24. An Eye for an Eye

HIS ROOMMATE WAS…DIFFERENT.

Maybe Noel had wanted to stick Seiko in with a girl because he wanted it to be some kind of girl pairing or something, but he was suddenly feeling weird when he shut the fat red door behind him. Noel had told him to "have fun" before he'd shut the door in his face. Unbeknownst to him, the results would be opposite of fun.

The bedroom was large, high-ceiling, with two canopy beds, and a bathroom to split. The bed farthest from the door was the one that had a pair of night clothes for him sprawled across its black comforter. The canopy was a dark gray. He quietly walked in after he noticed the fact that there was someone hidden behind the curtain of the second shaded bed. He didn't want to disturb them. Quietly walking across the wooded floor, he removed his boots, setting them neatly beside his bed, and unlacing the wrap of the belt around his black robe. He hung it on the hook attached to the black column holding the bed's roof up.

"You're Lloyd Garmadon," said a soft voice from the other side of the room. He glanced up, startled, to find a girl pulling herself out of the bed's tomb to look at him. The fact that Lloyd was half-naked in front of her would've normally been disturbing. She had shaggy brown boy length hair, dark brown eyes, and a lanky build. Her elfish face looked strangely familiar to him as she walked out in a black robe. Freckles scattered her nose as she walked closer.

Lloyd raised a brow. "Ayuh," he answered, crossing his arms over his bare chest. He wasn't sure how to handle this. "And you are?"

A brief smile came to her lips. "Sakura," she answered. "Sakura Mura."

The name sounded familiar; where had he heard it before? "Hi." Flatly, he spoke to her, unashamed that he just ignored her completely. He turned away from her when he caught the glimpse of somebody else Sakura's bed. He wondered who it was before thinking he didn't want to even know—

"Hello, Lloyd."

Lloyd froze at the sound of the familiar voice. The last time he'd heard it, he'd been running out of Darkley's with his hands over his ears, screaming, "I'm never coming back here, never coming back here, NEVER EVER NEVER AND NONE OF YOU CAN MAKE ME!"

Kai had laughed loudly, taking the time to laugh at the ten year old Green Ninja trainee while ruffling his hair. Cole had shoved Lloyd further away from the Ultimate Dragon's reins so he wouldn't screw up driving again. Jay had been laughing with Zane, even though they totally just endured having the Bizzarro Ninja come attack them. It had been a blissful moment. "Come on, kid, let's get home, huh? Sensei and Nya probably miss us…"

Lloyd didn't even want to turn now. What would he see? Did he want to see? Because if he was here, that probably meant a turn for the worse was coming. Obviously he wasn't here to catch up. He was here for a reason.

"Miss me, Lloyd? No, I don't think you did," Gene said nasally, his voice still high pitched like Lloyd remembered. He squeezed shut his eyes, trying to somehow block them out. "You never missed any of us. Not even Brad. And now… Brad's missing, and the world starts to crumble!"

"Get away from me," Lloyd said lowly. He pinched the bridge of his nose. The Eye was screaming at him, telling him that every inch of this was wrong. They were evil. He practiced patience while trying to somehow escape this…

"Why, Lloyd? Don't like me anymore?"

"Correction: I never liked you, Gene. You freaked me out."

"Oh, I know. But wait till you see what I can do now!"

"I'd rather not." Eloquim's doing, Eloquim's doing, whispered the Eye in his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut further.

"Afraid of what you'll see?"

"A little bit."

His heart thundered anxiously. Gene pressed further, and the Eye screamed at him to get out, get out now, but Lloyd couldn't move. He was cornered, half-naked, by Gene and Sakura Mura, who he knew he'd heard her name somewhere before. And both of them were possessed by Eloquim's evils. This was an equation for disaster.

"I can read you like a book," Sakura said. "Your emotions, even though you're trying to lock them up, are constantly betraying you. I can taste them. I can taste your determination, your fiery desire, your love. Especially your love. I can taste the passionate thirst, the hunger, the craving for the one person that you want more than anything right now. I know your secret," Sakura whispered. She was extremely close, sending the hair on the back of his neck to stand up. "And I'm gonna tell."

