WOW! Here I was afraid everyone had forgotten me, and then you guys gift me with 32 reviews on one chapter! :D Thank you all SOOO much for your continued love and support! It really means the world to me!
This chapter also takes place after Season 7 and before Season 8 (but don't worry- next chapter, we'll start to get into later seasons ;D)
Also, shout out to KyraPlays for helping me develop this idea (and being such a big help in so many other ways too!) She is also the wonderful artist that made covers for Broken Circle, Forgotten Memory, Jay's Five Times, Cole's Five Times, Getting to Know You, and Morro's Five Times! :D Thank you so much, Kyra! :D
Special thanks to: agent. pebble, NaninaDaPanda, ninjaloser, RevlisCharm, FirstFandomFangirl, Katla1, KyraPlays, Nerdeology-000, CHEESEPUFF fg, RandomDragon2.0, WindNinja333, Peanut2196, StoriesAreMagic, GameCubeGirl1, MasterOfMusic139, Wolfwhisker Party Cat, Bookkeeper2004, Piggon, The-Aroace-Queen-in-the-Quiver, thefiresensei, JBomb12, SheaAndDove, SpiritDragon, Plumcicle, NinjagoFangurl7, TheYellowNinja, Mikey, spotsscat, Guest, The Titan's Shadow, FlightOfTheFury, and Guest for reviewing! :D
Replies to guest reviews:
JBomb12: Haha! The wait is FINALLY over! XD (Sorry it took so long XD) Yay, and I'm glad you liked the references to Zane's dad and the time they were teachers (I loved that so much XD) Ooh, great idea! Thank you so much for the suggestion and your lovely review! :D
SpiritDragon: Ooh, very interesting story, so thank you for sharing! That definitely sounds psychosomatic to me, and I've definitely experienced something similar before too! (Though mine was stress from school :/) Thank you so much for reviewing! :D
Plumcicle: Yay, I'm so glad you're enjoying the Five Times so far, especially if Zane is your favorite! Thank you so much for reviewing! :D
TheYellowNinja: Thank you for ALWAYS supporting me on every single story! That birthday review really meant a lot to me, so I hope my story could do the same for you! :D Yep, and as the chapters go on, we will get into the even later seasons! ;D If it wasn't obvious, I DEFINITELY wanted to see more of the aftermath of Kai finding his parents (instead of, you know, NEVER MENTIONING THEM AGAIN), because there is no way they could go back to being a normal family without some serious healing :3 Knowing that you always learn something from my writing is one of the BEST compliments I can think of! :D I researched it on the internet a little bit, but I've also gone through something similar before ^-^ And, YES, I definitely wanted to do a *little* bit of the unexpected with going a little bit outside of the "physical" ailment realm :D Thank you so much for this lovely, LOVELY review! :D
Mikey: "In love with my writing?!" Yay, I'm so happy! :D "Fit for canon!?" Okay, you are WAAAY too kind! ^-^ Thank you so so SO much for this wonderful review :D
spotsscat: Oh my goodness! Why on earth would you be NERVOUS about leaving a review that made my entire YEAR?! I am STOKED to know you enjoy my writing so much, and that scene with Gem and Morro was one of my favorites to write, so to know that it affected you so much... is just an INCREDIBLE feeling! Thank you so so SO much for considering me an amazing writer! :D Please don't ever feel nervous, because I am over the moon right now! :D
Guest: Aw, thank you so much! I'll try! XD
Guest: Ooh, great idea! I will definitely keep that in mind! Thank you sooo much for the suggestion and reviewing! :D
Zane had never heard Nya scream like that. It cut him right to his core, sent a shiver of unease through every one of his circuits, flashed warnings across every one of his sensors. It was agonized. Primal.
All of the members of the team had heard the scream, but they were preoccupied with the burglars they had caught breaking into the Ninjago City Museum and attempting to escape with millions of dollars of artifacts. Although they were no match for the ninja with regard to combat skill, they were organized and well-armed, and the ninja were trying to defeat them without damaging any of the museum displays, which drew the fight out.
Kai and Jay in particular had been invigorated by Nya's scream, trying to dispatch their opponents quickly in order to get to her, but Zane was much closer. Slamming the burglar into a wall (carefully aimed so as to be between two priceless paintings), he rushed to Nya's side, signalling to the others that she would be taken care of.
"Nya!" He said urgently, placing a hand on her back. She was curled up in a ball on the floor, clutching her face. "What happened?! Where are you hurt?!"
