Til youth and peace are gone

by EmmaCelestial

Summary:

!!SEASON 3 PT 2 SPOILERS!!
PLEASE DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT

Lloyd wanted to give Arin that choice. But there wasn't much of a choice anymore.

The immediate aftermath of an ambiguous battle where they manage to awaken the arc dragon and stop Thunderfang for good. Little do they know what's happening at the Monastery.

Notes:

I've been putting off posting this one because I don't want to spoil anyone who hasn't seen the leaks

Chapter 1

Notes:

Last warning!!
S3 PT 2 SPOILERS AHEAD
This takes off from the end of S03E18

The silence had never been so loud as when they left the Spectral Lands.

It was the void that follows the last echo of a bell. Depthless and hollow. Settling like ash between clumps of petrified grass.

It clung to them like static as they dragged their battle-worn bodies back up the incline to where Wyldfyre had parked the Temple Bounty. Their steps grew heavy with the weight of it, but it couldn't stop the commotion from ringing in Arin's memory. Tortured wails of spectral dragonians. Ravenous crackling of chaos storms. The earth-shattering roar of an Arc dragon stirred from eternal slumber.

It was defeated, that primordial being of chaos and retribution. Punished and obliterated by beams of Focus energy, the spectral souls of the Forbidden Five dissipating into the mist, hopefully for the last time. But there was no joy in the triumph. No warmth in the sunbeams that broke through the ethereal cloud cover. The images were just too fresh.

At the front of the sombre procession, Wyldfyre led the way uphill. The static silence that could never have touched her seemed to crumble from her shoulders. Her dampened spirit set the tone.

Riyu's anxious warbles had long succumbed to it. Even Jay seemed to be feeling it, his steps sinking deeper into the marsh from Nya's unconscious weight. Nya, who had been cornered by the shock and passed out as the full cost of the battle had truly come into focus. Behind them, Sora walked with an arm around Lloyd, who looked as if he would not be standing without it. He had taken a nasty slash to the side in a battle Arin hadn't seen, and even through the thick strips Frak had torn from the hood of his gi, it was still bleeding badly. But Arin had known him long enough now to understand that it wasn't the physical pain that had him leaning so heavily on Sora's shoulder. It was so much worse than that.

Arin swallowed back the bile that rose in his throat and forced his gaze forward. He had known, the moment they had laid eyes on the spectral apparition of Thunderfang, that they were not going to leave this battle unscathed. The showdown in the First Realm had been a precursor. A fleeting glance in the mirror of fate. A glimpse of the price that would have to be paid all too soon. He just wished the cost weren't so obvious.

Far ahead of them, Frak had spurred the last remaining mech to a sprint. It was the one Arin had edged across the slim shadows of the Spectral Lands, and it had taken quite a beating when the spectral Nokt had sensed living movement. A blast of brute force had shattered the control panel, sent the soul egg flying, and consequently thrown an unnecessary wrench in their concise plan. The wires were still sparking and sputtering now, but it continued to function, and it was by far the fastest transport to the Bounty. Mechanical hands that had cupped the soul egg, bearing a much more precious burden.

"Kid," a voice came from behind him. Jay's voice, though Arin could not place the tone. He wanted to say it was more morose than usual, but he couldn't be sure. "Climb up and hoist the anchor. Most of us can't get up there."

Arin didn't want to climb up. Didn't want to rise to the waiting arms of reality. The battered mech had landed on the Bounty and turned just far enough that he could see it. Golden claws streaked red. Droplets that struck the railing and ran like tears. Kai's signature spikes, thoroughly rumpled and stiffened with blood.

He turned to gauge Jay's expression, for what reason he couldn't say. It was a mistake regardless. There was a distinct red-brown smear covering half his face, though Arin knew the blood wasn't his own. His stomach twisted at the sight, but he couldn't let his gaze drop an inch because that was where Nya was. Muscles slack. Head slumped in crook of the shoulder of a man who did not remember loving her. Face stained with tears that had crossed the divide of consciousness.

Arin wanted to protest but he had no voice, and they had no time. Mechanically, he scrambled up the anchor, through the hallways, to the control deck. His hands trembled as he hit the button to raise the anchor. They trembled as he steadied himself against the railing to make sure they were all on board. They trembled as he pushed off the railing to run below deck, as he reached out to help them into the ship. First Lloyd, whom Sora immediately began helping toward the stairs. Then Wyldfyre, who had apparently retained enough heat in her blood to snatch Nya away from Jay before the bounty hunter had a moment to react.

Jay opened his mouth to snap at her, but Frak skated around the corner from the hallway before he could.

"Kai?" Arin questioned, taking a half step toward the door in his last shred of hopeful anticipation.

Frak wiped the sleeve of his gi across his face. No one wanted to comment on the way that it stained his cheek red. "Alive," he breathed. "But barely. I've done what I can and I've sent a message to Zane and Pixal. They're going to meet us back at the Monastery, but we've gotta hurry."

Arin nodded. His hands were still trembling incessantly, so he clasped them tightly together. "Okay," he said, gaze darting around the room. It took him a moment to realise he was waiting for someone else to take the lead, and a further moment to see that no one was going to. Wyldfyre had sunken to the ground with Nya's head in her lap, her eyes cold as coals and fixed to the deck at her feet. Sora was halfway across the room, struggling under Lloyd's weight and pleading with him beneath her breath. Jay was leaning against the far wall, picking at the crescents of blood beneath his nails in distaste. And Frak... Frak was looking to Arin, fists bunched in his gi in an effort to hide his own shaking hands. There was expectation in that look. A weight so unfamiliar, so disproportionately present. Frak was waiting for orders. He was waiting for Arin to give those orders.

Arin's throat was uncomfortably dry. Any attempt to clear it only brought forth a pain as raw as if he had been screaming. Maybe he had. The time on the battlefield had blown by like leaves in a storm, faster than memory. Whatever pieces he could grasp were dulled by shock, and fragmented beyond recognition. For now, at least. Tonight, he knew, he would find those leaves scattered through his nightmares. They all would.

Frak hadn't let up, but still Arin couldn't speak. He didn't want the authority here. After everything he had done, he was the last person who should ever have the authority. But as the seconds went by and Frak's expectant look began crushing his chest, he took a breath. That creature of inferiority that thrived in his soul growled a warning, but he didn't have the luxury of feeding it. Not now. Not when Kai was clinging to life upstairs in the medbay. Not when Nya and Lloyd were out of commission. Not when the soul-shattered Jay Walker was the only other adult in the room.

"Okay," he said again, and cast around for the first plan he could think of. "Okay uh, Frak, do you know how to drive the ship?"

"How hard could it be?" Frak said.

Arin nodded. He kept nodding. "Do that. There should be navigation we can tap into. Set it on autopilot if you can. Um..." He spun on his heel, glancing from Nya to Lloyd and back to Nya. "Wyldfyre," he said, utterly unsure if the girl was in any state to even listen. "Is Nya -"

He was drowned out by a guttural cry of pain, poorly stifled, and coming from the direction of the stairs. Operating on pure adrenaline, Arin swung around to find that Lloyd had collapsed halfway up the stairs. Sora swore, loudly, and cold washed through Arin's veins when Lloyd did not even attempt to reprimand it. He was conscious, Arin noted with a needle-prick of relief, hand clutching his side and face contorted in pain he could not hide as Sora tried lifting him back to his feet.

Arin knew he should help. But the sight of his teacher so devoid of life sent a chill through his entire being, a frost so thick it rooted him to the ground. He reminded himself, harshly, that just a few weeks ago he had watched Lloyd's soul be ripped from his body. He had caught Lloyd's lifeless body out of the air. He had laid him down, hollow and still, dead on the ground in the First Land.

Lloyd had retained his life, this time. But there was more than one way to rip out a soul. And somehow, this was so much worse.

"Arin," Sora said, and the subtle spike in her tone suggested it wasn't the first time she had called for him. She didn't say anything further, and though she had managed to get Lloyd back to his feet, it was clear his weight was dragging her down.

Selfish as it was, Arin hesitated. He and Lloyd had both apologised in the Land of Lee, but they were far from okay. Arin had been so horrible to him for something that he had had no control over, then abandoned him twice, and then caused Sora to abandon him too. Sora, who had been ostracized by her homeland, neglected and abandoned by her parents. Sora, who had once admitted to Arin that Lloyd was probably the first genuinely positive adult influence she had known. That he was like the dad she had never had. Lloyd, who had rescued them and taken them in, saved their lives, come to their rescue more times than he could count, and just cared about them when nobody else had.

