Chapter Text
Things had been quieter at McFist Industries. That was probably there was one less person to yell out randomly during the day.
They have already launched a few new products in the last few weeks, and the business was booming. However, there was no progress at all on their "ninja destruction business". McFist was determined to change that. Of course, he wasn't sure on how he was going to do that. More precisely, he didn't know how Viceroy was going to do that, but it was going to happen one day.
"Sir, I really don't understand why you would still be so obsessed with the idea of destroying the ninja," said Willem, while walking into his boss's office with the brand new blueprints of a robot that he was planning to use to at least entertain McFist's idea for the day.
"Of course, you don't," McFist spat out. "That's not something you would understand."
"Do you even have a reason?" Viceroy raised an eyebrow.
"Of course, I do!" yelled McFist slamming his mechanical fist on the table nearly spilling the tea that was placed on the said table. "Have you finished working on the new robot yet? Or are you here to my time?!"
"Well, I already have the blueprints and the robot is already in production," said Willem while looking over his blueprints in an attempt to avoid eye contact with his angered boss. "Also, just wanted to let you know that there is someone who wants to talk to you. She... kind of got through our security..."
"I am not taking any visitors at the moment!"
"But she already..."
"Was I not clear enough, Viceroy?!"
"Oh, but I think it would be in your best interest to make an exception..." an enchanting voice echoed through the room.
"Who's there?" McFist asked, while looking around. After a little bit of searching, he finally noticed a tall hooded figure that was standing in the corner of the room. A strange and ominous, purple glow was coming from her pearl necklace.
"I would really appreciate to have a little of your time, Hannibal..."
Back in Norrisville High. Back in the same classrooms with the same teachers he had for several years now. It's not as boring as it might have been. Things do change, it just takes awhile, but of course, even with those changes, his life is still the same. Going to classes, hanging around with the people, which don't stay around for that long. Helping out the ninja, making sure he is on track with his training and just simply won't just die earlier than expected. It might sound weird, but he actually envies them in a certain way. While, yes they have such an important duty on their hands, but ones their four years are up, it's over. They can move on with their lives. What about him? He is stuck in the same four walls. In the same stupid loophole. At this point, he doesn't even try to get to know people. He has no close friends, no lover, nothing. Well, what's the point? Especially considering that they are going to continue their life after school. It would hurt to watch them leave. Huh, as if he even had any in the first place. No, he has considered it. Tried to find someone even, but in the end - there is nothing. He has no friends, and teaches the ninja that he shouldn't have any either. Great, isn't it? Of course, he doesn't do it for a personal reason. Not his choice. That's just what the experience of the majority of the past ninjas was. But it can come off as him just projecting.
Finally, after months after his departure from this place, Nomi was standing at the front doors of the only place that he can call home. There weren't that many people outside. In fact, there was barely anyone. He came in early to settle back in more easily without nosy classmates getting in the way.
As he entered the building, he went straight to his locker. Good thing he contacted Slimovitz to let him know of his early return, considering that apparently they switched up everyone's lockers. While, they do that every year, his usually stays untouched, which was probably a part of the weird spell that everyone were put under to make sure that no one would question his presence there. More precisely, his overly long presence there. Of course, that meant that something is wrong if suddenly they went against their regular routine of not changing anything regarding him. Maybe it had something to do with the little problem he had last year, which caused him to look for help elsewhere... No, he is just overthinking it. They didn't find anything, and everything ended up being fine with him this academic year... Maybe last year's issue had something to do with the previous ninja? The handlers of his other body do tend to be reckless at times, the current one just keep proving that.
Before he could even open his locker, the guy felt a heavy arm wrap around his shoulders.
"Hey, bro! You're back!" loudly said Bash, while squeezing Norisu in a half-hug.
"Yes, I am. Glad to see you too, pal." Nomi replied with a bit of a cheerful demeanor, but his energy definitely didn't match that of his friend.
Yes, Nomi didn't technically considered that he had any close friends. Bash is his friend, his "bro" as the big guy put it, but it's not like Norisu can confide in Bash or anyone else in their friend group. He can't really trust them. But at least he was getting at least some social interaction.
"You've missed so much," said Bash just as enthusiastically.
"Well, you can fill me in, I'm all for it," said Nomi while finally leaving his things in the locker and closing it. "Let's go, we should get to class. People are going to start arriving soon, I'm not feeling like getting swooned over." he chuckled a little.
The two walked in the direction of their first class, while Bash kept babbling about all of the ways he used to torment the poor freshmen. He wasn't all that excited about class, and wouldn't care if he missed it, but if Norisu was going there, then so is he. Nomi on the other hand, just wanted to avoid as much interactions as possible with too big of a crowd, at least until first period is over and he doesn't feel half asleep.
