NfaN, Book 2: THE AUTUMN OF TWILIGHT

by KairiVenomus

Since Kai has joined the Shadow Dancers in the race to possess the all powerful Shadow Key, the remaining ninja must overcome the horrific obstacles Kai has placed in order to slow them down. The clock ticks down as the Great Battle nears, & Lloyd is faced with an inquest: Will he be able to slay his own brother in order to save the world?

26. Chapter 25: ALL IS HELL THAT ENDS WELL

You guys! D': It's the final chapter of book two of the "Nightmares for a Ninja" series, "The Autumn of Twilight"! I just want to say you've all been awesome so far throughout my NfaN journey without all the awesomely nice things you say and your amazing compliments and ideas and suggestions and everything—without you, I wouldn't be here enjoying myself today, sharing my writing with the world. I thank you guys so much for being there to read my FanFiction. Each and every one of you are amazing. I love you guys for it. :] The whole series so far has received over two hundred reviews—I never expected that much, and that's all from awesome readers like you. So I hope you like NfaN enough to continue reading it throughout the rest of its life, and I hope you like my finale of "The Autumn of Twilight". Thanks again you guys. XD

THE AUTUMN OF TWILIGHT

25. All is Hell That Ends Well

IN THE DREARIEST OF DIMENSIONS, a cool spite was awakening. The land was sprawled with red dirt by the pounds, covering every square inch as far as the eye can see, distancing over these curves of the earth under the pale moonlight of the eternal blood moon above. From the sky fell trillions of small, windblown pieces of ash, drifting across the sky, landing at angles on objects jutting from the ground. This sky in which is dark, far darker than that of the bright light of the four suns in the Elemental Realm, has never seen any light truer than that of its two, red moons. If one looks farther into the distance, they can just barely see the jagged edges of red mountains in the shadowed distance. This is where the Throne hides, uninhabited by its rightful suitor. Dreary creatures that live in this place murmur amongst themselves at the lack of leader to their land, and question the true potential of what their king has ever really been.

Fine over the hills where these creatures gather, many times far away, cries the sky from no cloud nor burst of hot and cold air's combination. Among the ash twirls the equally as gruesome droplets of rain that come to the form of blood, deriving from those special who bleed in the seconds that it falls. However, once it reaches this dimension it is no longer blood but a sacred substance, a fluid of great Powers that all clamber and kill to have taste of. It's said this liquid can answer all wishes, can mend all wounds and rid all faults, though one can hardly sort through the rumors and truths. Not a single drop has fallen for trillions of years, yet this day rings special in the echoes of the Celestial Timeline, a date to be recorded on future calendars as a holiday, though that exists only in the mortal's Realm.

There are two bodies in which do not belong resting in this dreary abandoned, hilly enclave of land. They are motionless, though not yet corpses. There are muffled heartbeats that which do not ring throughout what mortals call sound in their world. There is no true identification that these bodies ever truly neither lived nor existed; it is difficult to ascertain whether or not they are actually there or if somehow a trick of moonlight. How they were transported there it is unknown, yet a secret to be revealed.

With each droplet of the Powerful fluid to the skin of these forms, there is a strength that grows. It is made up of distant emotions that are detached and no longer hold significance, yet in one of the two, emotion is all that can be felt. To humans, this is what they call a she. In this Realm she would be referred to as something completely otherwise, but we won't get into great detail of that now.This is the one who will wake last. Resting against the chest of a he, face pressed into the soft silk of his clothing, she breathes softly, her insides a bursting vortex of what emotion feels like. She feels everything.

Yet he feels nothing. His insides are hollow. He doesn't remember what it's like to feel, nor know what it is to feel. Beneath the young maiden's ear his heart quickens to beat. There is something of a ghost of determination that lingers at the edge of the world inside his stalled mind, wanting to weave in yet refusing to. Inside his mind memories are becoming a thick string of events that are slowly becoming the Celestial Timeline, something surely you will know well and tell to your children when you exist in the far, far future; everything he knows leading up to this one moment. They flash inside his mind quickly as he pictures faces of those he once loved in the palm of his hand. The face of a young boy with dark brown hair and confident brown eyes and a small, wrinkled old woman with kind blue eyes beneath lenses. Kai. Misako.

Dim thoughts begin to form in his haze as she snuggles closer to him, trapped in her own nightmares as he witnesses his own. The hooded dark figure of a power-crazy demon skirts through his mind, close enough to touch, yet far away enough to only dream of. He knows, distantly, he must do what he can to destroy this person with scaled claws, stained with the blood of the lives he's taken. The thoughts he's struggled to form now thrive within him, four simple words he took so long to define:

It is my destiny.

With this, though there is no emotion, the determination at the edge flickers its face into view.

Beneath the heavy dust and decay of ash and dirt, there's a stirring. A shifting. A first breath taken. A fist clenching, bearing the powerful mark of the Eye, only strengthened by the blood-rain pouring from the sky in slow, steady drops.

And there is another thought taken so seriously to form. Five letters. Five letters that have more truth and strength in them than anything, putting a face into the grim darkness around him. It becomes, out of these distant thoughts, a name. A destiny. The Future.

Lloyd.

I want to know what you thought of "The Autumn of Twilight"! Please please review and tell me your favorite parts, your least favorite parts, your favorite lines, anything—I want to know what you thought of the whole book and the grand finale. Don't forget to stay tuned for the next book in the NfaN series, premiering sometime this week, called, "the Kingdom of Death," which WILL BE POSTED AS A SEPARATE STORY! (under Ninjago, with the format of "NfaN: THE KINGDOM OF DEATH") Okay? Okay. Thank you guys again SO MUCH, and go have an awesome day/night!