CHAPTER TEN:
THE ESCAPE

"This wound will not stay long!" shouted Sensei over Kai's mangled gasps, trying to understand what was happening. His teacher's voice was loud, quick, trying to pummel some kind of information into him, but excuse his bad manners if he wasn't paying the prettiest of attention at the moment…"Your father constantly watches over you, Kai! Do you not realize that you have never gotten seriously injured throughout this whole journey? It is because his powers have kept you preserved! You've had a hammer hit atop your head for crying out loud! Yet here you are, alive and breathing. So quit your gasping and start screaming!"

Kai stared at him. Sweat started to trickle down his face. As he moved, he could feel the staff inside of him touch something, feel it shift through the guts it penetrated. It was the grossest thing Kai could ever have imagined. He gave a strangled cry, but it wasn't loud enough to attract attention. How could it? He had a piece of bamboo shoved through his insides. "You…stabbed…me," he gasped in surprise. The staff inside him compressed with the breathing he inhaled, and he could feel the awful breaths turn into quick gasps.

"We all know you don't willingly scream, Kai," said Sensei from the reciprocating end of the staff, clenching it with two, old, mechanical hands. His eyes bore into Kai's like there was a life lesson to learn from this. "So scream now, or this will get worse."

"S-sc-cream? Wh—wh—y?"

"Kai, I am not running the spiel through with you again. Just do it! You'll be perfectly safe when the bamboo is taken out of your stomach!" Sensei wiggled it, and Kai gave a mangled cry. His voice was torn with hurt. He bent over the hilt, his own hands clutching for the staff, but it was getting blurrier by the seconds. His tears that blinded him dropped from his face and onto the concrete floor underneath him. "I swear," Wu shook his head, eyebrows low, as his expression donned disappointment, "Daijiro wouldn't ever take so long to disobey me. Scream!"

"Don't…" Kai grunted, trying to force the bamboo out of him, but with the strength he added, Sensei shoved back with twelve times more. It was a game of tug-o-war that was actually aimed inwards; instead of pulling, the contestants were thrown into a deadly commotion of shoving the object in question towards each other. "…compare me to s-some…ninja that I don't…know."

"I compare you to no ninja," Sensei said angrily. "You are the ninja. Daijiro is not."

"R-riddles? This is-s no t-time for r-r-riddles, Sens…" Kai's sentence couldn't waste. It was gone before he finished.

"It is no riddle! You and your brothers are the only ninja I have ever taught!" Sensei stared him down, his crooked, hurt position, pressed against the concrete wall behind him. Kai had been forced into this awful situation while he was sitting, commemorating him a brand new ache to try and deal with. With his right eye squeezed shut, Kai winced, staring up at Sensei in the middle of his pain. He didn't quite know what his teacher was speaking about. Then again, Sensei had stabbed him, something he was sure was far direr than bumping him over the head with that staff. "I never have taught any more ninja than the five of you, Kai."

"F-ffiveee…"

"Lloyd. I taught Lloyd, too, you know, but you four mostly did that." Did Kai see a flash of something in Sensei's eye? It was too quick to translate, but he glimpsed the envy within the robots eyes. He felt his muscles contract around the staff—trying to heal. He cried out. "That's it! Louder!"

"A-answer m-me fir-rst." Kai tried to tighten his shaking hands around the staff. "If-f y-you didn't-t tea-ch-h your ot-ther students-s to be n-ninja then wh-at a-are t-they?"

Sensei looked like he wanted to slap Kai across the face, but if he did, restraint was always one of his best traits. He shifted his hands on the hilt. Funny, Kai thought dimly, I'm able to barely have a conversation while I've got a thing stuck through me. Is that pretty ninja, or what? He could've smiled.

"You and your brothers, as my students, have flexibly earned the title of ninja, but you do not always perform ninja-like tasks. You are meant as heroes, but ninja never fought for that. You steal things on the sly, but normally are caught from carelessness. You may overhear plans of the enemy by accident, but it was never your original task. You naturally are able to move quickly and stay out of sight, but Kai," Wu stared him down, "you are not the type of ninja that are really ninja." Um, what? Kai opened his mouth, except his teeth clenched in pain. It blocked the words from escaping his lips. We are TOO ninja! How can he say this?! "As I said, you earn the title because you are ninja-like, yet you are not exactly ninja. My other students were trained specifically to be shinobi. Covert agents that practice sabotaging plans, assassination, infiltrating camps and bases, plus a little espionage never hurts. They are mercenaries. You…do not practice such things. You never truly have killed, Kai. But Daijiro has."