"I can't- I can't-" Nya shook her head, her ponytail waving frantically back and forth. "I can't see…"
"Blinding powder!" Zane called over his shoulders to his brothers who were whittling down their opponents while covering their incapacitated teammates. "Watch out for their blinding powder!"
Turning back to Nya, he gently grasped her wrists, trying to coax her hands away from her face. "Let me see, Nya…"
Finally, he was able to pull her hands away, and she rested them uselessly in her lap. Zane tilted her chin upward so he could study her gray blue eyes.
They were bright red and irritated. The skin around them was puckered and red as well. Tears were streaming down her face of their own accord, her eyes futilely attempting to fix the problem.
But, most disturbingly, her eyes were staring straight ahead. They looked right through Zane, past him at something he couldn't see. Nya alternated between blinking her eyes rapidly and squinting, as if that would clear away the curtain that had fallen over her vision.
"Zane," Nya choked out, reaching both hands forward and clutching his gi. "The others… Are they okay?"
The white ninja looked over his shoulder once again to see the rest of the ninja tying up the would-be burglars.
"Yes," he whispered, resting his hands on top of hers, squeezing all of his relief into her little, elegant fingers. It would take him quite a long time to get that scream out of his head, but at least his sister was still here to try to replace it, at least it was not the last thing he had ever heard from her. "Everyone is okay."
The five male ninja hopped to their feet the moment Nya reentered the waiting room with a nurse, her arm hooked in the crook of the nurse's elbow.
Her gray-blue eyes were blank.
"So?" Kai demanded, accosting the nurse as he grabbed Nya's arm and guided her to stand next to him.
"The doctor prescribed some eye drops," the nurse replied, shrinking under the red ninja's scrutiny.
"But, there's a chance it won't work," Nya spit. Zane noticed her clenching her fists. The prescription slip crinkled in her hand. "There's a chance I'll be blind forever."
"A small chance," the nurse reminded her optimistically. "Other than that, the doctor recommended lots of bed rest and fluids."
Nya didn't respond. Her mouth was pressed into a thin line, which signalled to the others that somebody was about to get chewed out.
"Thanks," Cole said by way of dismissal, and the nurse gratefully scurried away from the more than likely unruly patient.
"Nya," Jay said when they were alone, reaching for her hand. "I'm so glad you're o-"
"I'm not okay," Nya snapped, pulling her hand out of Jay's grasp. "How am I supposed to be a ninja if I'm blind?"
"Well, let's not jump to worst case scenarios," Lloyd suggested. "Let's just get you home for now and see what happens."
Kai moved to lead Nya out of the hospital… until she pulled away from him.
"I can walk on my own," she stated firmly, glaring at a spot on the wall to Kai's left.
"Nya, c'mon," Kai insisted. "It's no big-"
She was already walking away, stomping out of the waiting room as if it was its fault this had happened to her. After bumping into chairs, the coffee table, a person, and the wall, which she shimmied along until she found the door, Nya had successfully found her away outside while the others watched in confusion.
"We should probably ensure that she does not walk into traffic," Zane suggested calmly.
This reanimated the ninja, and they rushed to catch up to Nya, forming a protective barrier around her without touching her, watching over her no matter how determined she was to go on her own.
The next morning, Zane turned the doorknob to Nya's bedroom as softly as possible. While there was a strict knocking policy when it came to Nya's bedroom, Zane didn't want to wake her; only check to make sure her eyes weren't irritating her on his way to make breakfast.
Of course, he found then that he didn't have to worry about waking her. She wasn't there.
Zane scratched his head, frowning. The doctor had said bedrest, and yet Nya was up and about at six o'clock in the morning? Surely, she couldn't have gotten far in her condition.
After tiptoeing throughout the Airjitzu Temple, past Cole's earth shaking snores, Jay's sleep muttering, Lloyd's baby snores, and Kai's constant rustling, Zane found Nya outside in the courtyard.
Training.
With a sword.
"Nya!" He shouted admonishingly once he had firmly shut the door to the temple. She didn't jump, but she did pause in her drills, tilting her head to listen.
"What are you doing?" Zane demanded. As soon as he got close enough to her, he placed his hand on the hilt of the sword. He began to pull it away, but Nya's face only hardened as she tightened her grip on the weapon.
