Watching the Toa Mata leave was, perhaps, one of the hardest things for Nokama to do. So much was riding on their success, and while saying their goodbyes had been cheerful enough, everyone knew that, deep down, they were all in as much danger as the Toa Metru would be. Sure, they weren't assaulting the Coliseum, but Metru Nui would not readily show mercy in its present state, and the Visorak patrol would show even less. Not only that, but with such vague hints as to how to even find Keetongu, there was no way to even guess what kind of hazards they would end up facing, or if the path was even fully there anymore. For all they knew, their journey's course may have become broken and impassable when the earthquake struck.

"You seem rather dreary, Sister."

The woman turned, regarding Nuju with tired curiosity. "And you appear unusually peaceful." She replied.

He laughed quietly at her words as he drew closer, his eyes glittering with amusement. "Perhaps we are evenly mismatched then. But there is more to your sadness than the constant gloom and fog."

"Am I really that easy to read?"

Nuju's voice took on a tone of blatant amusement, though it was bittersweet at best. "When you stay hovering about the doors and stare longingly outside at increasingly predictable intervals, it isn't hard to figure out. You are worried about the Toa Mata, aren't you?"

"Aren't we all?" She asked, almost bitterly. "They are the last real hope we have at becoming normal again."

"Oh don't play that game with me." The pale one remarked, his tone somewhat cross now. "You're very tone and expression screams out that there is much more than that."

The woman outright scowled, her eyes showing nothing but sadness and annoyance. "So what if there is? It will still mean nothing in the long run." She hated when Nuju did this, especially when she knew full well that he didn't like to share his own, more personal feelings. "We have our own end of the problem to deal with anyway, so weighing ourselves down with worries we can't soothe is pointless."

"You fear for their lives, because while you know they have grown, you still see them as the children we knew seven years ago."

Nokama felt her breath catch in her throat, her vision blurring at the edges as tears slowly welled in her eyes. Part of her wanted to scold Nuju, to rebuke his assumptions and cast them aside as nonsense. She wanted to say he was reading too far into a delusional fantasy that his likely tired mind had conjured up in the night, and that she really wasn't as ragged as he claimed. But the weight in her heart and the tears sliding down her softly scaled cheeks would not allow such a fabrication.

"... I do see them that way still." She confessed, her voice quiet and mildly trembling. "I know they have the power and skill they will need to survive, but... Every time I look at them, see their smiles and hear their voices... It's like the years between then and now were stolen from us. We never got to see them grow, never got to help them overcome when they may have needed us..."

A small and gentle smile formed on Nuju's face as he lightly put a hand on her shoulder. "We would only have held them back in the end."

Nokama blinked at him. "What do you mean?"

"If we were the ones to train them, we would have likely tried to help them too much. We would have been too protective of them to let them get hurt, which would only make their survival harder when the time comes for us to step down. But because of how they were trained, and who trained them, they were able to break out of their reliance on us from their days as Matoran and become a team of Toa who one day will surpass anything we could ever hope to accomplish in our own times." He chuckled quietly as he thought it over. "You are not the only one who sees them as children, Nokama; we all do. Hardly a moment went by when I looked at them and didn't still think I needed to protect them from the world. But that time hast ob e left behind now. They know how to protect themselves, and we must trust them to do so while we fulfil our own trial. We were brought into this war, and now we must end it. And we will do so, together."

"Because that's what friends do."

Nokama and Nuju both turned, discovering Whenua and Onewa standing at the ready. The Earth Hordika smiled. "Everything we've faced in the past was defeated because we stuck together and maintained our Unity; now is no different than then. Sure, we had a rocky start to this adventure, but look at us now."

"Yeah." Onewa put in, smirking a bit. "So what if we're a bit on the ugly side? We've still got it where it counts, and it counts here, right now."

"As much as I don't want to agree with the uglybad part, the rest is trueright." Matau added, walking over from a side room. "Besides, we got a Duty to keepfollow. Not all the Matoran are as okayfine as Hlahlu, Jaller, Takua, and Hahli, after all; they still need rescuesaving."

"And while it hasn't seemed like we have much of one, we... it's our Destiny to save them still, no matter what." Vakama mustered a small smile as he joined them, taking a moment to breathe in slowly before continuing. "I think it's time to Show Roodaka why we hold to the Three Virtues so strongly, and that we aren't afraid of her anymore."

Nokama could only watch and smile weakly as her Brothers joined them at the doors, each somehow seeming more like a true Toa now than ever before. After all the chaos and anger, the fear and frustration, they were finally pulling together as one. Vakama was right; the time had come to topple Roodaka out of her tyrannical throne, and now that the Toa Metru were united...

Nothing was going to get in their way.

^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^

It felt odd to Nokama, traveling to the Coliseum like this, and not just because their enemy was lurking there like a smug apex predator. No, a good part of it was because all six of the Toa Metru were gathered, and – a miracle in and of itself – getting along without any real arguing. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that this was likely the first time since they had become Toa that they were all truly moving as one, feeling as one, with no petty differences to get in the way.

"I swear Onewa, if you do that again..."

Well, almost. Nokama had to admit it was unlikely that they would ever fully be as one, but at least they could get close to it. And, at least, her Brothers knew that messing with Nuju wasn't always a good idea, particularly due to the mutations they had all undergone.

It amazed her, really, when she actually stopped to think about it. They had all suffered a great deal, and still came out stronger in the end. Even Vakama, whom had been believed unsaveable by almost everyone, had found his way back, and the strength to overcome. It filled her heart with pride, knowing that they all had beaten the odds set before them, and were now able to band together to rid themselves of Roodaka and the Visorak for good. The fact alone that they were finally working as a full out team was – in her opinion – practically worth some form of celebration, even if only in her mind.

Eventually the group stopped, now standing before a shut and locked gate, beyond which lay the coliseum courtyard and the final, decisive battle for the fate of Metru Nui. Dread hung like a funeral shroud, a shudder of unease trailing through Nokama's spine as she stared at the structure behind the wall. "This... this is really it, isn't it?" She asked quietly. "We're actually here..."

"You aren't getting cold feet, are you?" Onewa asked blandly. "Because I didn't agree to this, just for one of us to flake out."

Five dirty looks were more than enough to silence the Stone Hordika, and as he recovered from the temporary hatred, the others looked back at their goal. Everything came down to this; one mistake would be the doom of everything they had fought for, and now it was too late to turn back. Vakama broke the silence, already willing flames to dance across his clawed fingers in anticipation for battle. "Is everybody ready?"

"Kind of late to be asking that, don'tcha think?" Whenua asked, grinning mildly as he walked over to the gate and pressed his hands against it. "Let's g-GACK!"

The door swung open just as Whenua started leaning against it, dumping him headlong into the courtyard... right in front of a rather considerable contingent of Visorak. "Oh... heh, hi there."

SKREEEEE!