Not true! I have killed! I've killed Eloquim to save your ass! Kai grew angrier with that name. "Daijiro." Pfft. What a dumb name! Why do you keep comparing me to him? And we are ninja. We're just… PG ninja! That's it! We're not gonna actually…you know…kill…

Lloyd has killed plenty, whispered an unknown voice in the back of his mind. Its voice ebbed closer as though someone was murmuring it into his ear. And he's younger than you.

It's Lloyd's duty to kill, thought Kai. But was it really?

With the way that Wu talks about his other students, crooned the voice, is it possible he likes them better than you? Is that why you never knew about the shinobi, because he knew the four of you would become jealous? You know you don't deserve the name 'ninja,' because you know Sensei is right. You are no ninja. You're a lousy failed attempt at one.

"Shut…up," Kai grunted to the voice. Whose voice was it, anyway? He couldn't recognize it, or completely configure why it was in his head/behind his ear. Like an unreachable itch beneath your skin, he wanted to figure out who was saying it to him—it sounded familiar enough—except, well, it danced out of understanding before he could name it. The voice sounded male, but when he thought of it, also sounded female; the voice pirouetted between genders, depending on what pitch it hit. It cruelly forced him to suffer confusion.

Kai's grip on the hilt slipped. His hands were too sweaty. There was no way he was gonna make it outta this. Sensei glared at him, but Kai figured it was better to die than sit here and rot…

Lloyd.

"Lloyd!"

For an instant, in his daze, Kai could've sworn he saw the Green Ninja standing behind Sensei, arms crossed over his chest, to watch Kai suffer. He blinked a couple of times to make sure he was real (or at least he thought he blinked) but Lloyd stayed. His expression winced, blue eyes pained. Kai wanted to take that look out of his eyes. "Are you just gonna give up on me, Kai?" asked Lloyd in a small, childish voice that echoed throughout the room. Kai's hearing picked up on every wave, while Sensei seemed oblivious. "Are you just gonna go without me? You always promised you'd take me with you if you went…What happened to that? Kai, I'm so alone, so scared. You have to help me! Don't go!"

Tears formulated in Lloyd's eyes. He looked so small, so feeble, that Kai hurt to see him hurt. His hands, curled underneath his chin, evidently trembled. Kai looked at his round, childish face, big blue eyes fearful of what might happen to him, and knew that he couldn't let Lloyd go. If anyone was going to rot, it would be him, trapped underneath the surface of the earth with nothing, no one. He gave a grunt, rammed against the wall, feeling the staff move inside of him again. He looked at Lloyd's scared face one more time.

"No," he groaned, "I won't let you go." Sensei looked confused, but Kai continued to breath quickly, forcing himself with residual strength into a ninety-degree angle. "You're…not alone. I will always…" He pushed against the hilt with surprising force. Sensei seemed startled by the newfound yank attached to his determination. Kai hated the way he felt the staff dragging through the hole in his gut. "…be with you."

Lloyd looked hopeful. The tears fell, but his expression had brightened. "You will?" He asked. Kai had never seen Lloyd so feeble, so helpless before, but he loved every second of it, knowing that he would be able to protect him. Kai felt the sweet suck of the staff pry from his stomach, and he gave a gasp of pleasure without it sticking through him anymore. Sensei looked back and forth between Kai and the bamboo without understanding how on earth he was being beaten. He shoved aside the staff so roughly, it clattered to the floor, completely soaked with Kai's blood. He held his hand to the hole in his gut, feeling air touching his insides, but through the tear in his uniform he saw the wounds beginning to quickly heal. Sensei was right, he thought in bewilderment. My father is watching over me. He didn't know why Elathan gave a damn, considering the awful things he'd done to Kai, but was grateful that he had some kind of protection. The hole of his stomach turned into a bloody scar before Kai was even sure how it had happened. The pain in his torn insides now echoed with the mystery of the memory, but therefore no longer hurt physically. He smiled. By God, Elathan had saved his life.

He looked at Lloyd, seeing the boy's face light up like a child's. Kai's heart began to beat faster at the sight of him. Sensei bent to pick up the staff, and looked coldly towards the fire ninja. "You never screamed," said the robot. "You need to scream to capture the guards' attention. Unless you have a better idea?"

Lloyd bobbed on his feet. Why doesn't Sensei see him? Why am I not running over there to hug him? Kai wondered, but his feet wouldn't take him there. Lloyd met his eyes with a childish smile. "Hi," he said, wagging his fingers. "You're staring at me."