"Don't you dare!" Lloyd gasped. He didn't turn to them, didn't open his eyes, but tried to get her to listen. This must've been what Noel had meant; he had set Lloyd up to fail. Was he working with Eloquim too?

If he was, did that mean that Seiko was in trouble?

"You love You-Know-Who, don't you?" Sakura whispered. "You love them more than anyone will ever know. Of course, if everyone knew you liked them, then your other brothers wouldn't accept you. Wouldn't like you anymore because of who you choose to love."

"No," Lloyd croaked. He couldn't let them get to him.

"You question your feelings, knowing they aren't returned, and never will be returned. You're unnatural, a monster because of these feelings. You're afraid! You're scared! You know that you won't be loved back by You-Know-Who."

"Stop," Lloyd begged. He slammed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

"You can't do it!" Gene cried. "You may be the Green Ninja, but you know you could never fight the Prince of Darkness. You're a fail," he reprimanded from an echoey pitch behind Lloyd. "You suck at protecting people. You can't save anyone worth a penny."

"No, I—I can—"

"You aren't loved!" Sakura shouted. Everything inside of Lloyd threatened to shatter under her voice. Ripples of fear screamed up his spine as Sakura cried out to him, called to him. He felt himself tremble. How could he go on knowing that they were right? "You know that your friends aren't looking for you, not Jay, not Cole, not Kai! He doesn't want you, doesn't want to know you, doesn't want any partof you!"

"You can't save anybody! You couldn't even save Seiko!" Gene screamed at him. Lloyd was this close to turning around, but he knew if he faced them, he would break down. That was the last thing he needed. Pinching his nose tighter, Lloyd didn't know what Gene was even talking about. "You aren't worth anything! NOTHING! I've had pennies with more value than you!"

"You know that they don't love you. They never have," spat Sakura in Lloyd's ear. He jumped at how close she was.

"Are you scared, Lloyd?" Gene cackled. "Is the poor green ninja scared? Awww, poor little Lloyd, afraid of his own shadow…"

"Knock it off!" Lloyd screamed. He covered his face with his hands. Please, please, someone make them disappear—"Go away!"

"They don't love you!"Sakura screamed.

"You can't save anyone!"

"You know as well as I do that none of them could care about you," Sakura hissed. "Jay never liked you much. Cole always wanted to eat you. Zane wished he could've deprogrammed you. And Kai always thought you were an annoying, tiny, in-the-way, childish little kid who could never be the Green Ninja. Sensei Wu thought you were too much like your father—Garmadon thought you were too good! Misako didn't like you enough to keep you. And your aunt can't stand you."

"I don't have an aunt!" Lloyd shouted, just to get the focus off of him. He buried his face childishly in his hands. "Go away!"

"Yes, you do," Gene said cheerily. "Her name is Caroline. I think you've met her before."

Smack. Lloyd felt like someone hit him in the face. Caroline. His head wouldn't wrap around anything, wouldn't focus on what that meant if they said Caroline was his aunt.

He felt himself sinking to his knees. Sakura came down with him. "And your real mother hated you so much she killed you."

"No!" Lloyd shoved her away. Sakura landed beside the bed, two feet away. He trembled violently. His body erupted into earthquakes of madness.

"HE HATES YOU!" Gene screamed above him. Lloyd buried his face in his hands again. "KAI HATES YOU!"

"No he doesn't!"

Sakura pulled his hair. "Jay hates you. He hates your guts. He wants to rip you apart with his own two hands every time he sees you."

Gene snorted. "Cole wants to eat you. He'd like to sink his teeth into your neck and bleed ya dry!"

"Zane wants to smack you with a wrench every time he looks at you."

"Kai just wants you to leave him alone. You're around him too much." Sakura pushed him, but Lloyd didn't topple over. "He doesn't love you. He never will. You'll be alone forever, you stupid Green Ninja. You can't do anything."

