The dinner hall was atrociously hushed this morning. Anyone inside had instinctively chose to not make any eye contact with one another for the time being; as they struggled vexatiously to discover the hurdle they have yet to spring over.
The excitement had been drastically subdued in last few days because of that and the ninjas wishes nothing more than to restore diverting joviality among their family members.
Colourless paper-plates from the drawers
slumped on the table, they matched with the throwaway plastic utensils. A fried omelette toppled by fresh chilies and onions had seasoned the main dish itself. Misako, the one who mainly cooked for the resistance was responsible for such an appetizing breakfast.
Lingering his thoughts, Kai sighed. He lowered down his fork on the wooden table and his crimson-lit eyes showed fragile desperation to address the issue they've been dealing with for days on end now. "Really, have you guys not seen what's the matter with Harumi?" He speaks up. His fork's fangs impaled the soft egg but he didn't eat it just yet. It stayed on the plate, untouched.
Nya, who had finished chewing and took a sip of her cup of water to wash down the bite she just took, gave an unsure glance at the fire ninja. Just like him, there was an unsettled feeling in her heart and just like Kai, she felt dispirited to see Harumi like this, all astray and distant around her closest friends.
It was if she stood on the sidelines on a cold summery night, her toes covered in sand as she faced the direction of the obstreperous sea. There was a silky girl, walking along the shore, her hair's strands coming directly from the moonlight's shine. Never had the resistance seen hair belonging to a gentle and loving Snow White. Except, said girl began to cover her smiles in whatever secret the stars bore tonight.
She stopped smiling, stopped enjoying her tranquil walk on the beach. She started to walk faster and faster, the sand getting in her sandals not affecting her at all. As if mesmerized with something up ahead, she didn't pay attention to the water ninja calling out her name, calling for her to return back to her so that they could be acquaintances and possibly friends.
No, Harumi's smile disappeared in thin air and they hadn't had the slightest hint to why.
Curling her fork in her food again, she stared boringly at the slob of food nicely piled onto one another. Ah, she lost her appetite because of this whole talk, but really, the resistance couldn't have blamed her. Mostly everyone sitting at this table had been having low spirits and may have needed a reminder on Harumi's part that there was nothing to fret.
"I'm sure she's fine, big brother." Nya says, even if her expression was disobeying her bits by bits. It was like a southern palm tree, she was the tree in fact. The leaves drift from side to side at the callous rhythm of the wind, a pair of tears break her green leaves apart. The tree stood tall and unprepossessing to the travellers' eye. That's how she felt, like something had teared into her lips, refusing her to force when a fake smile.
It just showed the resistance, who hesitated to cognize her statement, how much the water ninja couldn't lie about this. A lie, really, that's what the resistance would rather live by, knowing that Harumi remained in a blithe condition and that no one needed to rescue her from a maelstrom of conflict and disheartening truths. Instead, they needed to find solutions to get the word out of Harumi so that they could help her.
"If she's refused to say anything about it to us, we can assume it's something personal and we shouldn't really butt in." Nya continues, not feeling comfortable by ending her last statement on a disappointing note. The dinner table went quiet, the resistance exchanging glances to one another and briefly nodding in advance to coming to a halt at whatever Jay had to contribute to the conversation.
"Relax guys, remember, someone just impersonated her. She's maybe stressed about all of this." The lightning ninja reasoned, his brows rising as he told himself that he'd be getting the attention of his family very soon.
He was very good at doing so—when it came to storytelling and joking around but never to the intelligent discussions like these. Most would rather leave a clown like him out of matters like these so Jay was pretty content with how his argument was protruding.
It did make sense, the other ninjas would give him that. The white haired girl had been involved in a impermissible crime several hours after her coronation, it must have been a large amount of weight on her shoulders—one could compare it to a dolphin being forced to carry itself through the sea with a net attached to its tail. Both scenarios, not very comforting.
The blonde, who had been silent since earlier the start of the conversation because he was eating his food, grabbed onto his glass. "Yeah, maybe she just is." He agrees with Jay, the first person to do so.
Everyone else voted in their minds whether they were in denial or not and continued to eat their breakfast before it goes cold and difficult to eat.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Inside of an almost cramped room, a milky haired girl nipped at her pencil as she stared down at an unfinished and disarray of scribbles. The paper was almost half-torn at the amount of eraser bits by the side. She had no inspiration as of date, her fists clenched as she set the pencil aside.