"It's all muscle memory, Zane," Nya reminded him with a huff, staring more at his neck than his face. He had taken notice of her pristine ponytail and tight, no nonsense knot in her belt. Those things were muscle memory, sure, but, still, Zane wondered how long she had struggled with those tasks- and how long she had been awake to do so. "I'm not going to hurt myself or anything."
"I am well aware of that," Zane confirmed, though he wasn't so sure he was aware of that. Wu had told them from day one that weapons were not toys, and while Nya never had irresponsible intentions (like some of the other ninja), this was nothing but reckless. "Why are you not in bed? The doctor said you need rest."
"I can't just stop training," she reminded him, the edge of her tone cutting through his resolve like a hot knife through butter.
After all, he and Nya… got along. All of the other ninja had been caught on the wrong side of their firecracker sister before (except maybe Lloyd, because who didn't have a soft spot for the baby?), but he had always felt like he and Nya had a… mutual understanding. An exasperated love for the others' antics, but never abandoning reason, the gentle guiding light they were happy to carry for their more carefree brothers.
And, now… they were arguing.
And, it felt wrong.
"Do you want your eyes to heal or not?" Zane asked, unable to keep the frostiness out of his voice.
"They will or they won't," Nya snapped back, finally releasing the sword into Zane's grasp now that she knew the nindroid was not backing down. "I better start learning how to get along without them."
Before Zane could reply, she was sauntering back toward the temple, though carefully and with both arms held out in front of her. He watched long enough to ensure she got inside (and didn't wander off the edge of the floating island) before sighing and lowering his gaze to the sword.
How was he supposed to tell her now that she had put on two mismatched shoes?
Getting through the day was… hard.
Nya bit off the head of any one who dared mention her condition, and may the First Spinjitzu Master help them if they did so sympathetically. Nya seemed to want to move forward as if nothing at all had changed. She didn't want Zane's help getting around but preferred to move along the wall inch by inch to strengthen her mental map. She resented the soup Zane made for her in an attempt to give her something she could easily eat on her own.
It was as if she hoped that by not allowing anybody to talk about the elephant in the room, it would simply go away. Instead, it was only growing larger and larger, suffocating the rest of the ninja until they had to get away from her just to breathe.
Which was all but confirmed when Zane stumbled across Kai, Cole, and Jay hiding under the bridge just outside the Airjitzu Temple. Their eyes were ginormous, muscles poised to flee until they saw that it was only Zane.
"Did you come out here to get away from Nya too?" Cole asked, relaxing under the cool shade of the bridge once again.
Zane hesitated, averting his eyes. He did not want to admit to something so mean sounding, but he had needed to compose himself before entering into another power struggle with Nya over the amount of bedrest she needed.
"It's okay, Zane," Jay reassured miserably from where he was curled up next to Cole. "I want to help her, too! And, I know that this is an absolutely terrible thing that's happened to her, and I know she needs space to cope… But, it's like everything I do is wrong to her…"
"Yes!" Zane found himself agreeing emphatically, seating himself carefully upon one of the more dry rocks to preserve his pristine white gi. "She does not seem to realize that everything I do is for her own benefit! It is as if she purposely does the exact opposite of what I say in order to spite me! She is acting like… like…"
"A little sister?" Kai finished with a smirk.
Zane started, his mouth slack.
Kai laughed. "This is how she's always been, Zane. No matter what, she would never let me take care of her when she was sick. I basically had to force feed her."
Kai sighed, seriousness descending upon him and making him sink under its weight. "Look, the doctor said a few days for her eyes to heal, so we'll just have to do what we can for her until then. And if they don't heal… I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."
Unfortunately, having to deal with something came a lot sooner than any of them hoped. The ninja were lounging in the living room, "watching" TV (Nya had insisted on it, listening with a murderous expression on her face while the others sat stiffly as statues) when Lloyd rushed in.
"Guys, we gotta go. There's been a break in at Borg Tower."
All of the ninja hopped to their feet.
Which was to say, all of the ninja hopped to their feet.
The male ninja shared an uneasy look while Nya stood there, determined as if she knew exactly what they were thinking but refused to acknowledge it.
"Nya." Lloyd, as leader, had to bite the bullet and say it. "I'm sorry, but you can't come."
"What?" The water ninja demanded. "Are you saying because I'm blind I can't be a ninja anymore?"
"Of course not," Lloyd replied without missing a beat. "But, you're not trained to fight blind. If Master Wu were here, he could teach you how to hone your other senses…," The Green Ninja shook his head. "But, either way, Nya, the doctor said you need rest."