"Kai likes girls," Gene poked him. Lloyd shivered. "Not little annoying kids."

"I don't like Kai."

"You sure?" Gene pressed. He giggled uncontrollably. "You don't know what romantic love feels like, do you? So how would you know the difference between romantic love and brotherly love?"

"I don't. Like. Kai!"

"None of us believe you!" screamed Sakura. Her screams in his ear pounded in his brain. "You're a liar!"

"I'm not lying!"

"He'll never love you back!"

"I don't love him!" He shouted. Around him, Gene and Sakura danced, singing a song of broken love that Lloyd couldn't listen to. His head pounded, his insides dared boil over. He felt himself growing numb. He was trying to hold back his emotions, trying to corral them back into the box that he kept them in so he wouldn't have to deal with them, but they were getting so difficult to fend off. Lloyd felt tears slip out of his eyes. Kai doesn't love you. You can't save anyone. Their words trembled inside of him. They were true. It was so, so true. He couldn't save anyone worth a damn; everything he did, he ended up destroying anyway. Lloyd bent into the fetal position trying to block out their screams. Kai—he couldn't—Lloyd didn't love Kai, at least not the way they thought he did…He didn't think about love, least of all with his best friend. No. They were trying to…to freak him out or something. You're worth NOTHING! Under the words, Lloyd recoiled. No! No, he was, he was worth something, at least, to someone, to—to—Kai, or Garmadon—or Wu, or—to someone he was worth something… "NOBODY LOVES YOU! YOU SCREW EVERYTHING UP! LOOK WHERE YOUR STUPIDITY GOT YOU!" Lloyd tried. He tried so, so hard to keep the bad part of him dormant. He tried to keep it in check while they screamed at him. He tried so, so hard. He didn't want to hurt them, or anyone else, because he…he couldn't…

"STOOOPPPPPPP!"He shouted. Lloyd sprung to his feet. "STOP! SHUT UP!"

"NO one loves you!

"You can't do anything right!"

*"You're such a terrible Green Ninja that you don't even know what's happening RIGHT NOW outside of this room, what's happened to your friends, what they're doing. You have no freaking idea, do you?!"*

He looked at Gene and Sakura while shaking his head, trying to fight off the darker part of him. He couldn't let that part of him become real. He had to keep it in check. He couldn't let it happen…couldn't let him hurt them…

"You're worthless!" Sakura and Gene screamed simultaneously. "You have nothing to do with anyone! You belong nowhere, should be dead in the ground, should be nonexistent! You have no purpose here! You screw everything up! You are WORTHLESS!"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The explosion of Power bursting from inside of Lloyd, a gusto of wind attacking the room. The canopy curtains ripped completely off of the bed, and Gene and Sakura were thrown back against the wall. It wasn't his elemental powers attacking them. The accessories of the room fell against the floor, things flying out of dresser drawers, the bathroom door swinging wide until it cracked off its hinges. Lloyd's hair whipped around his face. The winds stung his skin, but he stood straighter, holding out his hand in front of him as he aimed it at the stunned pair of rotten cretins insulting him. He felt his heart blacken with Power. "Tibi morte morietur frigide!" He screamed over the wind. There was a loud cracking sound as the bed's posts and roof came crashing down. "Caelum non miserebitur! I erit mortem tuam! Morietur in aeternum, numquam reueniunt!"

Sakura and Gene screamed underneath his outstretched hand and its blooming Power. His hair smacked his face again as he shoved his hand further in their direction. "Vos ardebit, et i corridebit. Persolvetis!"

When they died, he sucked the darkness into his heart, and consumed it whole.

…

Lloyd's eyes snapped open.

What the fudge?

He was still in the corridor, sprawled across the floor on his back, watching the dimly lit chandeliers above his head sway. He was overcome with a hazy, unconventionally sick feeling in his stomach. That dream…No, that nightmare. What was that? Rolling onto his side, trying to understand why he was in the hallway instead of the bedroom, Lloyd groaned with the soreness in his bones. He pushed himself up onto his elbows.

And then he saw Seiko.