Her gaze met with her nearly opened window, it was a lucid and golden morning, even if the skies gave off an azure blue and she could have sworn seeing birds soar from out her window earlier. The wind paled at the sun's request, between those two, the latter always won over how the weather went each day.
But even with the world turning completely round with very little problems getting in her way, Harumi had been having reoccurring nightmares. She sighs as she shakes her head and closes her sketchbook, the appetite she had to devour her imagination completely drowning in an ocean of what was now called fear. The waters were tainted a dull grey and her eyes were ready to close and go to bed.
Can't, the day just started. As much as she wishes to send her worries in an unreachable
dimension relied on eternal slumber, she needed to live down with why each night, she found herself in a dark chamber. She would stand up and stop, there would be chains at her feet, restricting her movement around the imaginary room. That was how far she'd get, each night, it was the same thing over and over again.
Only difference is who would appear.
Harumi would sometimes meet with someone called "the Shadow"—a cloaked man whose presence could summon a million earthquakes, his perfume smelled of a thousand whispers. An intoxicating spellscaster with a way of words, two times now and Harumi was swept off her feet and facing the darkness he has left in her isolation room. He'd come over for a midnight chat and she'd usually reject, that's until he would summon in little cakes that she'd usually find a delight in. She's sat down with him for a few minutes, she couldn't control her hunger.
"The Voice"—It took Harumi several nights to determine that whatever that creepy creature was— not a humanoid of some sorts. Even if it appeared only twice in the dreamworld. For what reason, Harumi doesn't know. The Voice played with her beliefs like strings of a violin, the Voice said things that she didn't want to believe were the truth. She tried to resort to violence for these situations, panting she realized that whatever it was, it wasn't standing on thin ground. She assumed it was a flying creature, it scared her.
It could've been a bug she couldn't flick off.
"The Vast", exactly what she couldn't figure out even if it was the entity that visited her the most. She did pay attention to their conversations since it interested her the most—they often discussed over Ninjago city actually. As far as she was concerned, this entity was fascinated with the earth itself and nature..? Her memories were blurry, surprisingly.
All three demons occupied her dreamrealm.
Sometimes Garmadon and Lloyd appear too. But they don't serve much of a role, their interactions with her have been way too monotonous for Harumi to even remember how they acted like. Whoever created these illusions or summoned them over, she was far too clever to fall in that trap.
She hadn't realized that her eyes wandered off to stare at her bedroom's wall, it smelled of fresh paint. Or perhaps, her head was just messing with her again and making her imagine things she'd rather that. The paint could've been replaced with blood any day, ah, it sent shivers down her spine at the thought.
The door opens but being distracted in a spacious hole, nothing but constellations and debris of forgotten events. Her day was ruined.
She heard a name being called, but couldn't make out what name it was.
Was she falling asleep again?
She wasn't ready to find herself chained up and trapped in a small dark room again.
"Harumi."
Her eyes widened.
She shifts her head over to the front door, her eyes looming in both confusion and genuine distress. She sees the white-furred canine of hers staring her down. She knows for a fact that Cloud wasn't too happy with her at the moment, no one was. She sighs, she doesn't need that kind of stress at the moment.
"Hello, Cloud." She greets quietly. Her feet slide to the side, preparing to stand from her bed.
Cloud blocks the door. It was like she was a tank having just located its nearest enemies, she doesn't move. "What's wrong with you? And don't try to get out of this, I know exactly that you're not doing so great." She defends.
Grabbing her coat from the wall rack, she puts it on and keeps her eyes away from the puppy. She ties her hair up, tired of the strands falling down her droopy eyes every five seconds. She stops in front of Cloud, not stepping on her paws to pass.
"It's nothing." She lies.
Everyone always sees right through her, she really was like a transparent raincoat, waiting for her blunts to consume her like the pouring rain that's used to scare her as a child. But not the puppy, instead she changes the subject by commenting on her coat and tied-up hair.
"Where are you going?" Curious as a child, she moves out of the way when Harumi comes closer. It seems like Cloud's defences had fallen short and the puppy landed soft. The pile of cards had been thrown aside and in came the sirens. Harumi shuts her bedroom door and begins to walk through the hallway.
She puts her hands in her pockets, "I'm going on a walk." She replies, unbothered to really reveal where she was wandering off to.
Cloud's eyes lit up in interest and she picks up the pace, continuing to follow behind Harumi.
"Can I come?"
