angels - a ninjago fanfiction [complete]

nine · crushed ice

As much as he was annoyed by the blue ninja, they were family. The whole team was family, and living without one of them was something Kai wished would never happen. Of course, the universe laughed at him and threw him a curveball he didn't catch, instead hitting him square in the face and knocking him down.

He was hoping the physical strain would push his grief from his mind for a while. To his horror, he had looked around the room to find that Zane had vanished overnight and Pixal had never arrived.

Here they were, all bleary-eyed and not entirely awake on the deck of the Bounty at six in the morning. It wasn't early for the saviors of Ninjago, but they still hated waking up at the crack of dawn. It was something that even years of training couldn't completely erase.

Like memories of those who have passed...

Kai slapped himself in the face. Stop thinking about that.

He noticed that it was only himself, Lloyd, and Cole on the deck. Wu was still asleep and Nya was...

Kai hated seeing his sister so emotionally broken. He himself felt like he was only starting to get into a rollercoaster of emotions, and he couldn't see the track.

Nya was never seen without her Yang pendant, often holding the corresponding half as well. The night after Jay's death, Kai heard Nya crawl from her bunk to duck into Jay's and cry until she fell asleep, thinking she was the only one awake.

It was quite the opposite. Kai had heard the near-silent whirr of Zane's internal fans, his own rapid breathing, Cole's occasional sharp gasps from quiet sobs, and the muffled cries from Lloyd as he tried to drown himself in blankets and pillows.

They were all hurting, and the grief continued over the next few days.

That memory brought a lump to the usually snappy Fire Ninja, and he blinked water from his eyes. It felt like someone had dumped a bucket of cold ice onto him, and he was now just the charred remains of what used to be a blazing fire.

At the moment, Nya was still in the bunks. The Ninja quietly let her sleep as they left at Wu's call, knowing that she would struggle to find a peaceful time to sleep once woken up.

"Locking coordinates to Nom." Lloyd pulled a lever, hands flying over the console expertly and bringing the ship into the air. In a second, the Destiny's Bounty was on its way to the small village. "Hopefully Zane will still be there when we arrive."

"Did you already try to reach Zane's comm?" a tired voice came from behind the boys. "Oh- wait. Obviously. Sorry, I can't think."

Kai jumped visibly at the voice and turned, finding Nya standing behind them. Her gi was wrinkled as if she had fallen asleep in it, her hair had a massive cowlick on one side, and she blinked the tiredness from her eyes. Nobody had the heart to tell her she looked like a parrot.

"Don't worry about it. Glad to see you're up." Cole put an arm around her and guided her to the others. "How long have you been standing there?"

She didn't answer his question. "Why didn't you guys tell me that Zane and Pix are missing?" she asked, emotionless. Kai didn't detect the usual anger that came with being left out, which worried him a bit. Something didn't seem right. She usually pushed through when one member of the team could be potentially dead, like in the battle with the Overlord and... probably with that Nadakhan person, though Kai didn't really remember that.

"We didn't want to put more on your shoulders," Cole tried, only succeeding in making Nya angry. She clenched her fists, pulling away from him. As she moved her hands, Kai got a quick glimpse of the Yin gripped in her right, the point digging into her palm, and he suspected the Yang was in her left hand.

"You think I can't deal with this?" she snarled. "You have no idea what I have been through in the past few days. With Jay be- with Jay being gone, I need you guys by my side. I need your support as much as you need mine. Keeping secrets will only tear us apart!"

"We're not saying you aren't suffering, Nya. We all are." Lloyd put a hand on her shoulder, and she flinched but let him keep it there. "We should have told you right away. Pixal was supposed to arrive overnight, but she never did. The security tapes show that Zane snuck out in the middle of the night, so we're assuming he went out to look for her-- but neither of them returned."

The Water Ninja just nodded and absently rubbed her thumb over the ridge separating the Yin and Yang medallions, having put them back together. To Kai's surprise, he saw pricks of blood on her palm from the tip of each medallion digging into her skin. He didn't want to take the medallions away, but it was hurting her...

It felt so empty, just Lloyd, Cole, Nya, and Kai right there. Three key members were missing-- though everyone was important. No matter who was gone, the emptiness would be the same: too much. Kai couldn't imagine living without any of them which was why he stayed in a loop of denial about Jay's absence. He didn't know how he would maintain his will to live if he lost anyone else, especially his sister...