And how Arin had repaid that kindness.

Lloyd didn't hold it against him, he knew. He had made it abundantly clear that he never would. But that didn't burn out the guilt. That didn't make it any easier to bear whenever he was near.

Stop it, Arin chastised himself, and ran to help Sora. Night had fallen eternally in the Spectral Lands, and the only lantern in the room was low-lit, swinging haphazardly as the engines rumbled to life beneath them. In the shifting half-light, Arin hadn't noticed the blood leaking over the steps where Lloyd had initially collapsed. His steps quickened in panic the moment he did.

"Shit," he breathed, ducking beneath Lloyd's other arm.

"You shouldn't swear," came a voice from across the room behind him. Jay, having given up on his nails in favour of staring blankly at the opposite wall. The sentiment sounded unfinished, as if Jay wanted to add something more but had bitten it back.

"Don't tell him what to do." That was Wyldfyre, rising out of her misery just long enough to snarl at him. Her hands were bunched in the sleeve of Nya's gi, knuckles painfully white. They were still on the floor, Nya gray and unconscious, Wyldfyre nursing her temper like the last embers of a bonfire. "This was your fault," Wyldfyre snarled in Jay's direction. "If you had just done what you were told, he wouldn't have been hurt at all!"

Arin had been too far from that side of the battle to see for himself whether Wyldfyre's assessment of the situation was accurate, but that did explain the hostility with which she had taken Nya from Jay. After the last time they had defeated Thunderfang, Lloyd had predicted that the dragon would mercilessly target Arin in a bid for revenge, and, as per usual, he had been right. As consequence, he had told Arin to stay out of Thunderfang's sight, to slip between the husks of the Spectral buildings and plant the soul egg whilst the others provided distraction.

But Wyldfyre had been there, and Arin didn't doubt her point, or the validity of her fury. Sometimes Arin had to remember that Lloyd was her teacher, too.

"Hey, I don't take orders, and especially not from him," Jay sniped, kicking off the wall to match Wyldfyre's glare. "Greenie shouldn't have jumped in to save me when I didn't need saving."

"Didn't need saving?" Sora echoed incredulously. She and Arin had set Lloyd down where they were on the stairs, his weight falling heavily on Sora's shoulder. "Are you joking? You were hanging by your fingertips from the back of the shatter dragon!"

"I had everything under control," Jay snapped. "It's not my fault he panicked and jumped ship. Neurotic much. What a loser."

Arin rose to his feet in disbelief. Wyldfyre took a sharp breath. Her fingers unclenched from Nya's gi, fists erupting in flame.

"Wow," Frak said coldly, having reappeared in the doorway at some point with Riyu at his heels. "That's a really weird way to say thanks."

"Maybe you are as stupid as you look," Jay said, and thrust a finger in Lloyd's direction. "No doubt you get that from him. This guy has no one to blame but himself."

Arin flinched. It was still surreal, sometimes, to imagine that the person standing haughtily before him now had once been one of his greatest idols. The one famous for his freckles and quips, that lightning energy, and the fact that there wasn't a single photo of him out there where he wasn't grinning like an idiot. This same person, who had tracked him and Ras across the merged lands, who had brought their jet spiralling out of the sky, who had bashed Ras brutally against the dashboard and who had very nearly sent Arin to his death in the World Forest. This same person, who had swapped out quips for silence, grins for cheap balaclavas, lightning for control. The freckles were all that remained, the only parts of him that Arin could reconcile with that long lost legend. It was uncanny to think about it. Could a person really change this much?

"You're supposed to be a hero," Arin said through his teeth. "And that guy is supposed to be one of the closest friends you have ever had. You're supposed to be his brother. Not a liability. He jumped in to protect you because he loves you, and you're supposed to love him. He didn't want to lose you. The only loser here, is you."

Jay angled his glare toward Arin. "Green ninja," he spat. "Source Dragon Conduit. Grandson of the First Spinjitzu Master. All these damn titles. He only came to my aid to prove that he's better. He's a fucking demigod. He doesn't care about me, or any one of you and if he does, then he's even stupider than I imagined."

Sora's eyebrows dipped dangerously low. Wyldfyre growled a warning.

Arin recalled the day Lloyd had first saved him, when the Merge storm had flung him out of his front yard and buffeted him high into the air. He remembered the all-consuming terror, swiftly quelled with a blur of green, a bad joke, and steady ground beneath his feet. He recalled when he had first properly met Lloyd, how he had rescued them from Imperium before they had even realised just how much of a threat the place was, how he had taken them in, given them a room in the Monastery, and sat patiently through the thousands of questions that had come from Arin's hype. Sure, Arin and Lloyd had had their fair share of problems over the last couple years. But to hear this goodness-shattered phony wearing the face of his fourth favourite idol speak about Lloyd like that made the blood boil just beneath his skin. He took a step forward, but he wasn't entirely sure what he would have done if Frak hadn't spoken up.

"Before you insult Lloyd again," Frak said before Wyldfyre could find the strength to blast Jay through the wall, "We'll give you the chance to remember that your only company right now is four of his very well trained and fiercely loyal students."

Riyu nudged Frak's leg with an indignant squawk.

"My mistake," Frak said and crossed his arms. "Five."

Jay's eyes, devoid of any thoughts, took them all in with a single sweep across the half-lit room. The harsh set of Frak's jaw. The daggers in Arin's gaze. Sora's white-knuckled grip around Lloyd. The sputtering flames in Wyldfyre's fists. Riyu's bared teeth.

Jay was ruthlessly cold, but he wasn't stupid. He seemed to recognise the threat for what it was. "Whatever," he muttered, and started toward the stairs. He stepped past Nya - pale, bloodstained and still - without so much as a blink. He brushed past Arin on his way up the stairs, sparing a single glance toward Lloyd, who had fallen entirely against Sora's side. There was disquietude in that glance, and for a moment Arin could almost believe that he was actually worried. A notion that lasted only as long as it took for Jay to open his mouth.

"Don't let him die," Jay said, and turned on his heel to stalk above deck. "He hasn't paid me yet."

Notes:

Anyone catch the season 4 Jay reference?
I apologise to Jaya fans, it's gotta get worse before it gets better
Next chap Arin and Lloyd have a chat
Please let me know what you think!

Chapter 2

Summary:

Ok ok I know I said this chap would be Lloyd and Arin and originally it was but I want to do it justice and keep chapter lengths relatively consistent and this one was getting too long so...

"That's a fever," Arin said, pressing the back of his hand to Lloyd's forehead and wincing at the heat that clung to his fingers. His hands were still trembling. He wasn't sure it would ever stop. "Which is bad, right?"

"It could be," Sora agreed. "It could mean infection, right? But it could also just be part of normal healing. Isn't that what Zane said? Like, an automatic response?" She had perched herself by Lloyd's hip on the linen edge of the sofa in the Temple Bounty's modest living area, hands already moving to unwrap the ruined half of his gi to bare the wound. "Either way, we probably need to get it under control. Pass me that cloth?"

Arin dunked the cloth in a bowl of cool water and passed it to Sora. He tried not to notice the telling tremble in her fingers as she set the cloth carefully across Lloyd's forehead, the sweat already beginning to bead at her temples. Lloyd flopped his wrist in a weak attempt to bat her hand away, then groaned as the action pulled at the blood-wet fabric stuck to his skin.

"Hey, careful," Arin said, pushing Lloyd's arm down over his chest firmly despite the unsteadiness of his own hands. "Try not to move. You're hurt pretty bad, Lloyd."

Lloyd murmured something Arin couldn't make out, lips like chalk and barely moving, eyelids twitching in a place somewhere on the brink of consciousness. A muscle ticked faintly in his jaw but he didn't even attempt to fight Arin's hold on his wrist.

"How bad is it?" Arin asked, swallowing back the unease rising in his throat but unable to disguise it in his voice, or in the fitful way he turned to Sora. "The cut, I mean."