Sounding firmer than he ever had when dealing with his big sister, Lloyd said, "You're not coming and that's final."
The others waited for the explosion, knowing that any soothing words would only increase the volatility, not contain the blast.
But, it didn't come. Nya huffed, clenching her fists, and walked toward the hall, her head held high. Her mental map was fairly clear at this point, and so the effect was not diminished by her walking into a wall or a corner.
Her bedroom door slammed behind her.
"You made the right decision, Lloyd," Zane reassured as soon as even a hint of dismay peeked out of Lloyd's features. "I will stay here with Nya in case she is in need of assistance or there is an emergency."
"Thanks, Zane!" The four ninja called over their shoulders on their way out. "You're a lifesaver!"
After the door shut and he could hear the Destiny's Bounty pulling away from the floating island, though, he wondered if he had spared his siblings only to die at the hands of the beast smoldering in her chambers.
Zane was sitting on the couch reading, and so he heard the crash easily enough.
Then, Nya cried out.
It wasn't the scream that had been torn out of her when she had been blinded- nothing would be as heart-wrenching or terrifying as a noise that should not emit from any human, let alone his invincible sister- but it was an echo of it, and Zane was already halfway down the hall before he remembered moving.
He pushed open the door to Nya's room, disobeying the knocking protocol for the second time in as many days.
Nya's bedside lamp was no longer a lamp but a circle of broken glass on the hardwood floor, the lamp shade lying dented a few feet away.
Nya herself was standing at the center of the wreckage, resting all her weight on her bare left foot while she held the right one gingerly, only the toes grazing the ground to keep her balance.
Blood dripped onto the floor from a cut in her foot.
"Nya," Zane said gently, moving farther into the room. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, yeah," she responded immediately, her sightless eyes staring straight ahead. She didn't turn toward his voice. Her entire body was rigid. Everything about her was screaming at him to go away.
But, maybe… maybe in those sightless eyes that she could not disguise, he could see what she really wanted him to hear. A whisper beneath the scream that was asking oh so quietly for help.
"I'm good," she reiterated breathlessly, hissing in pain when she put too much weight on her right foot. "I was just going to put my eye drops in when I stupidly knocked over the bottle and when I was looking for it, I stupidly knocked the lamp over and-"
"Nya," Zane repeated more softly. Unafraid of the glass that could not penetrate his titanium skeleton, he approached her with little crinkling footsteps, as if he were cracking ice beneath his feet. He grasped her upper arm so she would know exactly where he was. She gasped softly but didn't pull away.
"Let me help you," he pleaded. "Not because you are weak or stupid but because it hurts me to see you in pain. So, please, for my benefit, let me help you with this."
Nya bit her lip. She blinked heavily twice, before slowly, slowly, nodding.
Swinging her into his arms before she could change her mind, Zane transported her the step and a half to her bed in order to avoid collecting anymore broken glass in her feet. He left and returned with the first aid kit in a matter of moments, and then sat beside her on the bed, gently guiding her right foot into his lap so he could inspect it.
There was a medium sized piece of the aqua blue lamp sticking out of her foot. Zane could not manage to keep from making a noise of displeasure as he rummaged in the kit for the pair of tweezers.
"Why did you not just ask for help?" Zane demanded, unable to keep the rebuke out of his voice. Sure, he was normally level-headed and understanding, but Nya was bleeding with an inch long shard of glass in her foot as a direct result of her stubbornness.
"I was fine, Zane," she defended, even though it sounded weak to both of them. "I can hand-"
"No. Why will you not ask for help?" Zane repeated even more forcefully. "Why will you not let your family help you?"
Nya was quiet. Her eyes were still in her head, staring straight ahead at nothing, but Zane could see the thoughts passing over her face regardless in the scrunching of her nose, the working of her jaw.
Feeling guilty despite himself, Zane sighed before grasping the piece of glass with the tweezers.
"This will hurt momentarily," he warned before pulling the shard out. Nya gave a muffled shout of pain. Her eyes turned glassy.
Zane reached for the antiseptic next.
"Kai said that you would not even let him help you as a child," Zane continued, spraying the cut with hydrogen peroxide. Despite the size of the glass, the cut had been mostly superficial, so he figured wrapping the foot in gauze would be sufficient. "And, I wondered what could make such a small child so independent?"
He paused. He wanted to share a meaningful look with Nya, but he settled for squeezing her leg instead.