Just by her posture and silence, Cloud knew her answer. Once again, she was rejected.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the middle of an unrecognized forest, its leaves scurried as a pair of brown boots kicked away the colourful blades out of the way. She had been walking for a few minutes now, casually looking around and taking note that seeing the environnement today was boosting up her currently empty inspiration metre.
She sat down by the nearest tree she found, the thought of it once being a small sapling crossed her mind. Just like how a tree grows, so did concerns, conflict and most importantly, nightmares, grew too. They came from an ominous Unknown black hole produced by the heart, Harumi had yet to find the key to locking it forever. She takes the hint that it's from confidence itself.
Still, why was it only now that she was terrified of her own nightmares? She's had many of them in the past yet here she was, overthinking things again. What if it really was just a petty matter? Harumi can't imagine. She slowly pulls out her sketchbook that she conveniently brought along and flipped it to the page she was working on earlier. A rough sketch of a wooden mask, the outline itself remained incomplete due to how unsteady and unmotivated she was feeling.
If she had to describe her feelings, she was extremely tired. Phantom bags would add weight to her body and she'd have to carry them right under her eyes all day, it would pull her skin down and her eyes would melt, stretching out little by little. It feels like she stayed up incredibly late on a school night, she feels exactly as voided as those teenagers feel the next morning.
She breathes the air in, the cold breeze tickling her stomach in a way that she never imagined. She chuckled lightly and looked down on her far from completed sketch, but at least she could make out the eyes embedded into the wooden texture of the mask. She shuts her eyes and rests the back of her head on the tree trunk as the leaves right above her fell all around.
She enters the nightmare realm, she opens her eyes to a sombre room as usual. A puff of air was exhaled as she remembered all too vividly this place.
She looks down, found it a habit now a days to look at her legs, ah, the shackles were still bound. She still stands nevertheless and looks around. "Who will visit me today?" She whispered, using her free time to look for a potential exit. Still, days now and a window hadn't been manifested yet. Damn, she will never progress through.
The door in front of her creaks open, Harumi looks away. The figure approaches her, it was the usual norm and Harumi felt sick to her stomach each time it happened. Even if it was just a dream, she felt scared...nervous? No words came to mind as all the white-haired girl can do is hold her breath during this alarming situation.
Her dreamland demon greets her with dry lips,
"But it is not a visit, it's a message." She knew that tone all too well and who it belonged to.
She digs her back deeper against the door and growls. "You're the Shadow! What do you want?" She got all defensive, her eyebrows lowering in complete anger and fear.
"Nicknames for me, now? That's cute." The Shadow looked around, his feet kicking away the charcoal in the room with them. Harumi held her breath and tried to possibly inch away from him. She felt his cloak brush against her knees, she visibly flinched.
He bent down and sighed, pushing strands of his own hair out of his face. Harumi got a good look at the Shadow's face. Purple eyes and a dark green streak in his carob-coloured hair.
He looked...really familiar, but she couldn't place her finger on where she saw this man exactly. She swallows.
"I think you shouldn't be drifting off to sleep next time."
All light in this tiny room has been restored.
She blinked once, then twice.
The same usual treetops that one would see in a forest appeared in her line of sight, she stayed staring up at a blue skies under an autumn rooftop.
Her eyes were hurting. Her cheeks were flurried in a warm red as she lacked air in that moment.
She inhaled.
She exhaled.
"I was dreaming..again?"
She stands up from the ground and brushes excess mud and dirt from her trousers. Whatever happened, she had not expected that she'd get to be this close in seeing whatever the hell the Shadow looked like. Still, she didn't imagine he was even human at all. She saw his pale skin, masked face but stunning purple eyes. Stunning...no, peculiar.
She sighs and tugs at her backpack, the one she brought along to carry her sketchbook. She stares down at the opened page, mildly disappointed that she didn't progress much through her drawing. Maybe later when she gets back, she'll finish it for real. Packing up, she slid the book back inside her bag and as her fingers grabbed on the zippers, she stopped.
There were footprints. No, they were coming closer to her.
One....two....three pair of footsteps. People were coming.
Her hand slides over to the top pocket of her backpack, delicately and quietly taking out a dagger whose handle is wrapped in bloodied bandages. Ah, it was an old one, she never took it out.
She confronted the intruders, the cowards whom she had the displeasure to run into on a fine walk. She recognized those mohawks and grim-faces, three of them actually.
"Steeleye, Gluttonbone and Fishtank...I don't understand how are you..." no words escaped her lips when she was those three in person after so long.
