author's note | aggggghhh i've recently been reinfected with toriphilia. (yep, totally not cheating on you, korra ._.) you will not believe how pissed i am that sally martin didn't get a callback for the legend war...and yes, megaforce makes a cameo appearance in this chapter and will become somewhat-main characters later on...for continuity purposes.
Dark Into Light
Canon. Takes place Megaforce-era–ish.
NS/slight DT/Megaforce. | After they defeated Lothor, the three Wind Rangers could not have been closer. But in the midst of an ongoing battle with a clan of dark ninjas, the death of a dear friend causes their friendship to fray and then irreparably snap—to the point when one of their number is banished from the Wind Academy...forever.
Tori/Blake.
(burning black holes in dark memories)
rise
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(two weeks later)
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Kylee Ibaraki is a bitch of a sensei and Dustin hadn't the faintest idea why Tori chose that crazy girl as her successor before taking off to someplace she vaguely mentioned as a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere, otherwise known as the Last Frontier: Alaska.
Yeah, Kylee's a great water ninja and all, but goddammit, she doesn't know how to teach more than she knows how to yell her ass off.
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Tori's bitterly thinking while camping out in a forest that Tally deserved the position instead of Kylee.
Well, in her own defense, it's not as if she had a choice.
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Kira Ford stares at her cellphone in disbelief and almost drops it onto the floor.
"She's what."
"Uh. Banished. I think she's in Alaska."
"She's in Alaska?!"
"..."
"Stop shitting me, Dustin! This isn't funny!"
"What? Dude, I'm not—"
The former Yellow Dino Ranger hangs up on the earth ninja and collapses onto a couch.
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(one month later)
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"What's your name?"
"..."
"You have five seconds before I decide I want to fry your face into sausage links for Kodiak."
"Kodiak? Who's Kodiak? And sausage links? What kind of comparison is that?"
"He's a wolf, you ass."
"...I'm A'akuluujjusi."
Thick, dark black eyebrows draw together in suspicion and slight anger over a pair of brilliant blue eyes. "I would prefer if you not insult my people, thank you very much, by calling yourself the Creator Mother."
"I'm sorry." It's said sincerely.
The girl tuts loudly. "Nevertheless, it's rather impressive that you actually pronounced that correctly, much less knew about it, but you don't look remotely Inuit."
A small smile of acknowledgement. Then:
"Maybe that's because I'm not." She casually sizes the dark-skinned girl up and decides that she looks trustworthy enough. "And my name is Tori."
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Blake Bradley shoves a cardboard box full of photos into the corner of his closet and tries not to cry.
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"So, Tori," the girl conversationally asks, "what brings you to this forest on such a lovely day?"
At the current moment, it's raining buckets.
Tori irritably flicks her sopping wet hair off of the nape of her neck. "I could ask the same for you."
"Well, the difference between you and me is that I know what I'm doing in this forest, whereas you're probably just...passing though." She smiles wolfishly. "Furthermore, you're dressed in a rough approximation of an outfit design that the ninja academies down south generally use, I'm guessing River or Wind, so...are you here to do a peace talk or some other shit like that? They should have told you that storm ninjas don't do damned peace talks. Our address is 38 Middle of Nowhere Drive for a reason, sweetie."
"...Don't call me sweetie. Can I talk to your head sensei?"
The girl grins even wider, although her brilliant blue eyes narrow ever so slightly. "You've been talking to her, you ass."
"..."
"Yes. Yes, you'll do, I think." She clicks her fingers before turning around. "Come on, buttface, I'll take you to our grounds."
"'Buttface'?" Tori asks, aghast.
"Hmm, very well. Mushy buttface it is."
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Callie fucking hates broomsticks and water-filled buckets.
"Arms straight, chin up, and legs bent!" Sensei Ibaraki barks, her thin black eyebrows drawn together into a no-nonsense expression. The water ninja is only twenty and has been teaching for only a month and she's already harsher than the previous sensei had ever been.
That being said, Callie doesn't miss her mother one fucking bit.