Of course, people noticed his presence fairly quickly and the more people entered the school, the more they were crowding the entrance to the class, but thanks to Bash and surprisingly, the teacher, who shooed out all of the students who didn't belong to their class, Nomi was left relatively alone with his thoughts.
After the class ended, he hurried to collect his things and leave the classroom. Of course, the moment he stepped foot in the hallway, he was surrounded by a few people, mostly from his grade, who continued to question him about his family and if things are better now. Of course, there was no family emergency, because there was no family at all, so, he had to make up lies on the spot. Bash and his friends that appeared out of nowhere, came to his rescue. Just their presence made people stay away, which he was thankful for. He was already used to the attention people gave him. He liked it even, but this much attention was too much even for him, especially after such a long trip that he had to make.
He was walking down the hallway together with Bash and his goons, half listening to their conversation, which he wasn't that much interested in. He noticed a familiar ginger head among the crowd of students.
"Hey, Heidi!" he called out to her. He wasn't all that excited to talk to most people, but that's because he didn't know any of them. She, on the other hand, is a familiar face and knowing her, if he didn't start a conversation with her on his own, she would've dragged him out of the pits of hell sooner or later.
The girl turned in his direction and after realizing who it was that was calling her, she put on a wide smile, quickly walking up to him.
"Oh, hi, Nomi, great to see you're back," she said cheerfully. "Probably weird coming back in the end of the year."
"It kind of is, but it's bearable," he said smiling back at her.
"You've missed a lot this year," she pointed out. "So many things happened, it's unbelievable that it all happened just in a span of a few months. And I thought our high school life was already crazy."
"I've heard. Bash kind of filled me in with some of the misadventures that took place in this school while I was gone."
"Bash? I'm scared to know what exactly he told you." she whispered to him, even though the big guy definitely wasn't listening to their conversation.
"Well, it was mainly just fragments of things he mentioned while talking about everything that happened to him specifically, but if I would assume it's only the fraction of what happened, I'm not surprised you find this year so wild."
Technically, he already knew the majority of the events that, specifically, surrounded the ninja, thanks to him being the one to guide that kid through all of it, but it's not like she can know that.
"If you want a proper run down of the events, the door to my studio is always open," she said while beginning to walk away.
He just nodded in response, and began to walk in the opposite direction. Not even a few minutes passed as he noticed that the majority of the students were crowding the windows. His friends also joined in. Must be some ninja related trouble, it always is. He chuckled to himself. It's funny how people found this so amusing, like some kind of show that was put up for them. Of course, usually this kind of behavior was annoying, considering it was making the ninja's job harder, but as long as they were at a safe distance and not in the ninja's way - let them.
He was just about to walk away, when someone ran into him and he fell on the cold, hard floor. He raised his head to see a guy with dark purple hair, who picked something off the floor, and ran off in the direction of the washrooms. Nomi was sure that he heard the guy mutter a "sorry" under his breath, but it was so quiet, he just as well could have been wrong.
Bash turned around to see Norisu sitting on the floor and staring at the washroom doors, probably lost in thought. He quickly came over to his friend and helped him up and began to loudly announce that whoever did this to his bro would definitely pay for it.
Meanwhile, Nomi was too occupied with thinking of just how cute that guy was. A feeling deep inside his chest kept telling him that he should find out who that was, but another told him that there was no point and he should pay him no mind. Strangely, the first one seemed to be winning.
The rest of the day went by as he expected. During lunch, the entire school had their eyes on him. There was so many people, especially, freshmen, whom he didn't know, who tried to talk to him. He still thought it was weird how people who had never seen him in their entire lives try to talk to him as if they were buds. Honestly, he didn't really mind, or cared. He liked the attention, not in the morning of course, then it felt like a swarm of bees were circling around his head. But it was still better than being hated by everyone. Yeah, he sometimes sounds indecisive about his social status, but oh, well. He doesn't care enough about that to figure that out.
What he did care about, is finding out who the guy that ran into him earlier was. Of course, he tried asking Heidi at some point, but she didn't give him a good enough answer. At first, she acted like she didn't know, but after a while, she said that it was probably a guy named "Sandy" or something like that, who was apparently friends with her "idiot of a brother". Then she went back to working and he decided not to take up any more of her time. The problem was, that he had no idea who her brother was, so that information didn't help. However, there was a piece of information that he got out of her that was a bit of a clue. Apparently, they were freshmen.
He spend all of the free time he had looking for that guy throughout the school. A few times, he thought he actually spotted him, but the guy would always leave before Nomi could get to him. It kind of looked like that guy was avoiding him. After a little while, Nomi realized that it was Bash that the teen was avoiding, not him, so, he ended up finding some lame excuse for them to separate, but Bash bought it. Finally, Nomi saw an opportunity to talk to that mysterious "Sandy", when he got surrounded by other freshmen for no reason, and the guy was gone.