"Sorry," Kai snapped his gaze away. Sensei scowled at him.

"Of course you should be! Now scream so I can make a scene!" He thought that Kai had said sorry to him? Kai wanted to say something, but he saw the old man come at him in a rush. Thinking strictly to his own business, Kai decided to dodge it, and reappear behind the stunned sensei. He'd moved faster than the robot's eyes could've followed. Lloyd did a dance that looked uncomfortably scared. Before Kai could quite understand what he was doing, the smaller boy pointed at the door. "They're coming!" he squeaked with wide eyes. Kai looked to the door. How did he—?

Cameras. They'd seen through the camera in Kai's room. Sensei whirled as the white door was thrown open, revealing two uniformed guards. "Hey!" one screamed gruffly. "How did you get in here?!"

Sensei exchanged a glance with Kai. Sure, the old man had said Kai wasn't a ninja, saying he didn't have the purpose that real ninja did. Yeah, it did hurt to hear, but maybe he wasn't, after all. Maybe he was just the blacksmith's son from down the road, who got sucked into this mess by some seriously messed up trail of events. But in the end, if anything, Kai was a determined, loyal kind of guy, and letting people down wasn't his forte. He may not have been a real ninja, but he was a master of Spinjitzu, and that was saying enough, wasn't it? He had brothers who needed him—and a specific brother who had to be saved. Kai glanced back at Lloyd with a feeling in his heart. He didn't give up on the people he loved, and where he thought it was okay to drop out of the game had been a mistake. Ninja or not, Kai was going to do this for his family, the only family he'd ever known. So what if Nya wasn't his real sister, or Cole wasn't really his brother, and Zane wasn't really his robot-like sibling, and Jay was no actual blood-relative? So what if Sensei wasn't the father Kai treated him like, or Garmadon wasn't the uncle that he never had? So what if Lloyd was the only kid that Kai had ever loved with his whole heart and soul? So what? It never changed the fact that Kai would rather go through hell and back to know each and every one of them. He would never have changed anything about their past, because he loved all of them, and damnit, he wouldn't ever give upon them. If that monastery was rebuilt specifically for Kai to train his family with then that's what he'd do! He would do anything for them. Anything. No matter what it took, Kai would do what he had to do to keep them safe, alive, and happy.

That was his purpose. Not being a ninja, not being a hero, not being the son of the king of the underworld. He didn't have to want to sabotage plans or infiltrate camps or assassinate someone to know that being loyal was well enough a damn good reason for him to be considered something. Ninja or not, Kai was still Kai, and he was going to do what it took to fulfill his purpose. Not Daijiro's, not Bokuyo's, not the shinobi's. Just his. Kai Smith, son of a blacksmith, who ran the shop with his little sister after their dad died. Not the dude who got wrapped up in every part of this "ninja" business. Not the guy who was adopted. Not the guy who died because he was scared of letting things go. Not the guy who fought skeletons, snakes, and statues in his spare time. Not the guy who fell madly in love with people he knew he would never be with.

Just Kai.

The guards saw the blood, the hole in Kai's shirt, saw the staff and Sensei but not Lloyd. They processed it for a moment, trying to understand what was even happening, but those few seconds was enough for Kai.

Just Kai.

"Ninjaaaaaagoooooooooo!" He shouted. The Spinjitzu was long missed, by what felt like years without its familiar art. The air whirling around him turned into a fiery storm that knocked the guards off their feet—plus a couple of loving smacks from Kai's feet never hurt anyone—and out of the doorway. Kai's cell paused on the second row from the ground, with only a staircase that was miles away, too far and too tedious. While his Spinjitzu faltered and the guards slowly recovered, he glimpsed Sensei hitting them both with his staff into unconsciousness. The clanging and chatter from other pedophiles, rapists, murderers, assaultants, and the likes dimmed from his floor when they all became entranced by the escapade in progress. Kai turned to Wu. "Which way do we go?" He asked, hearing profanities and comments yelled at him from inmates, which he ignored. He looked back into the cell doorway, at Lloyd, who stepped around the bodies of the guards with muffled apologies. Sensei still hadn't acknowledged his presence. And somehow, neither did Kai. Shouldn't he feel excited, confused how he was here? His brain was more focused on becoming a fugitive.