All in a day's delusions of a teenage ninja, after all.
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Fifteen-year-old girls don't cry over their mommies.
It's what Jen keeps on telling herself anyways, but she can't stop the tears from coming.
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(six months later)
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Sensei Aglakti, as Tori has learned over the past few months, has eyes a shade of blue so bright that Tori thinks that they have to be contact lenses, loves Kodiak the gray wolf to death, and hates formalities more than she hates Brussel sprouts and insists that everyone call her Kala without any of the honorifics.
The water ninja has taken to calling the native Alaskan "Sensei" anyways nine times out of ten, partly from sheer habit and partly for her own amusement.
Unfortunately, the fire ninja is also uncannily introspective for such a hothead.
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"I hate Sensei Ibaraki." Callie's lower lip is jutting out in a pout, her eyes narrowed into tiny slits and arms crossed firmly over her chest.
Jen's pencil makes a scratching sound as the graphite tip scrawls messily over a piece of loose leaf paper, the girl herself bent over a small wooden desk in concentration as she works out the arithmetic problem. "Oh? What's wrong?"
"She has a problem!" the blonde cries out in frustration, flinging her hands up into the air. "It's like she thinks we're robots, and goddammit, the workload is huge! Huuuuuge!"
"Jesus, Callie, stop bawling!"
"And she's making us learn the theory behind water manipulation, even though we don't have to learn that unless we want to go for a master ranking, and it's worse than math class—"
"You weirdo. What's so bad about math?" Jen frowns as she tops off her complex-looking answer with a bunch of symbols that just seem like meaningless Greek squiggles to Callie.
"How can you be calling me a weirdo when you like math?"
"You're right. Biochem is better."
"...I'll rant to someone else."
Jen rolls her eyes as her little sister stomps out of the room.
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(one year later)
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"Hey there, Sensei."
"Shut the fuck up, Tori." Pause. "You dropped something."
"Oh."
"It seems as if it's an important something."
"...Wherethehelldidyougetthatgiveitbacktome."
"Yeah...no. You're not from fucking Kansas, are you?"
"Well, no."
"This is the symbol of the Wind Academy."
"...Um."
"What happened?"
"Ka-la..."
"Tor-ri," Kala mimics in an annoyingly accurate representation. "You should know by now that that doesn't work on me, kelp for brains."
"I got banished."
Kala pauses for a moment, and a curious look passes over her expression. "...Jesus fuck, woman, why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"Uh." Tori begins to edge away from the dangerous glint in the fire ninja's eyes. "I'll leave now."
"Oh, heeeell no." There's a fistful of black cloth in Kala's grip as she lunges forwards to grab onto Tori's arm. "You're staying with us." She releases her hold on the water ninja's sleeve to head back towards he Academy.
"I was banished, Sensei."
"Stop calling me Sensei! And you know what, I don't give two shits about that. You haven't given us any trouble, haven't you? That's what matters." She glances back, her gaze hooded. "And since you're from the Wind Academy...well, we would appreciate your help, anyhow."
Tori winces at her tone. "...You would?"
"Well, yes." Kala examines her pointer fingernail. "I don't suppose you've encountered a Japanese girl named Kylee Ibaraki before?"
Oh shit.
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Jen bursts into his room sobbing and the only thing Blake can do is stroke her hair and murmur platitudes that are total lies, because Tori's never coming back and he knows it.
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Shane doesn't like the new water sensei at all and tells himself that it's her final way of spiting him.
He ignores that gnarled knot of guilt in his chest that won't go away.
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Kylee is quite aware of the fact that she's almost universally hated by her fellow senseis and her students, but she doesn't give two shits about it.
If they didn't want to die within the decade, they would do well to listen to the Japanese water ninja.
At least, it's what Tori said. Kylee doesn't even know why the raving mad lunatic does anything anymore, but the woman was her teacher, and dammit, she'll listen to her superior.
It was ironic, really, she muses, almost as if it were fated to happen.
One banished wind sensei with the storm ninjas.
Dark.
One banished storm sensei with the Winds.
Light.