"Seeing a burden placed unfairly on someone you love very much," Zane answered his own question. "You did not want to add to Kai's burden when he had already been tasked with the responsibility of raising you. Am I wrong?"
Nya swallowed. "No," she replied at length, leaning heavily against the headboard as if she had tired herself out being so obstinate. "I just… I can't stand being useless. I can't stand forcing other people to take care of me."
"Forcing us?" Zane repeated incredulously as he wrapped layer after layer of gauze around her foot. "Nya, you are the farthest thing from useless that I can think of. And, just because you are injured does not mean that you suddenly have something to prove.
"As for 'forcing us…,'" Zane sighed exasperatedly. "We want to take care of you because that is what families do for each other. It is okay to not always be so strong, Nya. It is okay to let yourself be taken care of every once in a while."
When Nya didn't look convinced, Zane leaned forward, reaching out to touch her shoulder. "You are, and never will be, a burden."
"Even if I'm blind," Nya countered, crossing her arms. "Even if I can't be a ninja anymore."
"If this condition is permanent," Zane prefaced. "Then, you must let us help you adapt. We will make adjustments. We will train you to fight without your eyes. We will get you a cane- or even a seeing eye dog!- and we will help you learn Braille and we will make it so you can distinguish every button on the Destiny's Bounty by touch. No matter what happens, we will change, and we will be okay.
"But, no one can go through this alone, Nya," Zane concluded. "If anybody could, it would be my firecracker little sister."
That earned a smile, and Zane internally cheered.
"But, the fact remains that you should not have to and you will not have to."
There was silence as Zane tied off the gauze.
Then, Nya started crying.
Zane started, raising his eyebrows. "I am sorry! Did I say something to upset you?"
"No! No," Nya wiped the corners of her eyes with the heels of her hands, sniffling. "Geez, I'm sorry, Zane. I don't even know why I'm crying."
The nindroid waited a moment, blinking, caught between whether he should await further explanation or begin to comfort his sister immediately.
Fortunately, Nya made the decision for him.
"I guess… I guess I just thought that if I didn't care about being blind… and acted like everything was the same… then it wouldn't matter," Nya continued, new tears replacing the ones she wiped away. "But… But, I want to see, Zane. And, I know it's not the end of the world, and… and everything you just said sounds wonderful, Zane, really, but… but just the thought of not being able to see Jay's face all lit up after I kiss him ever again…"
Zane stood up, crunching some glass beneath his feet as he moved to the head of the bed. He grasped both of Nya's shoulders and crushed her against his chest.
"It is sad, Nya. It is okay to be scared," he reassured softly. "It is more than okay to grieve."
The other ninja were more than shocked to see Nya, holding onto Zane's arm, greet them amicably once they got home.
"How was the mission?" She asked cheerfully.
Four pairs of eyes darted to Zane in search of an explanation (or perhaps a warning if this was a trap or not), but the nindroid only smiled knowingly in the infuriating way of his that the others hated.
"Good," Jay answered at length, approaching his girlfriend as if she was a rattlesnake poised to strike despite her chipper demeanor. "How are... you?"
The other ninja thought Jay had just scathingly insulted Nya by the way they braced for impact.
But, Nya only stepped forward- unevenly, since her right foot still hurt- passing from Zane's grasp into Jay's arms.
The blue ninja caught her. Cautious, but tight.
"I'm okay," she finally replied, resting her head against his shoulder. "I'm… great, Jay."
Once again, the other four ninja looked wide-eyed at Zane, demanding to know what kind of sorcery he had enchanted Nya with.
But, the nindroid only smiled, walking away with a shrug that was impossible to decipher.
The next morning, Nya let Zane inspect her eyes with a little handheld flashlight any optometrist would envy.
And, she could notice the difference. Could distinguish dark from light, could even recognize shapes that highly contrasted with their background.
She was healing. Slowly, her brothers' faces came back into focus. Slowly, Jay's bright blue eyes pierced the haze, and slowly, she could see his individual freckles bunched up with pleasure every time she entered the room.
Slowly, she walked out of the doctor's office with the announcement that she would make a full recovery.
But, quickly, she hugged Zane around the neck like she was trying to catch herself when falling, like he was the only thing holding her up.
"Thank you for helping me see."
I hope you enjoyed watching Zane and Nya's little seen power struggle going on XD I certainly had a lot of fun writing it! :D
Next week is Jay! :D
Thank you to everyone who's reading and reviewing! I love ALL of you, and never forget that! :D