Wu blinked, holding his staff comfortable. "Down, of course," said the wise man, and Kai looked over the railing. It wasn't that high up, really. Except…

"Looks like we're about to have company," Kai said, and pointed towards the only staircase, where more blue-uniformed guards were starting to file in.

"They have Tasers," Lloyd added. He pointed towards them. "And guns. Those look like they hurt. You should get moving."

"Come on!" Kai grabbed the railing, and heard a bullet wiz past his head. He whirled. Lloyd looked disbelieving. "Let's go!" He waved to Sensei, who jumped onto the railing with ninja-like skills; Kai looked to Lloyd, but the Green Ninja shook his head.

"Not much I can do from here," he said, and pointed towards himself. "I'm actually just a figment of your imagination. But I'm a rational part of your brain. And also, the other part of me is evil and the dying good part is trying to get a hold of you with telepathic connections I didn't know I had. Don't worry, Kai," the beautiful young boy winked, wagging a finger. "I'll come home in a few hours. You just need to get out of here so I can see you. You don't know how good it is to see your face alive," breathed Lloyd, and Kai's heart wrenched.

"But…"

Sensei grabbed Kai's shoulder from above. He yanked on the material. "What are you waiting for?!" shouted his teacher. "I must keep you safe, Kai! Come, so we may escape! I don't want you to get hurt!" Kai looked fearfully at Lloyd's confident smile. So that's why Sensei can't see him, he thought. Because he's not real.

"Shoo!" Lloyd moved his hands in a motion. "Go!"

The guards were closer now, bullets whizzing past Kai's head right and left, Taser shots coming out with the shouts of halting that he wasn't going to listen to. Leaving Lloyd—even though he wasn't reall—was breaking his heart already. How many more times would he abandon the kid? He almost considered staying behind to protect him, but then he noticed the shimmer in Lloyd's dazzling appearance. He's not really there, Kai thought, and Lloyd winked. Go, he mouthed. Or I will shove you. Kai laughed. Lloyd had said in a few hours, he'd be home. Kai's heart pounded with anticipation. Without another word, Kai gave him a look, hopped onto the edge of the railing, and dove.

…

There was a lot of blood. A lot of sweat, a lotta tears, and a helluva lot of running. Bullets, catching his skin with stings, but never entering his body. Hallways of wrong turns, cellblocks farther from the entrance of the jail than it was closer. Spinjitzu used constantly by both an old man and a tired teenage boy, using stolen Tasers to fend off guards coming by the tons. It was a hard fight that the details could've lasted forever to describe, something that was certain you don't have. He wanted to spare himself the details, but he was more confident in himself now than he had ever been. Kai wasn't naturally an insecure person; in fact, his egotistical attitude showed that he had self-assurance rather than self-doubt. He liked being Kai, being a ninja, even if his sensei didn't consider him one. He knew how to handle himself, what being himself was all about. Kai may have had a bloated sense of self-worth, but he knew that his value was something over nothing. He never doubted himself, not normally. He was buoyant in the rivers of rocky hormones and desires. Desires, like wanting to know what a kiss was like, what it felt like to be held by someone who loved you more than as a friend. He'd never had time to go through the trial-and-error inner-parenthesis relationships that most guys his age already had. He didn't know what it felt like to have that secret feeling between he and another person only shared, that ran specifically between the two of them, never divided to someone else. He didn't know what it was like to hold her hand, or brush hair out of her face, or wrap his arms around her when she wasn't looking. He'd never actually considered family life before, either. The whole time Kai was fighting for his life, he was picturing the things he hadn't experienced yet, that he'd like to in an innocent ray of light. Trying to break out of jail probably wasn't going to do anything for his image, but there were friends he needed to help first. Being in jail wasn't going to solve their problems.

Did Kai want kids? He'd never really thought much about it. Pummeling in a guard's face with his fist and a blast of fire, he continued to think about it. In the future, Kai had always hoped to go to college, settle down, get a girlfriend who'd soon turn into his wife. After the Overlord had died and everyone continued to postpone their departures, he'd had a little time to think about the kind of person he'd want to marry, but it had always been waved away with a bat of his hand. He wasn't specifically looking for a relationship. He was that kind of person who fell in love and stayed in love for many years afterwards. And with this false conviction coming over him, he would never be able to go to college after this, because he'd be a wanted man. Maybe he could move into the Birchwood Forest where absolutely nothing happened. He could build a house out there. Maybe he'd find love someday. And did he ever want kids? Yeah….yeah. He did. Most guys wanted a son—if they wanted any—but Kai wanted a daughter. A little, beautiful, adorable little daughter, who would be just like her mother—whoever that would be. And he wanted to name her…He'd always been fascinated by the name Tokemi. Kai had already planned part of his life as a convict, and there wasn't even any guarantee that he'd escape.