Eventually, classes to to an end, and the students were leaving. Nomi lived in the school, so, he had no reason to leave the premises. But he still felt like getting a bit of fresh air. So, when most students have already left, he stepped outside.
He stood there for a few minutes, watching as the remaining students left the school. He watched some kid with ginger hair do a whole loop around the school for some reason. It looked like he was searching for something, but turned up empty handed.
He turned around to go back inside, when he realized that there was someone right next to him. The guy had no time to react before the collision happened and both of them flew to the ground.
"I'm sorry man. I wasn't loo-..." a voice began talking as he felt the weight on his body lift itself up.
Nomi looked at the kid who was the reason he was lying on the pavement, only to see that same guy from earlier, who seemed to be just as flabbergasted as he was.
"It's fine." Norisu said, putting on a smile. "I can see you have a tendency to knock people off their feet." he chuckled a little, slightly gesturing at the position they were in.
"Well, I just usually knocked myself of my feet rather than other people, but I guess that happens too. Occasionally," the purple-haired guy helped him get back on his feet. "I'm Randy, by the way. Randy Cunningham."
Oh, so, it's Randy, not Sandy. He shouldn't be that surprised that Heidi got the name wrong.
"Nomi Norisu. Pleased to meet you."
"Cunningham!" the ginger kid from earlier ran up to them. "How long am I suppose to wait for you? Game Hole isn't gonna come to us!"
"You could've went without me. I could have easily caught up," Randy replied.
"How could you ever think I would go anywhere without you?" said the other kid with an offended tone, which was obviously put on just for show. "What kind of person do you think I am?"
"Your friend?" Nomi asked Randy.
"Yeah. That's Howard, my best friend."
That must be Heidi's brother then. Maybe Nomi didn't yet know the guy, but he had a suspicious feeling that he might as well find out the reason why this kid's own sister doesn't like him.
Howard's expression suddenly changed to a shocked one, then he began making some eye signal to Cunningham as if they were not awfully obvious, but Nomi decided to ignore it.
"Listen, Nomi," Randy began. "Howard and I are going to the Game Hole, and we were actually bringing a third player... but... that dude just... bailed on us... last minute... yes. That's exactly what happened. Would you like to come with us instead?"
"Sure, I don't have much to do today, anyway," Nomi replied. Of course, he knew that the teen just made that up, but he wasn't going to ruin this opportunity to get to know a person he had to searching for the entire day.
"Cool."
"So, what are we waiting for?" Howard chimed in. "Let's go!" He grabbed Randy and pulled him hard, forcing him to start walking.
The two were whispering among each other. Nomi wasn't going to intrude. It could be about their current situation, or potentially has something to do with the ginger's weird behavior from earlier, he didn't care enough to find out. It wasn't his business after all.
It took them about twenty minutes to get to their destination, and right away, got busy. It felt a little awkward at first, but the longer the trio played, the more they began to forget that only met a few hours ago.
However, Nomi would've preferred if it was just him and Randy. Howard frustrated him every now and then, but at least he was more rational than Bash could ever be, so, it was bearable.
Eventually, the trio decided to go up to the Food Hole, for a quick break. Every single time Nomi tried to start up a conversation with Randy, Howard kept interrupting. It was getting more and more frustrating by the second. He was about to give Weinerman a piece of his mind, but before that could happen they heard screams coming from outside and soon after, the wall with the front door was smashed in. An eight foot tall robot stepped foot inside.
Nomi turned to Randy to tell him that they have to leave just to realize that the guy was nowhere to be found. He stared at Howard, who just shrugged his shoulders and ducked under the table. Nomi followed his example. Some people ran into the washrooms, others attempted to run for it, most made it outside, the others had the exit blocked by the robot and they had to run back in.
Finally, the ninja appeared and began to fight the robot. Inside. A few of the arcade games were smashed to bits, as much as a few tables in the Food Hole. Nomi slowly made his way around the fight and straight to the exit. Howard followed him, while bubbling something about his entire life being destroy together with the games. Nomi just rolled his eyes, but did not comment.
The two made it out. Nomi looked back in, looking at the ninja, who was just thrown into a wall. The guy didn't even try to get the monster out of the building. Was it really that hard to just try to lure it out? Fighting these things in enclosed and small place was not smart at all, especially when there were still people there. Oh well, he already knew that this ninja tend to do things without thinking, and couldn't multitask it seems. He would have to talk to him about this later. Not directly of course, that's not allowed. The ninja can't know about Nomicon having another body, just as much as Nomi can't know who the ninja is.
Yeah, out of all people, Nomicon is not an exception. He doesn't actually know the reason. Possibly, for his and the ninja's safety, or just for the sake of Nomi not to get attached to them. They only stick around for four years, after all, some don't even get that long...