"Not sure. Still bleeding a lot," Sora replied. Loose tendrils of her ponytail had swung into her eyes as she leaned over Lloyd. Arin thought momentarily of smoothing it back for her in an effort to distract them both, but discarded the notion at the thought of smearing blood through her hair. Sora dug her teeth into her bottom lip as she began to lift the edge of Lloyd's undershirt to bare the wound. As she had pointed out, blood was still seeping steadily, staining her fingers a dark, unsettling red. Some of it had already dried in patches, fusing the linen of his shirt to his skin. Gingerly, Sora began to peel the material away, abandoning the effort and pulling her hands hastily back when Lloyd groaned in pain.

"Sorry," Sora said sheepishly, sitting back and wiping the back of her wrist across her brow before turning to Arin. "I need some- scissors or something. And if its still bleeding like this, it probably needs stitches, right?"

"Right," Arin said with a level of confidence he certainly didn't feel. In truth, he didn't have a clue what should constitute needing stitches, but the logic sounded right. And with the confidence of his agreement, he noticed a fraction of the stress slip from Sora's shoulders, feeling the ghost of a smile touch his lips at the sight.

After everything that had happened, the things that had changed and the weeks they had spent apart, it was a raindrop in the midst of drought, an incomprehensible relief to know that he still knew his best friend. He knew the compassion in the tilt of her hand as she pushed some of Lloyd's hair back from his eyes. He knew the glimmers of hope and fear warring in the light of her irises. He knew the worry in the curl of her lip as she pressed it between her teeth.

It was second nature, just about. Instilling the illusion of his own confidence when she had lost it. Catching her fingers in the false steadiness of his palm when they started drumming an anxious beat against the lip of the coffee table. Finding a solid thread in the static, a path to take, a concrete goal to work toward.

"I can stay here with Lloyd if you want to go get some stuff from the medbay," Arin said, squeezing her fingers briefly, ignoring with an effort the crimson smear that spread between them. "He's gonna be okay, Sora. He's Lloyd. He's been through worse, I'm sure."

In defiance of the situation, the comfort came easy, As was their custom, Sora latched onto it - the confidence, the reassurance, the sure steps of an action to take - a quiet relief to her movements as she murmured her agreement and tugged the soft cat-eared hood from around her neck, pressing it against the wound and lifting Arin's hand to anchor it. "Hold that there, I'll just be a second," she said, already upright on unsteady feet and making fast for the medbay.

Arin bit his lip the moment she was out of sight, taking his eyes off Lloyd long enough to glance around the living space. It was an open-plan adjacent to the kitchen area, surprisingly spacious for a room aboard a flying ship. Endearingly mismatched sofas were scattered around a glass-inset coffee table, armchairs and ottomans anchoring the corner of the room. A woven cream rug adorned the entire space, thread picked in places, stacked with the overflow of too many cushions of varying patterns and sizes and now irreversibly spattered with the all-too-familiar shade of Lloyd's blood.

Arin tore his eyes away from the gruesome smear, setting the fingers of his free hand against the pulse in Lloyd's wrist as if it could do anything to reassure him. Really, the most reasonable course of action would have been to take Lloyd downstairs to the medbay, where everything they might have needed would be in arms reach. But somehow, Arin didn't think that being in the same room as Kai right now would be conducive to healing.

First Master, Kai.

Arin tried to banish the thought from his mind, but the moment it surfaced it was like oil rising to the skin of the sea - impossible to thrust back below. The knowledge, the images, may as well have been fused to his mind and memory in just the same way. Through them, he heard Kai's scream, the tortured remnants of its echo slicing through the ghostly lands with no one but the ninja and the sputtering lives of stolen souls to hear it. It seemed to go on an on, echoing dully through the contours of his mind until it was replaced, shrilly and abruptly, by another. Nya, crying out for her brother, agony curling and sharpening the notes when Kai hit the ground, shoulder scraping through broken stone and petrified grass as he rolled to a stop and fell still.

With the image came a new one, details dredged up from the pits of a nightmare he didn't like to imagine. The way Lloyd's voice had torn down the middle as he screamed Kai's name. The way he had neglected his role as untouchable ninja, infallible leader, abandoning his post and sprinting to reach him. The way he had fallen to his knees, heaved Kai's upper body into his arms, shaken him and begged him to wake up. The way Nya had hastened to join them there, a cry jammed in her throat and tears held in abeyance behind her eyes as her hands fisted in her brother's gi. The way Arin, Sora and the others had pushed through cold shock by way of pure instinct, sprinting through the midst of spectral war to form a defensive circle around the three. The way Thunderfang had chortled his amusement. The way Arin had watched Lloyd and Nya physically pull themselves back together just long enough to end the shatter dragon once and for all.

"Hey," a voice said, and Arin flinched, nearly losing his grip on Sora's hood, pressing harder against it and searching Lloyd's face for any sign of consciousness. The most he'd managed was a prolonged groan at the change in pressure, but his eyes were still tightly scrunched, and it took Arin a moment to realise the voice had come from the doorway behind him.

Swallowing back the despair that leaked like lead poison from the images in his mind, he turned to see Frak. Neither boy spared a smile for the other. "Hey," Arin returned.

Frak lifted a hand to scratch the back of his head. He still hadn't wiped away the blood smeared over his brow. "We- uh." He chewed his bottom lip. "We took Nya to her room. Wyldfyre's with her and I don't know where Jay's gone." He was still scratching the back of his neck, an old habit that he'd clearly never dropped. "I've got autopilot going but I couldn't figure out how to set the navigation. I think we're heading in the right direction? I was gonna ask Wyldfyre but uh- I don't think she should be anywhere near the steering wheel right now. Or ever. We've got enough injuries on board as it is."

"Yeah, heh I'm pretty clueless when it comes to that sort of thing," Arin admitted, one hand to the back of his own neck sheepishly. "Sora should know how to fix it though. I'll ask her about it when she comes back." He glanced to Lloyd, then back to Frak. "Is Nya hurt?"

"Just her ankle," Frak said, his eyes straying inevitably past Arin. "Sprained, I think, but not too bad. She's uh- still resting. How's Lloyd?"

"He's out." Arin gripped the hood more firmly as it started to slip and put two fingers to the pulse at Lloyd's throat, relieved to find it steady. "Sora's gone to get some stuff from the medbay. He's lost a lot of blood, but he'll be okay. At least... well, you know. Physically."

Frak's jaw clenched, the anxious glimmer at the back of his eyes suggesting that Arin's mind wasn't the only one playing back scenes of the battle in too crisp a contrast. He took breath to speak but before he could, Sora was brushing past in a flurry of pink hair and nervous energy, cradling a plastic wicker basket brimming with ointments, bandages, and small sterile packages.

"Got it," she said, rushing back to Lloyd's side and hardly seeming to note Frak's presence in the doorway, or the quiet shuffle of his boots on the hardwood floors being muffled to silence when he crossed the rug to perch on the arm of the opposite sofa. She dumped the box on the coffee table, sat gingerly in her place beside Lloyd and reached for one of the sterile packages. Her hands, Arin noted as she tore the package open, were no longer trembling.

"Needles?" Frak said, shuddering as Sora unearthed the thin slice of metal from its package and gestured Arin to unspool some of the nylon suture material. "Oh, I can't do needles."

"Then don't look," Sora said, that lingering anxiety and a touch of impatience making her voice tight. Without him having to ask, Sora angled the dull end of the needle toward Arin so that he could thread the eye. His stomach turned at the sight of it, fingers trembling so hard it took a few tries to properly thread the nylon.

It wasn't like he didn't know what to do. In their first year of ninja training, Zane and Nya had taken it upon themselves to run Sora, Wyldfyre, and himself through a comprehensive course of basic medical training - Frak hadn't been with them at the time. But wanting to kick and flip and run through the obstacle course all day until he dropped, Arin had found it a monotonous thing at the time. Not to mention he hadn't been very good at it. But as was their way, where he failed, Sora would always succeed. "It's really not that different to rewiring a toaster or fixing panels in a circuit board," she had joked during a particularly taxing lesson in stitches. "With a bit more urgency, probably. Just gotta make sure you're poking holes and threading things in the right place."

They had laughed at the time, never imagining they would have to take it so seriously so soon. But there was no denying Sora was a natural, and with his hands still trembling badly, whatever flicker of jealousy that might once have sparked from his best friend once again being so much better than him in every conceivable way, there was nothing but gratitude now.

