A/N: I have no excuse. I got lazy, and I'm so incredibly sorry. But at least I'm churning this out all at once at 1:07 am! Also, I dropped a Nexo Knight's reference somewhere.

I really dislike Misako's character, so I decided to play around with her just a little.

Oh yeah, and I dropped my opinion of Zane somewhere there, too. He's actually the most ninja-like out of his brothers- I mean, they act more like knights than ninja most of the time. Charging in without a care in the world. It irks me that Zane is the pretty much the only one prone to sneaking around rather than the alternative of charging in yelling like maniacs.

Description: Zane reminded Misako of her son, somehow. She knew why, and couldn't resist the stab in her heart whenever the android walked into the room with that overly innocent smile on his bright face.

-Chapter Eight: gilded picture frames (they're grinning down at me)-

Misako was always reminded of the life she couldn't have when she looked at a certain ninja, and strangely, not her son. Her reminder was the ever reliable, ever there White Ninja. Or, as he would shyly ask to be called instead of his former alias (a fact that made her even sadder), the Titanium Ninja.

The boy reminded her so much, way too much, of Lloyd. The resemblance was hard to see- to everyone but Misako.

In her eyes, Zane was almost how she imaged her son would look like after years of not seeing him. She had crafted an image inside of her head- one of a very proud ninja with a gentle smile on his face, blond hair a little bit messy and swept to the side as it always had been in childhood, and happy, wide eyes that seemed to glow.

The android was pretty much the spitting image of what she had in her mind. He always stood with perfect posture, proud of his position as protecter of the ones who could not protect themselves. And while he was a terrifying force in battle, the most assassin-like and deadly out of his four brothers, once out of combat he usually wore a gentle smile on his face if he were in a cheerful mood. His blond hair was almost the exact same shade as Lloyd's when he was a young child, though it had darkened since then.

And his eyes were the thing that Misako would not distinguish from the strong figure in her mind- his eyes were always bright, like little lighthouses that the ninja would flock to for a safe point in battle- pretty much nobody could or would touch your if you were under the protection of Zane in the Bounty, except for your parents or Sensei. He was a point of protection, and in the house he was more of a knight than a ninja.

Misako, for all her intelligence, never could really distinguish a samurai from a ninja. She knew they had different combat styles, different styles of operation as well. But if you boiled them down, in her eyes, they could be the same.

To her, a ninja was protection. Like Garmadon. Like Wu. They were always ready to protect her from anything, whether it be a vine she tripped on or a scary guy at the pub who tripped over her. They never preferred fighting, but would spring up and crack their knuckles at any time if it meant that she would be out of danger.

Knights, too, were protection, and so were samurai. At their bones, their roots, they were meant to protect.

And Zane, with all his innocent, wide-eyed questions wondering about certain social queues and his kitten-like smiles, was ready to protect at any moment, as well. His ninja gi was usually on, wherever you found him- either at the beach or a opera. And most could not tell, but he always had shurikens ready to fly beneath his sleeves, and the mechanism that threw small little ninja stars was usually one of the first parts he would repair after a non-friendly fight. The android would have it primed throughout his repair process as well while Pixal scanned the area for remaining threats.

During his repairs, he gave Pixal control of his weapon system as well, if she wished. As just a little extra precaution, if he ever got startled enough to prohibit his rational thought for a second. Pixal would cover for him. Just like he would forever cover for Pixal.

Misako knew she was projecting onto the poor android, but who could really blame her?

Evidently, the Cloud Kingdom, as in the next second, Pixal popped onto her phone and started yelling about 'her poor Nindroid'.