It was an accident.
But, that only made Jay feel worse.
Because, how could he have been so careless? He knew it was dangerous, it was supposed to be dangerous, and still…
The ninja had been completing a stamina exercise at Master Wu's behest. They were to walk the entire nine mile trail in the appropriately named Treacherous Wood. The ground was uneven and unstable, the path was nearly overgrown with various shrubs and protruding roots, and it was steadily climbing upward. The six of them had started cheerily enough, but now, halfway through, all of them were boasting several bruises and scrapes and complained more often than not. Only Lloyd was still upbeat, determined to keep up the morale of his team as he led them through the seemingly endless forest. Jay and Cole brought up the rear, trudging through dead leaves and over pebbles that were just loose enough to make one lose their footing.
"Are we there yet…?" Cole whined, kicking a perfectly innocent rock off the steep ledge they were skirting. "I'm starving…,"
"What are you complaining about?" Jay snapped, wiping sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. "You're a ghost. You can't even, like, feel anything."
"I still move, I still get tired, I still get hungry," Cole argued, then waved a hand in Jay's direction. "I just don't get all flushed and sweaty and gross like you."
"I'm not gross…," Jay muttered, shouldering past the ghost.
"Have you ever looked in a mirror?" Cole laughed, punching Jay's arm in retaliation.
He knew they were all in a bad mood from the heat and exertion. He knew that Cole probably didn't mean to punch him as hard as he did; the black ninja didn't know his own strength. But, for a second, one singular moment, Jay was mad. He wanted more than anything to wipe that smirk off the ghost's face, and so he shoved Cole as hard as he could.
If only Cole had been expecting it. If only Jay's hands had phased through him. If only Cole hadn't tripped over a tree root. If only he hadn't tumbled over the ledge.
If only there hadn't been a pond of water at the bottom.
Too late, Jay realized his mistake, and he lunged to grab Cole's hand and pull him up and hug him and tell him he was sorry and then laugh because man, that was a close call.
He could've sworn he brushed Cole's fingertips, but the black ninja had already fallen too far. Cole, at the same time, seemed to realize his fate and the inevitability of what was about to happen. And, that was the worst part: his face as he looked back at Jay one last time.
He was so, so scared.
Jay died inside when he heard the splash of water far below. And then, silence.
"Guys, what's going on back there?" He distantly heard Lloyd call. The others had left them behind a long time ago but had apparently backtracked when they noticed their absence. "Will you two quit goofing off-" Lloyd stopped when he saw Jay's face. "Jay? Where's Cole?"
Jay couldn't even see the four- five, shouldn't there be five? Nya and four brothers so where- where- where- the four ninja gathered around him in a loose, increasingly concerned circle. All he could see was Cole's face- he was so scared…
"Jay?" Nya repeated, touching his shoulder. "You're scaring us." Cole, Cole was scared, Cole was scared because of what he did. "Did something happen? Where did Cole go?"
"Cole?" Kai called, cupping his hands around his mouth to increase the volume. "Cole, reappear now. If this is a prank, it's not funny."
Zane cocked his head, peering at Jay curiously. The blue ninja seemed to be staring into space, but maybe… The nindroid carefully bent over to look over the side of the ledge. Cole, Cole, should be there, Cole's down there waiting to make fun of him for thinking...
Zane grabbed the front of Jay's gi in both fists, eliciting protests from Lloyd and Nya. "Jay, answer me." Each word was punctuated with an intensity that made Jay want to curl up and hide forever. "Did Cole fall?"
Only then did tears begin to pour down his cheeks. "No," he choked out, shaking his head frantically.
"I pushed him."
Zane and Lloyd were immediately skidding down the face of the slope, sloshing knee deep into the pond and searching- searching for what? There was nothing to find- and calling Cole's name desperately as if that would be enough to bring him back…
Kai took Zane's place directly in front of Jay, grabbing his shoulders so hard Jay was sure he broke skin- it was less than he deserved. "Jay. Jay, please tell me this is a prank." Kai's eyes were glistening with unshed tears, but Jay couldn't look away. "No one's going to be mad if this is a prank."
"Kai...," Nya said in a reproachful tone of voice, wiping her own tear-stained cheeks with her sleeve.
"No," Jay whispered, another sob escaping with the word. "I killed him."
Kai went deathly still for an instant.
Then he punched Jay in the face.
"How could you be so stupid?!" The red ninja roared. Jay hit the ground on his back, all the wind knocked out of him, but he couldn't bring himself to care.
"Kai!" Nya shrieked. "Stop!"
But, then the red ninja was on top of Jay, his knuckles making satisfactory contact with the soft flesh of Jay's face once again. The blue ninja felt as if he was watching the exchange happen from Nya's point of view. He even kind of liked the pain throbbing in his cheek. At least it was something. At least it was a feeling.
"How could you, Jay?" Kai was sobbing too now as he jerked Jay back and forth by the collar of his gi. "He was our brother. You shouldn't have- You should've done something- You should've saved-"
The words meant nothing to Jay. He'd already thought them all before.
