Kai replied, carefully keeping his voice as neutral as possible.

(Momentum)

"I see. So you believe that threat is completely eliminated?" the wise Master questioned.

(The puppet reached the end of the string-)

Kai nodded. "I believe so,"

His teacher looked satisfied. "Good work, Kai. Now, I do believe that it is time for dinner. It would do no good to be late and let the others eat everything first."

(Broken).

"Haha, but did you see my back flip? Much higher than Jay's! He barely cleared the ground!" Lloyd laughed as Kai and Sensei Wu walked into the dining room.

"Yes, but you had to expend more energy to reach that height, as you were battling the force of gravity. Therefore, you had less energy for other maneuvers," Zane pointed out as he ate a mouthful of spaghetti.

Lloyd squeezed some more sauce on his pasta. "That makes my move all the more epic, though,"

Ignoring the cheerful chatter, Kai sat down on the end of a bench, next to Lloyd and opposite Nya and Jay. The young couple was too busy talking to notice his presence and the young Green-Ninja-to-be was enjoying entertaining the rest of the group. Kai gave a mental sigh. It hurt a little to watch Lloyd laughing with the rest of the team when he wasn't really part of it. During Kai's month long absence, the bonds between the younger ninja and the rest of the team had obviously strengthened, while the bonds between the fire ninja and everyone else had weakened considerably.

"I liked Cole's move, though. Seriously, that double jumping kick and flip combination was intense!" Lloyd beamed across at the earth ninja.

Cole smiled back. "If you want, I can teach you how to do it tomorrow, kid,"

Kai looked down the table, checking out what was on the menu as Lloyd excitedly carried on about Cole's fighting techniques. As he decided to skip the stringy (stretched taunt, the marionette hanging underneath the) spaghetti and reached for the salad bowl, Kai gave an inaudible snort. It looked like Lloyd had found another Ninja to hero worship.

Kai didn't miss the attention, but he did miss the friendship. Lloyd had been a little brother to him- reading comic books and coming to him in the night when he couldn't sleep after a nightmare. Apparently, the kid had moved on. Kai wondered if Cole had ever been woken up after Lloyd had had a nightmare.

("You don't belong to their world,")

"So, Kai, how was your afternoon? I would have asked if you wanted to spar, but I never saw you," Cole said as Lloyd paused to take a drink.

"It was good, thanks." Kai nodded, taking a bite of his salad.

Sensei Wu stood up and tapped the wooden floor with his staff. "Kai was observing you all this afternoon. He's found several weaknesses in each of your fighting styles. Tomorrow, I would like him to explain them, and show you how to improve,"

With one arm around Nya, Jay turned to look up at Sensei and grinned. "Wait, Kai was sitting down and quietly observing us? We never saw him!" he raised one disbelieving eyebrow at Kai.

Kai shrugged. "You were busy- you never noticed me,"

There was a brief awkward silence as the four ninja digested this news. A micro expression of disbelief crossed Cole's face as he turned to look down the table at Kai. "So, Kai, how was your mission?"

Wondering why everyone felt it necessary to repeat that particular question- especially when it was none of their damn business anyway- Kai took a sip of his drink and replied. "It was successful. The Puppeteers have disbanded and their leader was killed,"

A grinning Jay immediately tried to make light of the situation. "Why on earth would a gang call themselves the Puppeteers? It just makes them sound like a bunch of harmless puppets. That could have almost been a fun mission, Kai. Just going around punching puppets! Sounds awesome!"

(Suspended on the end of the string. Broken. Broken. Brok-)

Kai gave another shrug and took another mouthful of salad- but Cole noticed that he didn't reply to the question.

Lloyd was more than a little uncertain about the change in Kai. "Um, Kai...Why are you eating salad? I thought you liked sauce and pasta,"

"Pasta is too mainstream," Kai replied. Lloyd didn't really know whether to grin or not. This new Kai was awkward. Some of the things he said were funny, but delivered in such a way that you didn't know if they were a joke or not.

"Okay," he said, before turning back to face Cole. "By the way, could you also show me that combination you did at the start? You know, the..."

As the Lloyd began to chat to Cole, the Earth Ninja was forced to take his eyes off Kai. When he next turned around, the red Ninja had gone.

And just like when they had been sparring that afternoon, no one had seen him move.