The rather balloon-shaped SOG member chuckled and approached Harumi, a rather crooked sword in hand. "Oh Harumi, Gluttonbone misses you so very much." He mockingly sniffles.
They got closer, she pushes back.
"I don't...I..." Harumi struggles with words, already too taken aback at their appearances in the first place. She clenched her weapon hard and focused on getting out of here.
Steeleye remained in his usual calm posture.
"What you don't understand is the next bit of the story, oh Quiet one." He proceeds to explain, having seemed to become a little more mature than the last time she saw him. "We have recently found a new boss and he's done miracles, absolutely miracles! One of them consists on bringing us back to life!" He exclaims, the thought of crushing this woman fuelling him.
She doesn't believe it, not one bit. What kind of bright mind did that boss of theirs have to possibly revive them? "No...no, you're dead. You're all just dead!" She protests, referring to absolutely no one but to herself. A last life-line? A hook? She remembers she brought a little something for herself.
There was a communicator in her bag.
She immediately nods to herself and runs off, the three former SOG guards breaking off their "tranquil" conversation with each other earlier.
All of them growled, seeing the Jade empress escape as quick as wind cutting through a flower stem. Harumi led them to a thicket of trees, she used it to her advantage.
Continuing to run, she flips her back to her front and begins to violently rummage through her bag, throwing out any excessive belongings in the first place. Not that everything inside was completely valuable to her, she only kept the necessary things, like her sketchbook obviously. She didn't lose them just yet, they still trailed her down.
Her hand pulled out a plastic device, she huffs , her thumb completely missing the "on" button.
She's need to lose them, really. If she wanted to have a chance to call for help, she needed to come up with a plan. Turning her head back to face her opponents, she shrieks as she notices Steeleye charging directly at her with a metallic knife. She pushes her head back, almost colliding with a tree trunk.
She runs in the opposite direction, catching her breath after barely missing that attack. She cries out, desperate to get away and return back home to her friends.
Why did this have to happen?
Why must she encounter those three again?
They're DEAD.
The device was on.
Using all the air left she has in her lungs, she yells into the device, whines and cries escaping her trembling lips as she panicked and continued to run for her life. Leaves got in her boots at this point and her hood was falling off from her head. She continued to call for help.
"Lloyd! Lloyd..!"
The three former guards changed the pace and strategy. They got in front of her this time.
It made Harumi halt and almost drop the device from her hands. She was shaking.
Have to get rid of them.
She needed to. If she wanted to survive.
"Lloyd...please...I swear I will never ever ever bother you with something as stupid as this again.."
She kicked the three men in the stomach, sending them flying to the nearest trunk.
She runs off, not even taking a second to check if they were out with that blow or not.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lloyd Garmadon's checked everywhere. Her room, the training room, the deck itself, he was checking it again right now. Still, there was no sign of her. It was if she was a statue that had disappeared through time. He sighs, thinking he's checked everywhere. However, he had remembered upon looking by the railings that he hadn't checked the kitchen yet.
After all, Harumi didn't show up for breakfast, maybe she got hungry and that's where she had been staying all that time? Nodding as he knew where to look next, Lloyd makes his way to the kitchen. He crossed over to the control room and went down a couple of stairs into a corridor. Then, entering by the empty doorframe,
He sees a ridiculous sight.
"What in FSM's name are you doing?" Lloyd breaks out, his palm holding on to the side of the frame.
Garmadon was juggling oranges.
Struggle to set down the orange fruits, he lets out a little "woah!" from time to time as he strolled over to his son all while trying not to drop his oranges. "They fell off the shelf and I didn't want to skip so I picked them up but..." he says as he remains with seven oranges.
He didn't have seven hands, he must juggle them to keep them from dropping.
Lloyd rolls his eyes. Again, this was his stupid father wasting time with his games. He didn't understand how oni were so different from humans.
A device on the counter began to ring. Garmadon, startled by the noise, drops the oranges and curses to himself as he crouched down to pick them back up. Meanwhile, Lloyd listened.
"Oh, Nya's comm. I guess she forgot to take it back with her." He shrugs, addressing his father.
A scream came in. Screams from three grown men.
"Oh please don't do that." Mocking screams. No one was gravely hurt, it seems.
Assuming that the female voice on the other end was Harumi, Lloyd and Garmadon listened through as they heard a forbidden conversation. The device shook a lot and dirt blocks began hitting the mic of the device, hence the loud wind getting in the way and ear-jarring sounds once and a while.