But Kai wouldn't sit in here while his friends forgot their names, and he wouldn't sit in here for not killing Brad Tudabone. He wouldn't suffer for this.

The police had been warned, arriving around the same time period that Kai and Sensei reached the entrance. They'd taken out a lot of guards, and he was starting to feel panicked. What were they gonna do, run through the front doors? The cruisers were starting to arrive quickly into the parking lot. For sure, he was going to be given the death penalty today for just trying to escape. Kai looked to Sensei, hovering in the front of the station beside him, with the police barreling towards the door with loaded guns in their hands. They'd managed to get the doors allowing people into the jail part of this building sewn shut by Kai's magmatic fire against the metal, welding the doors together to they couldn't be opened, but how long would that keep them safe? Kai looked towards Sensei again. The old man rummaged through his jailbird's uniform pockets.

"What are you looking for?" He asked. Sensei barely glanced at him.

"Danielle prepared us a potion," Sensei murmured. Kai's brows furrowed.

"A…potion?"

"Yes! Aha!" Wu wrestled two small vials out of his pocket. Filled with clear liquid and contained by a rubber stopper, the shiny, opalescent fluid shimmered under the florescent lights. Kai gaped. "This will turn us invisible long enough for us to run out the door and get into the woods. Hurry, take it!" he shoved a vial towards Kai as the police drew nearer. When he saw the familiar face of the detective who'd arrested him, Kai yanked off the rubber stopper. Dani had been a "witch," or so they'd claimed. Let's hope she knows what she was doing, he thought, and tipped the vial upwards the slam the liquid down his throat.

It was cool, refreshing to his parchment, but it didn't feel like magic. He chucked aside the vial, watching his hands. They didn't change. He looked at Sensei, and found the old man patiently waiting. "Why isn't it working?!" Kai gasped. "Sensei, it's a fake; it's not—"

Then Wu started to fade right before his very eyes. Kai looked towards his own hands, finding their transparency beginning to grow. The potion…had worked? Kai looked towards his teacher, but the old man had disappeared, his voice the only thing that told Kai he was there in the first place. "When they throw open the door, follow my lead and slip outside."

"Your lead," Kai repeated skeptically. He couldn't see the teacher, nor could he see himself, which he found kind of strange. Nevertheless, the police threw open the door, their eyes angry and searching. Kai was certain that they'd see them, that somehow, their eyes would pick up on the potion and they'd know he was standing right there. An officer's gaze fell atop Kai. He froze. They're going to see me. They'll know I'm here—but the officer just kept looking.

"Where'd they go?" He asked. Kai looked towards the door, swinging open as another police personnel entered, and he seized his chance to grab the glass casings and swing it wider. He ran out the door as soon as the threshold was cleared. Heart pounding in his chest, Kai was aware that he ran purely on adrenaline, was working over himself too intensely, but when that fresh air hit his face, he felt beautiful. I'm free, he thought, testing the words. I'm…free! He raised his invisible arms into the air, but his journey wasn't over yet. Sensei's strong voice carried from beyond.

"Kai! Where are you?" the teacher hissed in a whisper. He looked towards the wood beyond the prison.

"Sensei?"

"Come to the trees!"

Kai did as he was told, darting quickly for shelter in the casing of the woods. The grass and limbs rustled around him as he tried to make no noise—ha, maybe no ninja after all—while looking for Sensei. He quietly hissed his teacher's name. Light—real light!—filtered through the scattered tree limbs onto dispersed patches of lone grass. He'd never really seen how truly beautiful the woods were. A blotch of sunlight combed onto a small clear of space between two trees, giving him insight as to where he could go. The Ninjago Jailhouse wasn't smart enough to add walls around its prison, but instead leaving it surrounded by woods. Kai had been told that dangerous things lurked in here, things mutated and specifically added into this place to attack convicts who escaped. He shivered and hoped that wasn't true. "Sensei?" he whispered loudly. "Sensei?"

There was no sign of the old man. Had Kai really lost him?

"Hello, Kai."

He whirled at the sound of the familiar voice. He'd hoped it was Wu, but was sorely mistaken.

"Good to see you again, I see."

"What are you doing here? How can you see me?" Kai spat. Loathing dripped off his tongue and into acid at his feet. "Where did you come from?"