In no time, he and Sora had cleaned, stitched, wrapped and bandaged the wound while Frak attempted to pass them various ointments and materials with minimal guidance from his very limited medical knowledge. Already, Lloyd was looking more alive. There was colour coming back into his face, regular breath lifting his chest, tension ebbing from the fibres of his muscles. He peeled his eyes half open just as they were tucking the last of the bandage in place, managing just enough strength to find Sora's fingers at his chest and squeeze them weakly in thanks. Then his breaths evened out, his head falling limp against a bright yellow cushion that was so ridiculously incongruent to the situation Arin had to catch his breath on a half hysterical laugh.

Sora dunked the cloth again, reached up to set it back across his forehead and pushing his hair back from his face. She was looking at him with such a mixture of fear and relief that Arin felt his chest tighten.

"We've gotta fix the navigation," Arin said, breaking the relieved silence. "Not just for Kai and Lloyd. We've gotta get back to the Monastery and see if Cole and the Finders' souls were returned."

Sora nodded, pushing a stray lock of her own hair behind her ear. So much for not smearing blood in it. "I can fix that. But someone should stay with Lloyd."

"I can do that," Arin said, reaching forward to fix the strand she had missed and turning to Frak. "Do you- uh... do you want to find out what Jay's up to?"

Frak made a face. "Not really, no."

Sora sighed, turning to face them both. "Look, I know he's a real jerk but with the ninja out of commission, its up to us to make sure he doesn't get into any trouble. It's what Lloyd would do. For all we know, he could be trying to steal secrets or valuables, I don't know. He did seem pretty chafed about not being paid yet."

"Do you really think he would?" Frak asked quietly. "Steal from the ninja, I mean?"

"I wouldn't put it past him," Arin said mildly. "He shattered his goodness, remember? That guy chased Ras and I halfway across the Merged Lands. Soulless bastard. He would have killed me if Sora hadn't -" He broke off, toeing the carpet in frustration. Sora touched his shoulder gently. "It's just so sad," Arin said, kicking the leg of the coffee table with the back of his heel with more force than necessary. "Jay used to be one of the kindest, most fun-loving ninja of them all. I mean, I never met him in person before the Merge, but his reputation was solid. He once hosted this game show where regular people could try to get through this gauntlet. My parents and I watched it every night, it was hilarious."

"Oh, I remember that," Frak said almost reverently. "My parents used to watch old recordings of it when I was little. I mean, sure, mostly they did it to make fun of him because the peace between serpentine and the surface world was shaky at best at the time, but still."

"And he really loved Nya," Arin said. "It was literally the talk of Ninjago, a romance in the ninja team," he added for Sora's benefit. "They weren't just any couple. They were the couple. The couple everyone idolized. The kind of love that everyone strives to have." He bit down on his lip. "Nya is stronger than anyone else to put up with him the way she has. I know it isn't his fault but... I can't believe how cruel he's become."

"Guess that's what happens when you dabble in Theroxian magic," Frak muttered. "Arin, did I ever thank you for warning me against using that wolf mask in the tournament? Because, thank you, so much." Frak gave a longsuffering sigh and climbed to his feet. "I'll go see what he's up to."

Notes:

What's this? an update??
Why does inspiration only strike in the middle of the night on a weekday 😭
Kinda a filler chap, apologies but 100% Lloyd and Arin focus next chap
Hoping to get as much of this out as I can before s3p2 comes out but, yknow, life

Chapter 3

Arin wasn't sure how much time had passed before Lloyd began to stir. The moments slipped by like droplets of a glacier - cool and crystalline, carving a stream for the Bounty to cut through, drop by tedious drop. There was a clock somewhere across the room, if the metronomic tick was anything to go by, but whatever energy Arin might have had to raise his head had long succumbed to the glacial flow.

If nothing else, he knew it was quite late. Most of the porthole curtains were drawn, the creaking lantern painting swinging shadows between their velvet folds and catching the gleam of the kitchen window, the only one Arin hadn't bothered to close. Through it, the sky was a depthless void, unbroken by stars or the the needle-prick glow of a crescent moon - nothing to mark the distance they had already traveled from the Spectral lands, nothing to show how long they had all been lost to the quiet.

The quiet Arin knew all too well.

It wasn't a natural quiet. The kind that descends after a long day of training, when the banter is fueled by food and good company, bouncing through the living room until it ebbs away to peace. The kind that settles like a blanket, bridging the spaces where words aren't necessary. The kind that whispers of comfort, of light and serenity, softening your soul with the kind of belonging that can't be replicated.

This wasn't that quiet.

This was the quiet that had warped into existence with the rush of new air and the hazy silhouettes of places so foreign. It was the quiet that had rooted itself in the pounding heart of a scared little boy, making its home amongst the frazzled remains of a mind wired for contentment.

It was the kind of quiet that needles at your skin, plants uncertainty in your veins and tells your lungs to fill the space. The kind that weighs on the air when the tension begs for words but you fear the consequences of choosing the wrong ones. The kind that drops like heavy rain around the warmthless glow of a campfire, when you're too tired to play peacemaker between the only person you believe can put an end to the quiet, and the only person who had ever cared enough to endure it by your side from the beginning. It was the kind of quiet that seeps through the hollow corridors of a too-big ship, dousing it in the cruel weight of tragedy.

Because it wasn't bound to any one space. Not to this room, where the lantern rocked gently to the current of the sky, gouging sinking shadows beneath Lloyd's twitching eyelids. Not to the control deck, where Sora was pacing in time with the breeze, pink hair static from the amount of times she had run her fingers through it, hands clenching and unclenching, aching to touch controls that didn't need to be touched. Not to Nya's bedside, where Wyldfyre was slumped with Riyu's head in her lap, a cold replica of the girl who would blitz through the Monastery in a flurry of blue flame and wild cackles, the kind that could breach any wall, pierce any sorrow. Not to the rungs and catwalks of the Bounty, where Frak wandered aimlessly along, toeing at the knots in the deck and telling himself he was searching for Jay, even though he had long-since spotted the silhouette up in the crow's nest. Not to the medbay, where Arin hadn't dared to tread.

He breathed in, letting it out through his nose just slowly enough to challenge the quiet. He couldn't keep the hitch out of his next breath. The midnight brightness of the lantern stung his eyes, dragging cracks through the whites and needling at the tears he couldn't let himself cry. Like a blind man reaching for a torch in the dark, he grappled for a memory, the one that could burn the tears away with a touch, the one with an edge-glow so bright he could grasp it day or night, immersing his too-frantic heart in the steadiness of the scene.

A sun-speckled porch. Cherry pie fresh on the air. Idle fingers brushing through curls. Soft laughter on the breeze. The gentle sway of a porch swing at his back.

Arin closed his eyes, basking in the colours of the memory. They seemed somehow clearer, more vibrant, and it took him a few moments to realise why. For so long the colours had been subdued by a grey veneer, a sorrowful taint the image had long carried to separate the truth from the dream. But now, that grey tint was gone. Because for the first time since he couldn't remember, the truth and the dream had collided. It was no longer a memory nor a dream to look back on, but a place to look forward to. It wasn't some relic of a past life, or the ending of a film tape cut brutally short. It was a pause. Sure, a few hundred frames had been blotted out of existence, but the film was the same. It hadn't changed. They hadn't changed.

The same couldn't be said of Arin.

He shook the thought away as the quiet demanded, turning from his back to curl up on his side against the overstuffed arm of the chair he'd pulled up in place of the coffee table. Exhaustion demanded he close his eyes, but exhaustion was a selfish bastard. Instead, for the first time since he had left their side at the foot of the Spectral lands, he let his thoughts roam back to the Monastery - to the living, breathing, tangible nearness of his parents.

By now, they would be getting worried. By now, they would be pacing the empty halls, or finagling mission updates out of Mr. Frohicky, or holding his outgrown thread-picked hoodie in anxious fingers from the visceral comfort of the porch swing.

Briefly, he wondered how he would explain it to them - the mission, the outcome, the cost of their victory. He blanched at the thought of it. Arin had grown but when it came to the ninja, his parents were still awe-struck citizens, still snow-blinded super-fans. Arin had learned, but they were still too dazzled to see the dark side of peace, blissfully ignorant to the terrible price that was to be paid for the sake of legendary acclaim. He tried to picture their faces as he practiced telling them what had happened to Kai and Lloyd, but every scenario ended with them in tears. Tears for the realisation that the ninja were not infallible. Tears for the thought that Arin had been neck-deep in that danger alongside them. Tears for the crippling idea that it could have been Arin fighting for life in the medbay.