If the two would guess, there were either two options. One, they just had really bad timing and managed to connect with Harumi when she was in the middle of a sudden hurricane. Or, she was in the middle of doing spinjitzu.
Garmadon and Lloyd agreed the second option was better.
"Who's your boss, why is he doing this?" Harumi interrogated, two minutes after she had dealt with her enemies.
"You'll find out soon enough." Fishtank replies shortly.
Bursts of purple mist flowed out of her hands as their responses were getting even harder and harder to decipher. It seemed that she preferred it when things were spelled out for her, exactly the treatment of a high monarch. That's why they never learn, however Rumi had always been the special case here.
But this, she couldn't afford to have her emotions lashing out on her again. No, her powers mustn't react this way, they mustn't act up. She must learn how to control herself better. But how could she do that when three foolish men were after her?
"Tell that boss of yours to leave me alone." She spat, more of a demand than a threat.
Fishtank shrugs, beginning to walk away from the white-haired girl, his other teammates join him. Faintly, Garmadon and Lloyd can hear:
"Before we go, I'll give you that, you were right. We're not even real." followed by a laugh, a mechanical sounding one, there was absolutely no human emotion in it whatsoever.
"What's going on?" Garmadon questioned from the bounty.
The laughing continued. It got even louder, the father and son assumed it was because the three SOG guards were coming closer.
"A ha ha ha"
Harumi broke out in a sprint, holding the communicator deep in her palms, not letting it go and surrendering it to them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Garmadon and Lloyd look at each other, their eyes blinking as they knew what they had to do next.
"We need to find her."
"We need help."
Respectively, Garmadon and Lloyd intervened with each other.
Garmadon's eyes widened and Lloyd's lips closed shut. They had two different opinions.
"What do you mean help? We have no time, we need to look for her before they kill her."the oni lord explains, preparing to get out of the kitchen, communicator in hand.
However, Lloyd grabs his arm, pulling him back inside the tiny kitchen. "No, we aren't going just the two of us. Everywhere she is, it's massive and Harumi could be anywhere. Besides, whatever threat is out there, we need the rest of the team." Lloyd begs.
Garmadon stays silent.
His desire to save her.
His understanding for his son.
Both decisions played at his mind's strings intensely. He just couldn't decide.
But what was the most reasonable choice?
If he let his anger and wishes wild—his wish to see Harumi safe and happy, what would it bring? What if the enemy was way stronger than the three of them combined, then what?
He clenched his fists and shuts his eyes, all muscle in his body going limb as he faced defeat. "Okay. I understand." He replies all too monotone.
Lloyd gives him a warm smile, "Thank you, father." He thanks him then lets go of his arm.
"We'll save her, I promise."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In another place far from Ninjago city. A white haired girl woke up on top of a cushion-like mattress of a shade of ivory-beige. Harumi blinks, she recognizes this environment. She recognized a lot of things today.
Her head driving her mad with frustration, she places a hand on the back of it, her eyes widening slightly as she felt the texture of something she knew all too well: bandages.
She lays back down, finding comfort in the mattress. She must've lost against those three...even if...they're event real.
She's glad they aren't.
Snapping out of her thoughts at the sound of the room's door opening, she quickly sits up and faces her abductors, she assumes she's been taken hostage again...hostage with a more comforting prison life. A comfy mattress with windows and greenery inside. Only one person she knew lived like that.
"Why are your mattresses always so squishy?" A young blonde haired girl asked a woman one day as she was on her way to the park.
Two figures stood in front of the bed, looking down on her with concerned expressions, no smiles.
"Your Auntie loves them, Rumi. Don't laugh about it." The woman chuckles.
Harumi takes a deep breath, not realizing this was really happening.
"Aunt Josephine...Uncle Acronix..?"
She calls out to the people she hadn't seen in ages.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
A/N: Okay perhaps I'll only write like this when I'm in the mood because clearly, it is quite difficult to keep this as my default writing style, as detailed as it is. This was gonna be a way happier chapter but my mood while writing it said "haha jk." and here you go, get this angst pile of advance-lit writing.
I don't know, it's just been really difficult lately? I haven't had much inspiration as of date as I would much rather prefer catching up to my fandoms than write. Then there's school too, which is also a pain. God, this doesn't sound light-hearted at all, doesn't it?
Oh well, I'll see you all next week, hope you guys enjoy this chapter and Cya next time.