Logically, one might think that there is no way for him not to know who the ninja is, right? He is the one picking the ninja, right? He is the one teaching him and he might see the ninja without the mask, while they are inside his other vessel. Well, it might sound like the truth, and people might think that, but it's not exactly like that.
He doesn't actually know who picks the ninja. It's technically suppose to be him, but he never did it. Was it his other body's doing on its own? Is that even possible?
When Nomi communicates with the ninja, there is some sort of a block, which doesn't allow him to remember what the ninja looks or sounds like. His own existence is as much of a mystery to him as it is to everyone else.
The ninja was thrown around the building, following him being thrown out of the building overall. After a few more minutes, of the same pattern, the ninja finally won and after using the smoke bomb, he disappeared.
Meanwhile, Nomi walked back into the Game Hole, or what was left of it, with Howard in toe. The latter began running around and crying about all of the lost games, as if they wouldn't be able to fixed the place up by the next day.
Norisu began to look around in search of Randy, but it was as if the guy just disappeared. Suddenly, a strange feeling took over his entire body, and for a second he felt a little light headed. The ninja was calling him. Such awful timing, but he can't just ignore him for no reason. It might be something important.
Norisu quickly walked to the stairs that lead to the Food Hole, sitting down at the lowest step, leaning his head against the wall transferring his consciousness to his alternate body.
He finally saw the silhouette of the ninja.
"Listen, Nomicon," the ninja said. "I got a question. What do I do now? Like, that the Sorcerer is gone? I am getting worried that I might not be needed anymore. My main duty was to defeat the Sorcerer. Now what? Like even McFist isn't a problem anymore... I think he isn't. Well, he did attack me just now, but that was probably some malfunction. He has no reason to go after me now."
He isn't stupid enough to actually believe that, is he?
"What am I suppose to do now? Protect the city from McFist's broken robot?"
The entire place lit up a few times to represent Nomi's frustration.
Did he really just bothered him over this? Did he have nothing better to do at the moment?
Maybe, Nomi was just frustrated that he had to get distracted from searching for his new friend.
"Ok, man, that's not really an answer," said the ninja. "Is there like a possibility of the Sorcerer to appear again? I'm not saying I want that to happen, but I guess, you get what I mean."
Nomi thought for a second, then engraved the following words in front of the ninja:
"The ninja that pays too much attention to the hurricane that has passed, wouldn't notice another one coming."
"Oh, c'mon, Nomicon. Can we not do this right now?" the ninja whined. "I was kind of hoping for a straight answer."
Well, you're not getting one.
"If you could tell me straight forward that would be nice. I don't have much time to figure out what that means. I kind of needs to get back to something."
Should have contacted him later then.
"What does this have to do with hurricanes, anyway?"
That's it. If he want's to figure it out, he can do it on his own.
The next second, the ninja fell into a hole that appeared right under his feet returning him to the real world. Nomi himself woke up a second later.
Norisu stood up and looked around. Weinerman was still crying over the games.
The door to the washroom opened and Randy ran out. He sprinted down towards the stairs and expectedly, he tripped on a piece that broke off a wall right by the steps flying forward.
Nomi reacted fast by catching the guy before he could reach the ground.
"You really do have a tendency for knocking yourself off your feet," Nomi laughed.
"I wouldn't lie about that," Randy let out an awkward laugh. "Thanks by the way."
"Cunningham!" Howard quickly ran towards them, with such speed that it actually shocked Nomi. It was as if the devil himself approached them. The shorter guy grabbed Randy by the shirt and began to shake him. "How could you?" he said, repeating over and over.
Nomi looked at them in confusion. Randy noticed the other's expression and quickly came up with a way out without outing himself as the ninja:
"Yeah, sorry guys, I really had to use the bathroom."
Howard first looked at him with a raised eyebrow, but after realizing that Nomi was right there with them, he began to play along.
"You just ditched us to go to the bathroom?!" he yelled. "And specifically when the monster attacked?"
"Well, when you gotta go, you gotta go." Randy said awkwardly.
"I kind of agree with Howard on that one," said Nomi. "It was not great timing. If the robot broke in there, you could've gotten hurt."
"It didn't happen, so, we're good." Randy said quickly and tried to change the topic. "We should probably wrap this up, considering the Game Hole isn't suitable for gaming at the moment." he gestured at the distraction.
"You're right," Nomi agreed and began to walk towards the street. "I should probably get going."
"Yeah, right. See you tomorrow at school then," Randy was trying to make a statement, but the last sentence sounded more like a question.
"Yup, see you then." said Nomi and began to walk out.
He didn't want to be leaving yet, but he had to. For some reason, the feeling of light headedness wasn't leaving. Is something actually wrong with him? It's not suppose to be like this. He isn't sick. He can't get sick. That's physically not possible. Why is this happening to him again? Why now?
He didn't even notice as he reached the school's front doors, and in the matter of minutes was already standing in the library. He couldn't take another step as he passed out.