"Kai, stop! It was an accident!" Nya begged, shoving her brother off Jay, then kneeling by the blue ninja's side.
The red ninja was back on his feet in an instant and made to lunge again- until Zane and Lloyd reappeared and both grabbed one of his arms to restrain him.
Nya looked up hopefully. "Did you…?"
"No." Zane replied, his expression completely blank and his tone empty. "We did not."
"We have to go tell Master Wu," Lloyd input, readjusting his grip on the struggling Kai. "He'll know what to do. He can fix-"
"Cole is dead, Lloyd!" Kai yelled, finally yanking free of their hold but not attacking the blue ninja. Not that Jay would have cared if he had. "There's nothing to fix!"
Lloyd bit his lip and blinked, his eyes wet. "There has to be a way. There's always a way."
"Just like there was a way for your dad?"
Zane held up an arm, stopping Lloyd's advance toward Kai. "Do not," the Green Ninja growled, "bring my father into this."
"We need to go home," Nya interrupted before the argument could escalate any further. "We need to tell Wu. We need to… There are a lot of things to do." She finished quietly.
Zane began walking back the way they had come.
Kai and Lloyd glared at each other a moment longer before the fire ninja looked away with a grunt of disgust and followed Zane.
Lloyd and Nya helped Jay to his feet. He followed them. He moved his feet. He watched the ground, but all he could see was Cole's face.
He was so scared…
Master Wu listened, stoic, as Lloyd recounted the story back on the Destiny's Bounty. He did not move to comfort the boy when he broke down in tears halfway through but waited silently as Misako calmed Lloyd down. Nya took up the yarn instead, barely managing to finish it herself.
They were gathered in a group on the deck. Kai was turned slightly away, arms crossed over his chest and staring out into the distance with a poisonous glare on his face. Zane appeared to be almost absent, staring at everyone and everything with this oddly perplexed look on his face, as if he had never seen any of them before. Jay, who had returned to himself a bit more as they had walked the four miles back, stared at the deck in shame as tears steadily pushed themselves out of his eyes. He wanted to cradle his aching cheek but quickly decided he didn't deserve to.
When Nya stopped, Lloyd stepped forward. "But, there's a way to fix it, right? I mean, there is a way to bring Cole back, right? He's a ghost. He can't die." Then, as if no one had heard him the first time, he repeated, "He can't die."
Master Wu took a deep breath before answering. "I… do not know the answer to that question."
Everyone looked up with hope in their eyes. Because if it wasn't a no, then it was a maybe, and the ninja had succeeded on a lot less than maybe in the past.
Everyone except for Kai, who spit, "Water kills ghosts. That's how it is."
"Coming into contact with water forces ghosts to return to the realm from which they came," Wu corrected, stroking his beard. "This was true when there was a Cursed Realm for the ghosts to return to; the same would hold true for the Realm of the Departed. But, this is where the uncertainty lies. Cole was never sent to the Realm of the Departed in the first place. His soul is not tethered there."
"So… he's still here then?" Lloyd asked, face brightening.
"As I said, I do not know," Wu shook his head sadly, and suddenly he appeared much, much older than he actually was. "Coming into contact with water may have sent Cole's soul to the Realm of the Departed anyway. He may reappear right here in the Destiny's Bounty. Or, his soul may have simply... faded from existence altogether." Master Wu turned away, shuffling toward his quarters.
"But, Sensei," Nya called after him. "What do we do?"
"We wait," Master Wu answered, coming to a stop. "We hope Cole returns on his own. If he does not… you have no one to blame but yourselves." Only then was the pain present in the old man's voice, and he quickly left to mourn in private.
Lloyd let Misako lead him below deck even as he insisted to her that Cole would be back in no time.
Jay gasped when Kai shoved him hard in the chest. "Wu's right. You have no one to blame but yourself," he snarled before stomping toward his own bedroom. Nya glanced back and forth between her brother and Jay before sighing and choosing the former, rushing after him.
Jay started when he felt a hand grasp his wrist. Zane was looking back at him with that same eerily neutral expression, never looking more like a nindroid in Jay's mind. Without saying a word, he dragged the blue ninja toward the kitchen, and Jay followed like a dog on a leash.
Zane sat Jay down in a chair at the kitchen table and prepared a bag of ice for him. He wrapped it in a cloth and then sat beside him, holding the ice to his bruised and swollen cheek.
"Zane," was all Jay could manage before he broke down in tears again. Through his sobs, he asked, "Do you hate me?"
The pressure on his cheek increased to an almost painful level before relaxing once again. After an eternity, the nindroid sighed. "No."
"Why not?" Jay said, pushing the ice away from his face. He didn't want to treat the bruise. He would wear it as a reminder of what he'd done. "Kai does. You should."
"Because, while it was highly irresponsible and idiotic, it was still an accident," Zane answered, placing the bag of ice carefully on the table and staring at it a moment before raising his eyes to meet Jay's.
"And, he would not want us to hate you."
Then, Jay was bawling in Zane's arms, gasping for air as he cried, "I'm sorry, Cole. I'm so so sorry. Can you ever forgive me? Can you ever forgive me for killing you…?"