She lay unmoving on the marble in front of him, white as a sheet, lips blue. Her cheeks were hollow, practically black in the crescent. Her eyelids were a dark gray. Her thin, beautiful hand was extended outwards from her side. And on the ground beside her fingers, motionless as a rock, was a blood red Dapplejuno.

"Seiko!" He cried, pushing himself painfully to his knees so he could crawl towards her limp body. Why was he so weak, and moving so slowly? He was usually faster than that. When he reached her side, he grabbed Seiko's wrist, searching frantically for a pulse. I told you to protect her from all supernatural evils! Lloyd thought angrily at his Eye.

And I have, responded the dark mark. He counted in his mind, bobbing his head in time with the counts, but no matter if he counted backwards from ten or started at five, he didn't feel anything underneath her skin. He propelled himself downwards to listen for a heartbeat, begging for one. He held onto a mad hope that maybe there was one. Maybe his hearing was bad; yeah, that was it. He had bad hearing. The emptiness inside of her chest was just a result of him not being able to hear her heartbeat. He reached up to her jugular and pressed his fingers against her throat. It was difficult to keep his eyes off of her snow white face.

"Please don't be…" he couldn't finish the whisper. He shoved aside the Dapplejuno to slide his hand underneath her light head. You didn't save her, he snapped at the Eye. He pulled Seiko into his arms, cradling her head against his chest, nestling her just underneath his chin. Her head dangled uselessly without his assistance. He'd failed, just like Sakura and Gene had told him. He had failed as a Green Ninja. He hadn't saved just this one girl, this one person who could've easily be saved. Instead, he had fallen asleep on the floor while she was witted into dying.

I didn't have to, responded the Eye.

What does that even MEAN? Lloyd buried his face in Seiko's hair. She smelled like lemons and rosemary. Sweetly endurable. He pulled her closer. He didn't know why, but he felt like there was a silver chord connecting them, a fine line that only they ever existed on, something that only either of them understood. It was something Lloyd felt stupid for ever thinking there was—who had a tie with someone as a "thin silver line"? He was stupid for thinking so. He felt like a complete and utter failure, his face pressed into a dead girl's hair, his heart leaking out the emotions he'd tried so hard to lock away. Grief over Kai's death, over Zane's, over Cole's, and even Seiko's overthrew him. Though she was different, Seiko had been fun. She was funny, random, and, even though a little abusive, enjoyable. He liked being around her. He liked that she kept her back turned but an ear cocked, and that she liked to be able to do things on her own. He even liked being called "Twinkies" because it defined a part of Seiko that meant she was unique enough to make nicknames for people she was around. She saw the world in a way that Lloyd had before: behind a glass wall, looking in, but never able to touch. She knew what it was like.

And now, she was gone.

Listen to me, Lloyd, said the Eye, pulling him out of his grief-stricken tears, his sobbing against her head, I didn't save her because I had another choice.

What are you talking about? Lloyd raised his head slowly.

She was worse than I let on, the Eye said, and I didn't want to worry you. She needed my help. So I helped her. She needed my help.

Lloyd froze. What did you do?!

In his arms, Lloyd clutched Seiko tighter, feeling her limp lifelessness in his arms. He stared hard at the hand he was communicating with, the hand he could be called insane for thinking had a mind of its own. The Eye was not only a part of him, it was a part of itself, too. It knew just what it was doing. And, apparently, what it was saying. I fixed her.

In his arms, under the shelter of his chin, Lloyd cradled a corpse that wasn't dead. It was operating an activity much more intricate than decomposition.

It was transforming.

This chapter was cut short because…well, because it was. I didn't want it
to be too long.

-.-'

Oh, and BTW- the first part of the chapter was
Lloyd's nightmare, ya know, 'cause it was like
The other Ninja's nightmares...He had to have one, too.
He's scared of not being able to be
that good of a Green Ninja.

Please review! ^^ and wait for the next update,
which I'm already working on, called "Eloquim the Deadly."
oooooh, scaaryyyyyy! Go have a lovely day!
~Kairi