"I come from many places, but I gotta admit, this is the most convenient. I see everything, Kai. Didn't you know? Hyper sensitivity with my senses and all."

He felt his hands turn into a red-hot burn. He was ready to hurl fireballs through the air. "What are you doing here?" He repeated. "Answer me before I burn you to death."

"Whoops. Sorry. Can't die." The voice carried towards him. He wanted to singe every note of that cat-like purr out of the air.

"You're supposed to be dead," he growled. "You were dead."

"Things change." There was a crunch underneath a heavy boot. "When will you ever learn that this world is more cruel than you know? There's no way that you can kill someone without their return. It always happens. I'm shocked that you, of all people, didn't know that."

Kai blinked hatefully. "Why come back? What do you want?"

"I want only to help Cole. That's my purpose, you know."

"No, you want to stalk Cole. Get the hell out of here, Maya," Kai snapped, and his hands burned into flames. She stood in the shadow of two trees, untouched by the light, her black eyes loathing. A small smile came to her lips. The last Kai had seen her, she was running for her life, trying not to die from Eloquim's departure. Today, her usually orange outfit still carried the same bright hues, with a turtle-necked collar attached to her strapless shirt, wrapped around her frontal half. Her white skinny-legged jeans over high heels—in the grass? Come on—were long and accentuated. And her blood red hair still fell over her shoulders, bangs still pointed in an arrow down the bridge of her nose. She stared at Kai with that haughty look on her face.

She wasn't the person that Kai wanted to run into out here. He looked around for Sensei, dimly noticing his appearance was starting to become visible. "Get out of here," Kai commanded, but Maya shook her head.

"No can-do."

"Then it sucks to be you." Kai prepared himself to hurl a fireball at her, the fire igniting in his hands, poised to throw like a baseball. He grimaced at her, but Kiko only watched in amusement. Her smile unnerved him. It only made him want to kill her more. "Goodb—"

"No!" yelled a voice. Kai whirled to find Sensei shuffling through the wood. "Do not do that, Kai! Don't you know how to treat a guest?"

"G-guest?" Kai spluttered, fire faltering. Oh, no, he thought, it's Garmadon all over again!

Sensei glared at him sternly. "Yes. We have recruited Maya to help train Cole."

"Train Cole to do WHAT?!" Kai whirled on his teacher. "Sensei, don't you get it? She'll just be using you to get to him! She's evil! She's gonna take him and run off with him or something—Sensei, you can't let her—"

"ENOUGH!" Kai clamped his mouth shut, but fire broiled inside of him. Wu's gaze clung to him severely. "Cole is a vampire, but no one can teach him how to be one. His memories have been erased, remember? He does not know how to feed, nor to understand his strengths. Do you think Lou could teach him? Edna? How about Ed? There is only one other vampire on this planet, and that is Maya. She has agreed to passively assist Cole learn how to be a vampire again. Respect this decision to do what is best for him, and apologize."

"WHAT?! You can't make me apolo—"

"Apologize!"

How could Wu not see that this was part of her plan? She was trying to get to Cole, to take him somehow with the use of her insanity. Cole didn't remember that Maya was evil, so he wouldn't know to fight back. This was all part of her master plan. UGHHH! How could Sensei not know that? Had he gone insane? Kai turned around to glare at her through slit eyes, half his mouth curving downwards in hate. This was going to taste awful, coming out his mouth. "I'm…." He swallowed the bile in his throat. "I am…" why was this so hard? "I'm s…"

Kiko Maya cocked her head. "Didn't hear you. Could you repeat that?"

Kai squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his fists. "I'm…" He clenched his teeth, too. "…s-s-sorry."

"Perfect!" Maya clapped her hands together, jarring Kai out one eye to peer at her. "This will be so fun!" In an instant, she'd cleared the distance between them, appearing at Wu's side randomly with her hair still falling to her shoulders from being windblown. Her expression was haughty. "I can't wait to see my favorite little ninja people. Welcome back from imprisonment," she said, and Kai gritted his teeth. "You ready to go, Roomie?" Maya grinned.

Kai slapped his palm into his face. This was officially the worst "Welcome Back" present ever.

And we are ONE STEP CLOSER to reuniting the Ninja! They've been apart for so long, I'm so excited to bring them together again! ^.^ And, with Kiko Maya (Maya Kiko in English) officially going to be Kai's "roomie..." Well, like he said, it's Garmadon all over again! :D

Please review! And go enjoy your day/night! XD