A/N: Oops. This chapter hit me hard.
Description: 'The good thing about nice people is that they don't like hurting people wth stuff like this.'
-Chapter 9: frame of mind-
Kai didn't know how to respond when Nya barged into the room he was in, face red with what he recognized not as a blush but pure rage. Her clothes had splotches of oil and grime on them, and there was a rather threatening wrench in her pocket. She'd been helping Jay put in a new screen for the Destiny's Bounty.
And his sister never abandoned work unless she...
"KAI!" She barked, pointing to the floor beneath her feet. "Here. Now." The samurai's voice was steely with anger.
...she was really, really mad.
Nya was still coursing with rage when he dragged himself out of his bed to attend to his sister. He half-stomped, half-dragged himself across the wooden floors and placed himself right in front of his sister, barely a foot between them. But Nya dragged him closer and growled.
His sister. Actually growled. Kai was in some deep trouble, and he knew it.
The red ninja gulped, suddenly awake, like he'd drunk five pots of coffee at once. An angry Nya was a bad thing. A very bad thing. The bad bad bad thing of bad bad bad things. Kai fought to keep his limbs from beginning to flee.
"Ok, what's got you down?" He asked nervously, barely moments before she released her grip on his shirt and pushed him backward roughly.
"You guys got me chewed out by Wu," she hissed. Kai's legs felt like something between ready-to-bolt and ready-to-become-jelly. He'd much rather prefer the latter option, but Nya was one thing he could never bolt from. In all their years on their own, without any parents, his little sister had always relied on him, and he knew he couldn't abandon her. Even as annoying as a toddler Nya could get.
The fact that he couldn't run could also be attributed to the fact that he knew Nya could catch him even if he tried. "W-U."
"...and?" Kai questioned timidly, though he already knew the answer would be more shouting. Nya put her hands on her hips.
"Kai. You know why."
He deflated. "Zane."
"Says we haven't been acknowledging him. I know I have! But I doubt you've!" She ranted, voice growing steadily louder. "Have you?"
Kai put a hand on her shoulder. At the contact, she seemed to shrink. "We're sorry, sis. What did Sensei say?"
Her voice was much softer, a far cry from what her shout had been. "Said he deserves as much love as anyone else, which is completely true if you haven't noticed- said he needs a person t- no, someone to reel him back in. Show him that he's doesn't have to give everything up for us." The breath she took rattled in her chest. "Show him that he's important. That he's loved."
Nya was shaking. It obviously hit close to home, the issue Master Wu had made clear to her. She recited the words almost robotically, as if the words she was speaking were already familiar to her. Had already been repeated in her own head.
Kai pulled his sister closer, hugging her tight. It was a familiar scene, one they'd repeated many times in the blacksmith shop. Great with her hands from age 7, Nya had been the one who'd helped earn most of their living. Yet, Nya had felt unappreciated. They'd always had just enough to eat good meals everyday, but it was still an awful experience for a young girl.
Though he wasn't as talented with his hands as his gifted sister, Kai still possessed many skills. He had been the one to go out on the streets, dirty and tired from long days in the forge, and ask sympathetic people if they'd buy from the shop. Always managing to get a few sales from the kind passerby, often not even having to sell a weapon.
'The good thing about nice people, Nya,' he'd gently explain while he counted the few coins they had gotten that day. 'is that they don't like hurting people with stuff like this. Pretty sweet, right?'
Nya had long gotten over her problem with years of her brother showering appreciation on her, but the thirst for approval always was in the back of her head. In the moments that she wasn't tinkering with a new prototype of some gadget, she was thinking. Sometimes, the need for validation got dragged up back to the surface and she spent a while beating it back into the ground.
It didn't affect her much, but it never went away for good.
"You're great, lil sis. Don't forget it."
"'Course, you big lug." A pause. "Make sure our Nindroid doesn't, either."
"Already on it."