But he could hold their hands. He could meet their eyes. In the very least, he could assure then that they would never have to worry again. He could stop the tears. He could tell them the truth that he'd long come to accept - he could tell them he was quitting the ninja.

But as much as the thought was a balm to his soul, it was a stone in his gut.

He thought first of Sora, his best friend, his sanity. Sora, who held a light to all his darkest places, who always caught him before he even knew to fall, who knew the sound of his heart and the shape of his soul like no one else. Sora, the ninja prodigy he had always longed to be. Sora, who he loved beyond measure. Leaving the ninja meant leaving her side.

He thought of Riyu, that cheerful little dragon that had crashed a mech race and shimmied his way into all their hearts. Riyu, who had started him on the path to the dream he'd long savored. Riyu, who still hadn't quite forgiven Arin for the last time he'd left him behind, if the dragon's disgruntled little chirps were anything to go by. Riyu, who would keep Sora company on the nights where Arin's absence hurt the most.

And he thought of Lloyd. Lloyd, who always carried warmth in his smile, even when he couldn't possibly mean it. Lloyd, who would welcome Arin back with open arms, even if he decided to set the world to burn. Lloyd, who had brought a hand to his heart, genuine shock slicing through the ease of his expression when Arin had said the words, as if quitting was a concept as foreign as peace.

It wasn't like he would never see them again. They would come and visit, he was sure, and he could always drop in on them. He'd be allowed to do that.

It just wouldn't be the same.

A nameless sorrow rose with the thought, a hollow sob catching in his throat with it. The feeling that swept through his chest then was sudden, insistent and unmistakable. He wanted his parents. He wanted them now. He couldn't help it. The memory was still so fresh, so vivid he could almost feel it - the weight of their embrace, heavy with the thought of parting again so soon; the warmth of their words, the voices he'd so long missed.

It was the first breath you take after years spent beneath the waves. The absence of an ache your lungs have long learned to live with. It was the desperate reprieve from the pain, the way it aches all the more when you're thrust back below with nothing but the memory of what it was like to breathe.

He wanted to breathe.

He wanted the grounding warmth of his mother's arms. He wanted her hands to smooth the guilt on his face into something he could bear to live with. He wanted her eyes to crinkle with understanding, to catch his gaze and tell him he was doing the right thing. He wanted his father's gentle voice, the soothing timbre of his words. He wanted his work-worn palm against his cheek, wanted it to brush the inevitable tears from his eyes. He wanted his mouth to curve up in that crooked way of his, wanted him to tell him he was so proud, wanted him to -

Arin yelped, startled when something brushed against his wrist. It shocked him back from the endless caverns of his reverie, back to the awkward crick of his neck and the rocking lamplight. Blinking back stubborn tears once more, it took him far too long to realise that it was Lloyd's hand scrabbling at his sleeve, and even longer to notice that his eyes were open, bleary with pain, half-lidded and unfocused somewhere in Arin's direction.

"Kai," Lloyd whimpered, twining his fingers weakly in Arin's sleeve, the other hand poised against the sofa back as if he meant to get up. Arin lurched forward, guiding his arm back against his chest before he could get too far.

"You're awake," he said, trying a smile when Lloyd's eyes moved sluggishly to his face, suspecting it had come out closer to a grimace. "Don't move," he added quickly when he predictably tried to do just that. "Hey, it's Arin. You're hurt, Lloyd. Sora's got the controls, we're not far from the Monastery -"

"Kai," Lloyd tried again, half choking on the word through the breath he couldn't quite take. "He- is he -" Lloyd winced, closing his eyes as if he couldn't bear to finish the question. Heaving a pained, breathless gasp as if he already knew the answer.

"He's alive," Arin said slowly. "But... it's..." He swallowed. He didn't want to lie to his master about Kai's condition. But the dry gasps that had replaced his breaths were not comforting in the slightest - surely the last thing Lloyd needed right now was the truth. "He's alive," Arin said more firmly. "In the medbay. Frak's contacted Zane, he and Pixal are going to meet us back at the Monastery -"

"Nya?" Lloyd rasped.

"She's okay," Arin said, gripping his wrist in tight fingers when he failed to catch another breath, as if the pressure would remind him how to breathe. "She's just resting now. Wyldfyre is with her. Lloyd, they're okay. Take a breath, please."

His chest hitched again, another gasp catching in his throat. Lloyd's other hand was still wrapped up in Arin's sleeve, fingers slipping loose as he grappled for breath. Arin tightened his white-knuckle grip but after a moment of struggling, the iron band compressing Lloyd's lungs seemed to loosen, allowing him a single, halting breath. Then another. Another.

For a moment, he just breathed, eyes closed, face uncomfortably scrunched as if he couldn't quite believe he was still doing it. The fingers in Arin's sleeve clenched and unclenched in a nonsensical pattern - Arin wasn't sure if he was even aware he was doing it.

"Arin," Lloyd murmured.

"I'm here," Arin said, perching on the edge of the sofa beside him. He hadn't known his heart was racing until it began to settle down. "How's the pain? Do you need anything? I can -"

"Arin," Lloyd said, the word carrying a little more strength though his eyes remained closed. "I'm sorry."

Arin inhaled sharply, pulse picking up again. Because those were the absolute last words anyone wanted to hear from somebody's sickbed. Lloyd was fine. He had to be. They had made sure of it. He wouldn't- he wasn't going to -

A breathless moment passed before Lloyd seemed to realise how it had sounded. His eyes flickered open again, fingers sliding down Arin's sleeve to rest heavily on his hand. "Not- not like that. I'm- I feel- better." He swallowed. "I just- I'm sorry."

Arin couldn't resist the instinctive urge to find the pulse in his wrist, the steady thump of blood beneath his fingers, knowing his own couldn't settle until he did so. He blinked, not yet convinced that Lloyd was entirely present. "Lloyd?"

"Just... listen," Lloyd murmured. His eyes brushed tiredly across Arin's face, the hand in his grip angling free to grasp Arin's elbow, grip strengthening moment by moment with his awareness. "I'm sorry," he repeated quietly.

"For what?" Arin shook his head, but didn't pull his arm back. "Lloyd, I'm the one who's sorry. I messed everything up, I should never have trusted Ras -"

"You don't have to apologise for that." Lloyd tried to roll his undoubtedly stiff shoulder and winced, but his grip on Arin was steady. "You were manipulated. I know what it's like to be manipulated like that. I'm sorry that I didn't see it happening, but that... isn't what I meant." He licked his dry lips. Arin started, lurching for the jug of water on the coffee table, brought up short by Lloyd's grip on his elbow. "I'm okay," he murmured, though his weary eyes were downcast. "And I... I thought we had already put that behind us. I forgave you a long time ago, and I had hoped you had forgiven me -"

"I did! I have!" Arin swallowed past a similarly dry throat. "I... I had no real right to lash out at you in the first place -"

"Anger, when it's there, demands to be felt," Lloyd murmured.

"But I wasn't angry with you," Arin whispered. "I mean- not really. I was so frustrated with my own ability and I just... I don't know what happened."

"That's the thing about anger." Lloyd's grip slid from his elbow to his forearm. "It's raw. It burns like a brush fire. Quick and unpredictable. It doesn't listen to logic. A spark is all it takes to grow and spread into something uncontrollable. Because when it demands to be felt, you can't control how you feel it." He squeezed Arin's arm gently, seeking his eyes. "You can't always see what's in its path, and you can't always control who gets hurt in the fallout."

Arin shook his head. Even on his sickbed, Lloyd was astoundingly perceptive. "But I -"

"And I'm not blameless, Arin," Lloyd went on before he could voice his protest. "I put too much pressure on you. The one thing I swore I would never do, but I did it anyway. Your skill was just so... unheard of and I didn't know how to teach you in the way that you needed. And in my own ignorance, I made you feel like you weren't good enough, like you were a burden and a failure but you weren't. You aren't. You're the furthest thing from that."

Arin squeezed his eyes shut. "That's not true."

"Yes, it is," Lloyd said, his tone nothing short of absolute conviction. "And I should have found your parents so much earlier than I did," he admitted. "Six years ago in the chaos of the Merge storm, you asked me to save them. I should have tried harder. I should have kept my word to you -"

"Lloyd, no." Arin ducked his head, unable to meet his eye. "I'm in the wrong here. I- I was selfish to want to put my own needs ahead of the greater good. You were in communication with the Source Dragons, carrying out missions so important for them and I was acting like a child and I'm sorry."