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(three years later)
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Conner McKnight glances at his friend absentmindedly strumming her guitar.
"Hey, have you heard? Tori's in Alaska because—"
The chord breaks off discordantly into an ugly set of notes as Kira drops the instrument onto the ground in frustration. "Where the hell have you been the last three years? Living under a rock?"
"I was off playing soccer!"
"You were living under a rock," Kira adamantly insists.
Conner sighs. "Whatever you say, Kir."
The pop star rolls her eyes before picking the guitar off of the ground once more.
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"So, have you ever played with fire before?"
"I'm a water ninja, Kala."
The fire sensei smiles. "So? What does that mean?"
"Um, it means that I don't do fire."
"That's what they all say, sweetie."
"I told you to stop calling me sweetie!"
"Mushy buttface." A snicker rides across Kala's lips.
"Shut up, will you..."
"Never in a million fucking years."
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Jen graduates high school (as the valedictorian) and the Thunder Ninja Academy (with honored distinction) before taking off to Harvard to study biochemistry.
Frankly, Callie didn't see the fun in observing long strings of molecules and lipids and proteins, which is what her knowledge of the subject is limited to, but it's fucking Harvard, and who would turn down an offer to that Ivy League university?
Then again, it's always been Jen this and Jen that and Jen's so perfect at everything Callie, why are you so stupid? and she can't help but feel hurt, but she loves her sister.
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(five years later)
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"Remember, dispose of her."
"Can't we just agree to capture Kylee instead?" Tori winces. "I don't like this idea of killing people."
Kala's eyes glint dangerously in the soft moonlight glow. "Dark ninjas aren't people, buttface."
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Dustin doesn't know how to break it kindly to his fellow sensei.
"Er, Shane?"
"Mmm?"
"Torisentanemailtomelastnight, shesaystotellyouthatshe's, um, she'scomingback."
Shane cocks his head to one side, his thick black eyebrows drawing together above the bridge of his nose. "Uh, say that again? Slowly, please?"
"...No, I'm fine, dude."
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Kira makes an announcement to her fellow Dino Rangers that day.
"Ninjas have got to be the most bipolar people you will ever meet."
Dr. O frowns from his desk. "Oh, really?"
"Yeah."
"...Question mark?" Ethan supplies.
"Tori's coming back from Alaska..."
The interest level in the room drops to zero after Kira's proclamation.
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Gia Moran is knocked down by a random and tall blonde who blurts out a hurried "sorry" before running away so fast that the Yellow Megaforce Ranger can swear that the crazy woman has turned into a blue streak.
She wouldn't have cared about the incident one way or the other had not a troop of zombie-like figures in black robes that are definitely not Loogies shuffled after the fleeing girl.
Gia being Gia, and since she's really rather bored because Vrak has been too much of a pussy to send down a monster today, she takes off after both of them.
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Troy blames the Yellow Ranger's disappearance on her "girl hormones" after spitting out a few choice words and immediately pulls the Megaforce Rangers together in a search.
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Tori doesn't recall getting knocked out but she wakes up in a dank cell with another pissed-off blonde inside, who immediately freaks as soon as the water ninja opens a bleary eye.
"Who the fucking hell are you and why did you land both of us in here?!"
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The door to the cell opens.
"Kala?!"
Kodiak growls.
The storm ninja places two fingers over Tori's forehead and whispers mockingly, "Sorry, kiddo...but you'll have to do one last job for me."
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Gia learns of the existence of ninjas that very day and decides she doesn't like them that much.
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Tori approaches the entrance of the Wind Ninja Academy and doesn't smile.
Not one little bit.
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Shane's greeting is totally awkward, Dustin squeezes the life out of his best friend, Blake hangs back, Hunter's making angry faces, and Callie motherfucking Bradley runs away in tears.
And Kylee...well, Kylee's just stoically unimpressed, because that's kind of what she does.
Then again, no one but her notices the fact that the former water sensei now has unnatural, brilliant blue eyes the color of the sea.
Well fuck, the storm sensei is still one hell of a bitch.