Author's Note: Hi, everybody! I know, I know, I have several other works in progress... But this one is so captivating! Don't worry, I'll keep working on the others too. I just wanted to get this first chapter out there. I hope you really enjoy it!
He's been watching the ninja.
The ninja go on adventures. They fight and befriend. They go about their lives, never once seeming to realize all that they've done wrong and all they're still doing wrong, both to him and to… Others. Special others. His others. One other in particular.
The ninja visit other realms, places of oni and dragons, places of winter and shapeshifters, places of code and games. The ninja receive visitors from other realms too, visitors who are both kind and cruel in twists and turns. He wishes all of their visitors were cruel.
The ninja talk and act, play and work, live and act like they love, but they don't love, not for real. They can't love. They've shown that to be true. He knows that truth about their lack of love to be more true than anything else he knows. Well, almost anything else. There is one thing he knows to be even more true than that: his own truth about love, and his own truth about love is even more important than the ninja's one.
He's been watching the ninja.
He knows what they're like. He picks them apart in his mind. He bides his time and waits to pick them apart in real life.
Kai gets angry, gets calm, and gets angry again and again. Kai should be angry, he decides, angrier than ever before. Kai deserves to feel what real anger is like, real annoyance, real antagonization, the kind that scrapes a person out and leaves a person hollow, because clearly Kai has never felt that before. No, if Kai had felt real anger, self-directed or directed by others, Kai wouldn't be living life in this way. Kai will get to feel that real anger soon enough, not from the inside, but from the outside, from him.
Cole plays at being hard on the outside often, but Cole goes soft on the inside even more often. Cole should be cracked, he decides, hard outside releasing soft inside like an egg into a pan. All that softness in Cole must burn and bubble and break, break into a thousand tiny pieces that could never be fixed. Then Cole will feel what it's like to be shattered.
Lloyd leads and leads and leads, as if Lloyd actually knows what he's doing and has a plan. Lloyd should know what it's like to have a real plan, he decides, and that will happen. Oh, that will happen to Lloyd, he will make sure of it, and Lloyd can try to lead with everything that will be left, but Lloyd won't be able to. Lloyd will fail, and Lloyd will fear, and Lloyd will fall, just like the rest of the ninja.
Nya seems so perfect, so untouchable, so much better than Nya really is. Nya should have to regret, he decides, and have to live with that regret for a lifetime. Nya needs to feel the pain and the problems, the chaos and the confusion, the total terror of tearing to tiny traces. Grief will suit Nya well, and he will make that happen.
Jay is all anxious breakdowns and aggravating babbling and acting badly, like everything is always going wrong. Jay should suffer, he decides, truly suffer like he has suffered. Jay deserves to have everything actually go wrong and to have a real breakdown, like a ship going to sea only to go to pieces in the waves. That will serve Jay right.
And there's the last one.
The one the ninja count as their own.
The one he himself doesn't count as a ninja.
And how could he?
It's Zane.
Zane is no ninja.
He's been watching the ninja.
He's been planning. He's been spying. He's been working. He's been hoping.
They don't notice. They don't notice any of it. They don't notice when he sneaks into their hideouts. They don't notice when he sneaks back out of their hideouts with more than he came in with. They don't notice when he adjusts their computers and plays with their communications and makes their next mission happen exactly when and where he wants it to happen. They don't notice, and it doesn't ring a bell, not even a ring that would fade into nothingness. They just don't notice. They haven't been watching.
But he's been watching the ninja.
So now, it's time for the ninja to watch out for him.
(Ajnin, ajnin, uoy og os wols. Ajnin, ajnin, ti's emit uoy wonk. Ajnin, ajnin, ruoy kcul now't tsal. Ajnin, ajnin, eht emit seog tsaf. Ajnin, ajnin, uoy'er lla tsuj snwap. Ajnin, ajnin, ruoy emit si enog. Ajnin, ajnin, won tiaw dna ees. Ajnin, ajnin, ti's emit rof em.)
AN: Let me know what you think's going on here! I love to read your reviews!