"Arin," Lloyd murmured. The familiar roughness of scarred fingers scraped against Arin's chin, raising his head enough to meet the glint of Lloyd's eyes. "You were a child. You still are. But that's not a bad thing. You were a child who needed your parents and... I guess I just didn't understand how much it was hurting you. I- I never really had my parents when I was a child, so I guess I didn't really know what I was missing. I was raised by the ninja, a ragtag bunch of teenagers, and after a while, they were all I really needed." A calloused thumb brushed absently against Arin's cheek. "Kid, the point is, I'm sorry for all of it. But I have to apologise for something more recent than that."

Arin's lip wobbled, the warmth of Lloyd's hand a balm he hadn't anticipated. "I don't understand."

Lloyd's lip twitched in a faint smile, which turned quickly to a grimace as he attempted to shuffle further upright, only to have Arin press him back down firmly.

"Hey, hey, I said don't move," Arin murmured.

Lloyd looked up at Arin, eyes catching the shallow lamplight, bright but indecipherable. "You also said that after we defeated Thunderfang, you were quitting the ninja."

Ice plunged through his chest at the words. Slowly, he drew back, trying not to notice the brief pain that flashed over Lloyd's face as his hand fell limply from Arin's cheek. "I- I did. And- it remains true. Lloyd, I can't -" He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, resisting the urge to bite down. "I just got my family back," he whispered. "I- I can't lose them again."

"I know." Lloyd took his hand back, dropping it back across his chest as if he didn't know what else to do with it. His expression contorted briefly into something Arin couldn't hope to decipher, gone so quick he could have imagined it. "I understand that. That's why I'm sorry for reacting in the way I did."

"It was a pretty normal reaction," Arin tried to brush it off. "I mean -"

"No," Lloyd said. "Well... maybe. But the point is, that isn't how I wanted to react. Because when someone reacts like that, it makes you feel guilty about your decision, and I don't want you to feel guilty about it. The choice is yours. It's always been yours. I need you to know that. And I need you to know that whatever you choose, I won't hold it against you." His chest hitched with another shallow breath, an unfamiliar note slipping beneath his tone. "After missions like this, it's not hard to see why you might want a different path in life. And you still have that choice."

The note might have been unfamiliar in Lloyd's voice. But Arin recognised it more than he cared to admit. It was bitterness. Thinly concealed, but there all the same.

"And..." Arin realised, interpreting the note in a flash. "...you don't."

Lloyd managed a smile, too tight at the edges. "I never did."

Arin's stomach dropped. "I didn't know."

"Not many do," Lloyd murmured and this time, when he reached for Arin's wrist, he didn't pull away. "Look, I'm going to be honest with you, Arin. Before he died, Egalt told me that you had the greatest potential of all of us. He told me the world needed you to realise that potential, and he made me promise not to let you go astray. But that's a lot of pressure to put on a kid." His voice cracked on the word, but he pressed past the moment. Arin let him.

"I never wanted to be a ninja," he murmured, as if that were the only way to keep steady. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not unhappy with my life. I just... never had a choice in who I was going to be. And I'll be damned if I take that choice away from you while you still have the chance to walk away from this life. Especially when you've just got your family back." He swallowed thickly, eyes gleaming suspiciously bright. "Arin. I know these last couple years have been crisis after crisis, but I never had the chance to tell you just how much you mean to me. My first student. You came into my life when I was lost and alone, and brought so much joyful chaos with you it could almost fill the hollow void left behind in my family's disappearance. I know we've had our moments, but I need you to know that I'm so proud of you. For everything. I don't care what you tell yourself. You are an incredible ninja and an incredible person and -" He hesitated. "If you do choose to go... I'm really going to miss you."

Something ached in Arin's chest. It took a quiet moment to realise it was a sob rising in his throat. A natural quiet. A fleeting moment of belonging. The kind of quiet Arin had so long craved. A quiet to bridge the space where words didn't have to form. Arin spoke anyway. "You're going to make me cry."

"It's been a very emotional few days," Lloyd agreed, and reached to touch Arin's face. "Thank you," he murmured.

The sob pressed against his throat, making it uncomfortably tight. "For what?"

Lloyd smiled softly, fingers brushing the first glimmer of tears from Arin's eyes. "For everything."

The heat behind his eyes could be repressed no longer. A strangled sound escaped his throat. Before either of them could process it, he had lurched forward, arms thrown around his teacher with more force than he had intended, realising his mistake when Lloyd winced sharply.

"Sorry -" He pulled back, the motion cut abruptly short when Lloyd's arms tugged him back, one hand clutching the back of Arin's gi, the fingers of the other carding through his hair. He murmured something Arin couldn't quite make out and tightened his grip. The tears that had been searing the back of Arin's throat since the end of the battle pricked at his eyes once more. This time, with his face pressed to the steady warmth of his teacher's shoulder, Arin let them fall.

Notes:

So much for consistent chapters
The writing bug bit and lets just say the first 1500 words were entirely unplanned
Unrelated, I just wrote 2500 words on my wild theory of Ras' master that I can't disclose til near the end of the fic so...

I know s3p2 is just around the corner, really hoping to get at least the next chapter out before it does

Chapter 4

Notes:

literally wrote most of this in one day from zero notes so... welcome to the train of thought that flew off the rails ig?

Wind stirred the moorings of the crow's nest, prompting new wood to creak as if it were as old as the sky that pulsed around it. It was fluid and sure, an ever-changing sea, indifferent to the petty peaks and troughs of the world at large. Ignited by a will of its own, it could be soft as silk or brutal as teeth, cool as frost or warm as a breath long held against it.

Rogue kicked his ankles up over the rim of the crow's nest. It was a shallow space in the thrall of the wind, high above the rest of the ship. He liked the wind. He couldn't say how, or why, but he knew it was true. Maybe it was just the nature of lightning, to crave a storm in the absence of chaos. And maybe he could be satisfied with an answer so hollow as that. Because he knew the truth. There was a reason and an answer just beyond the shadows of his reach, banished to a life long-severed from his soul.

It wasn't like he hadn't tried to remember.

When the unsmiling agents of a clinical enterprise sought him out and put a name in his hands, it wasn't like he hadn't scoured his mind for a spark of recognition. It wasn't like he hadn't torn so brutally through the empty caverns of his mind for any trace of Jay Walker. Because there had to be something. A footprint. A flicker of light. A scuff in the faultless marble underfoot. Anything.

But the longer he searched, the less he found. Every step that echoed through the blank, insipid walls caught on nothing and rang empty. It was nothing but a burrow at the foot of a tree. Cold and crumbling. Shelter and seclusion. A matrix of caverns fiercely protected, yet safeguarding nothing but blackness and dust. A place so morose no ghost dared to tread.

If Jay Walker had ever truly been here, he'd long been erased.

When that insidious Ras had tracked him down, and injected a purpose in his soul, he'd braved the caverns again. By the cold hand of hope, he'd scavenged the marble and stone for a seed of truth in the lies Ras was spouting. And perhaps most surprising of all - he found one.

In the harsh silence of those sprawling caverns, a whisper that thrummed to the tune of his blood - an echo that speared though his bones and rang true to his soul. The fight. How could he have forgotten it? The adrenaline, the instinct - it veined the length of the matrix and collided in corners too dark to imagine.

As tales of conquests in the Wyldness unfurled from the tiger's lips, for the first time, in the formless mist of memory, a pallid shadow of Jay Walker had begun to emerge. Some of the blandness had lost its static resolve. The cold marble carapace had cracked beneath his feet and bled gold, and after years of dust and neglect, it had made sense.

What a joke that had turned out to be.

A fighting spirit that bled through his soul, and delivered him into the hands of deception. The clang of a gong. A shiver that wracked every bone in his body and shook out the only lights the cavern had ever known. The last unshattered thump of a heart turned to stone - the final nail in Jay Walker's casket.

Rogue would not be fooled again.

And so when the ninja had materialized and dared to stake their claim, he had had enough. The emotions, the fables, the memories they tried to shoehorn into the cold atriums of his mind. Maybe he could have ignored it. Maybe he could have consigned their ridiculous fancies to the hollow insides of those stonebound halls. Maybe they were the ghosts missing from these unhallowed halls of dust and intrapersonal ruin - and maybe there was a reason they'd been forgotten.

Their beguiling faces haunted him regardless. Like stars in the twilight they hung in the emptiness, faint as a whisper but brightly reflected when he closed his eyes. It was a taunt, a ghostly after-image without form or reason. He could have scrubbed his eyes of it, and dismissed it as nonsense - nothing but images planted by their stupid credulous stares; nothing but phantoms conjured up from a mind empty and overburdened.

Guilt was a foreign construct to a soul unmarred by fortitude. But there wasn't any other word for it - that subtle weight that unfurled in his chest, that tightness that crept up the back of his throat whenever one of them caught his eye, and looked fast away. Realistically, the guilt was unfounded, every bit as incorporeal as the ghosts that didn't exist, because Rogue hadn't done anything wrong.

Jay Walker had other ideas.

Like the musty breath of a coffin pried open, it rose to the high surface of the caverns, caressing broken stone and coating the dark in a residue so bitter Rogue could taste it on his tongue.

And maybe, just maybe, he could have lived with that - the ghosts, the stone, the guilt.

If that incessant girl hadn't gone so far as to tell him she loved him.

It was the lowest of blows, the cruelest of games. To take the breadcrumbs from a man long-starved. To proffer a heart in place of a hand. To covet a soul already divided amongst itself.

To offer up rot, and call it an olive branch

It was despicable. Unthinkable. It was everything that he'd been led to believe the self-righteous ninja would never dare to try.

Because the identity Jay had so meticulously forged around himself - it was all that he had.

And just like that, Nya had taken it.

I know you lost your memories but you need to know the truth. I love you. I will always love you.

And oh- the fury that those words had ignited.

He had thought Ras was bad, with his visions of grandeur and the clinical tact of a chess master. Ras, who had found him where solid footing was an illusion, where his sense of self had split the ground beneath him, where his own ineptitude had forsaken him to the deepest pits of the ravine growing around him. Ras, who had offered instruction in lieu of a hand, guiding him steadily upward with twisted words and bold promises. Ras, who had fed him ash and called it fire.

But Nya.

Oh Nya. That righteous little water lily had crossed a line.

Because Rogue was a junkyard project - an amalgamation of pieces pilfered from those around him, pieces to be bronzed and refined and molded to compensate for the holes left behind in the absence of memory. Deference, order and skepticism from the hallowed halls of the administration. Ambition, hatred, self-servitude and ruthlessness from the rugged terrain of the Wyldness. Diligence, durability, ingenuity from his short-lived stint at the Tournament of Sources.

But the pieces Nya had offered him - integrity and mercy, altruism and love - they just didn't fit. No matter how he shuffled and contorted them, the result was always clunky and wrong and there was only one thing that could mean - it was all an elaborate lie.

He'd take those cold empty caverns over an illusion any day. Because the only thing worse than false promises, were false promises of the heart.

Her hesitance at the Tournament, the tremble beneath the words she had said - a trick to get under his skin. Her fingers gentle around his arm in the First Land, that doting smile leading him into the Monastery courtyard - pity plain and simple, the set up for a future favour.

So by the First Master, why did he want to go below deck to see if she was okay?

Rogue wasn't stupid enough not to spot a pattern when it emerged. Everyone who had ever forged any kind of connection with him wanted something in return. His entire existence was conditional. The administration had rescued him from oblivion to make him a pawn. Ras had delivered him from his own ignorance, and asked for a weapon in return. And the ninja - they just wanted that Arin kid back.

They didn't want him.

All of their kindness, all of their godforsaken patience. It was all a means to an end. The moment the kid was back in their arms, they'd turn their backs. They'd realise the false truth of their own righteous motives. They'd forget Rogue. They'd leave him alone.

But they hadn't.

After everything in the Land of Lee, the Spectral Lands, the City of Temples - they'd clung on to him. He was the one who had left.

Rogue struck the crow's nest with the sole of his foot and let the night wind scatter the ash that flew free of his boot. It was a sea in the sky, every bit as malleable as any distant tide. The current slammed against the canvas sails and whistled through each eye of the rigging chain in a melancholy chorus of tide-life and solitude.

It was steady. Dependable.

Here, in the empty chasm of night, there was no one to please, no one to astound or intimidate and yet every performance remained the same. Chains rattled along to the beat it set in motion, cables swinging in tandem with every grunt of the mast.

It was unapologetically ruthless, irrefutably itself.

Maybe that was why he liked it.

Because up here, looking up at the slim shadow of a moon as intangible as his own mind, just for a moment - maybe he could be himself too.

Whoever that was.

For all the measly knowledge he'd gathered about himself, he could very well have been a pirate in his life before the Merge. He could see it - riding the high seas from windswept rungs hammered into the mast, chasing the sea-spray like lightning off the bow, singing wildly off-key, shanties of rum barrels and rope burn. It would explain the fight in his blood - that one stitch of certainty in a tapestry of fables.

Really, it was no less plausible than the likes of business suits, or ghoulish wolf masks, or tacky fruit-colored pajama wear.

But then - the business suits would never charge a direct path into the elemental blast of an anthropomorphic ghost to get to Rogue. Wolf masks could never engender the pain in the cry that had sliced the mist of the Spectral Lands with the rusting blade of Jay Walker's name.

It was nothing, he told himself in the hollow silence that had fallen in the aftermath. Totally nothing. They would do it for anyone.

It played out in his mind regardless.

Rogue had been a little busy, having found himself clinging to the semi-corporeal scales of the shatter dragon's back with the spectral Nokt turning toward him - how he had ended up in that position, he could no longer recall - but he remembered the desperation in Nya's shrill voice. The sudden frenzy of her efforts against the spectral dragonians boxing her in. The way the green ninja had caught on and raced up the shattered earth of the incline, golden blade carving splits in the fog, determination shining a ghostly pallor in his unnatural eyes. A blade that had no earthly chance against the spectral apparition of Nokt. A determination that would surely see him to his grave.

Idiot.

What exactly the ninja was planning to do, Rogue couldn't have said. But he remembered the shimmer of red, the tendrils of a dark power held even through seeming death. The thunderous crack of impact, ribbons of brute force, flinging the ninja clear across the dilapidated village. The distant crunch of too much glass, and the realisation that Nokt's distraction had given Rogue just enough time to find steady ground.

Whatever had come next was a blur of adrenaline and startling motion. A two-headed Arc dragon materialized in a brilliant flash as Arin and the technology girl finally fumbled the unbidden storm into place. That snake kid the ninja had stolen from Ras hurtled by in a mech hissing and sputtering with damage. A battle roar, a guttural laugh, the crackle of shatterspin and the red ninja did something incredibly stupid. Leaning most of his weight on the little dragon's shoulder, the green ninja stumbled into the street and - unbelievably - moved to rejoin the fight, one hand pressed to a bloody gash torn down his side

More blood on Rogue's hands.

More guilt to ignore.

Jay Walker's metaphorical coffin simmered acid at the thought.

Like a phantom induced by that awful weight in his chest, he remembered the words that insufferable kid had thrown out, a knife intended but far too distant to hurt.

You're supposed to be his brother. Not a liability.

Brother. Pfft. Like he'd ever had one of those.

The wind curled around his ankles. That phantom weight simmered in his soul.

Rogue willed it away. He hadn't asked the green ninja to throw his life away on a sentimental whim. It had no place in his conscience.

And even if it did, it wasn't like there was anything he could do for the guy now. Last he'd heard, Ras' little brat was guarding the injured green ninja like a rottweiler with its canines bared. From what, Rogue couldn't imagine, but there was no sense in finding out.

There was no sense in leaving his little sanctuary in the wind either, but somehow, his feet were already touching down on the deck though he couldn't fathom why.

But whatever the force propelling him forward, it certainly wasn't that infuriating weight in his chest. Maybe it was boredom. Maybe it was just his nature - lightning wasn't known to linger. It struck without reason and fled just as fast. It was violent heat and fleeting light. It was disaster cloaked as a spectacle, phenomenal at a distance and deadly within arms reach.

But what did it matter. If that disaster of a battle had been any indication, the ninja clearly didn't know what was good for them. And if nothing else, Rogue certainly fit that bill.

***

The red ninja was a splash of flame frozen in time, rootless, bound to sputter out when the hourglass tilted.

The medbay was a steel-walled space in the bowels of the ship, blindingly sterile and uncomfortably cramped. Leaning sideways on the door frame, Rogue cast an eye over the shoddy mess of tangled wires and thrumming machines crowding the small room, the medical tape and bandages someone had mummified the red ninja with. Those stupid spikes were pressed flat against the pillow, eyes firmly shut, and muscles twitching in his jaw with each intermittent wave of pain. Boards creaked a protest as Rogue edged his way over to the morphine drip - by all appearances it was properly attached, but one glance at the dial and it was clear someone had set the dosage way too low.

Kids, Rogue thought with a disappointed shake of the head, and moved to fix it. How he had known it was wrong, he couldn't say. It was nothing but a nagging instinct, a wire pulled taut with no point of origin. For all he knew, he could have been a doctor in his life before. He snorted at the thought the moment it surfaced. God no, that couldn't be it. If altruism, mercy and love didn't fit his broken mold, bedside manner didn't stand a chance.

"Pro tip," he murmured to the unhearing ninja, still fiddling with the dial. "If you idiots actually want to live, maybe get these kids some proper medical training when you wake up."

If you wake up, he didn't say. There was no particular reason for it. Hope might have been a vicious cycle of weakness, expectation and hurt, but it didn't feel right to snuff a candle so close to the dish.

Then again, who was he to decide what was right?

There was a rickety chair backed against the wall - Rogue sunk into it. A patter of ash and dirt blighted the stark white sheet as he kicked his boots up on the rail of the stretcher with an inelegant clang. "Jeez, you guys couldn't get some better furniture in here? Blew the budget on fifty thousand variations of the same suit, huh? And you say I'm the dummy. Well, that was Nya actually," he amended. "But you're all the same, aren't you? Righteous sacred vow this and saving the world that and blah blah insert boring hero speech here." He snorted. "Saving everything but yourselves by the look of it. Guess I don't have to tell you that."

Rogue set his hat down across his knees. What had possessed him to venture below deck, he couldn't say. It was nothing but a silly whim, he told himself. One of those strange compulsions nameless in nature and heedless of logic. That was just the way of lightning, wasn't it? Because that godawful weight in his chest couldn't be the answer. He wasn't trying to appease it. He wasn't trying to stave it away with the illusion of remorse. It wasn't like he cared one way or the other what happened to the red ninja - what was his name again? Cal? Kevin? Clark?

What did it matter? He didn't even know him. Those few torturous weeks he'd spent holed up in the Monastery, he'd expended too much effort on ignoring them all to bother with names. He'd met their every effort headlong with snarls and cutting words. He'd slapped away their every hand. He'd let every one of their faces, their voices, meld together like the abstract wash of a painting he didn't care to interpret. It was nothing but a swirling sea of honey-sour words and too many colours. He had every intention to leave it at that.

So then, what the hell was he doing here now?

Maybe it was selfishness. Maybe he just wanted a reprieve from the dust and blackness of the caverns of his mind. And maybe the night wind just wasn't loud enough. Because even the rot needed a host. Even the night craved the day. Every breath of wind sought company of the sky. Every strike of lightning needed the backing of a storm.

And at the very least, the red ninja hadn't been at the tournament. He hadn't been there to spear guilt through his soul by way of an agonised stare. He hadn't been there to back up Nya's lies, or drill some of his own through the vault of his skull. Sure, if given the chance, he would have done anything and everything he could to bring Jay Walker back to Nya. She was his sister, if memory served correct - it was only inevitable. But his options amongst the inhabitants of the flying ship were frustratingly slim. And by the smallest of margins... the red ninja was the only one who hadn't tried to manipulate him.

"I knew you ninja were fucking morons, but this is a whole other level," Rogue muttered, swinging his ankles idly. "What the hell were you thinking, huh? You've put everyone in a mood. Which is great for me, actually, means there's finally some peace and quiet. Didn't know those kids were even capable of quiet. Especially your one. What's her name? Wyldfyre?"

Steady beeping from the heart monitor was the only response. Rogue glanced at it - seemed to be stable enough. So too the breath lifting the ninja's chest in a steady rhythm - steadier now with the morphine drip properly adjusted.

"Yeah, her," Rogue went on. "The one you so stupidly shoved aside so you'd end up here instead. That's right, I saw the whole thing. Thanks a lot. Now she's guarding Nya like a jealous dragon - alongside an actual dragon, I might add - and I've got no chance of getting close. If I wanted to, that is, because I don't. Why would I? I mean, she seems nice and all but why does she have to be so..." He shook his head. "What does it matter? She's your sister, right? If you hadn't been such a big idiot you'd be right there by her side. I'm the bad guy here. I've totally and completely blown it this time. Heh. Mission accomplished, I guess. So then why do I feel..."

Rogue snapped his feet off the rail, letting the thud of his boots on the floor ring against the steel walls and snap him back to reality. "Forget it. God, why am I even talking to you? Why am I still here? You've really lost the plot this time, Rogue." The name felt thick on his own tongue. He laughed past it. "Feel? Pfft. I don't feel. You ninja and your damn feelings. It's gonna get you killed, y'know. That is, if you survive this. Which, I'm not betting on your chances."

The red ninja didn't so much as twitch a finger.

Rogue brushed his thumb over a loose weave in his hat. "Bad luck to talk about death in a sickroom, huh? What a load of crap that is. Luck doesn't exist. People who believe in it are just too stupid to recognise it as a product of skill and hard work. None of this planet aligning bullshit. You don't believe in luck, do you? Nah, you couldn't. You don't strike me as much of a fatalist. That'd mean you'd have to believe that you ending up here half dead was all just some twisted cog in a cosmic machine. Preposterous."

He paused. Through the beeps and whirs of equipment he heard it - the quiet patter of footsteps coming down the hall. Rogue was on his feet and tipping his hat back over his ponytail in one smooth movement.

"Guess that's my cue."

Fine ash chased his footsteps to the open door, but there was something else nipping at his heels. The ghosts of his ghosts. That damn phantom weight. It was like a rough-hewn stone in his gut, one that seemed to sink ever deeper, scraping every nerve it passed, slicing tendons and injecting his veins with a lead that clawed its way to his mind. It wanted something from him - a sign, a lift of the weight, a reprieve, any reprieve -

Rogue spun at the door with a growl in his throat, glaring at the comatose ninja like he was to blame. "Look, Cal," he said before he knew what he was saying. "Try not to die. God knows why, but Nya loves you. And yeah, she's a pain in the ass and you're probably not much better but..." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "She... doesn't deserve that. And don't go thinking I care one iota about you, because I don't. I don't feel anything. The gong shattered it all, remember?"

He let out a breathless laugh, humorless and probably bordering on lunacy. Because was there any truth to that claim? Every time- every bloody time he tried to push them away, the ghosts pushed back. The guilt stirred anew. Here, in their holier-than-thou midst, Jay Walker's ghosts were too strong. If he gave an inch, they took a mile. Those blinding after-images were seared to his soul. The ninja were nothing but a vessel for the guilt.

Enough. This was enough.

The war was over and he'd made up his mind. So what if that phantom weight never dissolved? So what if those ghosts traced his footsteps to the ends of the Merged Lands? He'd been teetering on that jagged divide long enough.

Rogue had to choose a direction to fall, once and for all.

"Well," he said, tilting his hat in the red ninja's direction. "Ras isn't going to capture himself. It'd be a hell of a lot easier if he would, but what can I say? We just can't have it all. Not to mention none of you idiots are gonna be in any fit shape to pay me anytime soon. I'll be chasing that up, don't you worry." The stone churned in his gut. This time, Rogue ignored it. The footsteps creaked ever closer. "So long, whatever the hell your name is," Rogue muttered. "I sincerely hope our paths don't cross again."

That cursed stone sunk deeper in his gut as he made his way back to the deck. It twisted and struggled as he reached the sleek wooden rail. The mast moaned in tandem with the ghosts, calling him back. Dawn was cracking on the horizon, lifting the stars and erasing the night, wisp by shadowy wisp. The wind was a sea.

And there was no one to stop Rogue from diving in.

Notes:

Is it- could it be- Rogue angst??
Guys I love Jaya I swear
Its a little jumbled cos I think Rogue himself is a little jumbled atm
This entire chapter was totally and completely unplanned so...
Felt like we needed to see where the mind of our favourite jerk was at before stuff really starts happening