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Chapter Text

Morro looked up into his former mentors eyes, searching them frantically. He was running out of time. He needed to make a decision.

Morro looked to the realm crystal, almost a barrier between his life (if you can call a ghost alive) and death. What did he want? Would his pathetic, jealous life end here? Where would he go when the water touches him? After all, the Cursed Realm was gone, and he doubted the Departed Realm would take a villain who died twice.

The familiar feeling of tears arose, but of course, ghosts cannot cry. Even if he deserved it, that would be nonsensical. He panted angrily, why did it have to be like this? Why did all of it have to come down to this? Oh FSM, there was nothing he could do, no going back and changing the past, no redemption. This really was the end.

Wu's dragon flapped as he held his arm out, needlessly hopeful, looking as desperate as Morro felt. He flapped his hand, emphasising how badly he must've wanted him to take it. "You're strong Morro, but it takes others to make us stronger!" He insisted.

The ghost strained against the Pre-eminents grip, using his own wind one handedly to try and save himself. The one thing he had ever cared about enough to hone, the one thing that felt natural to him, that he could cherish. The blissful ignorance that lay within his power.

The only thing left which beauty he could admire, the wind.

It couldn't save him now.

"Even me! Take my hand!" Wu continued to beg, but words countered, echoed, in the back of his head. I don't need your help. a part of him suggested. I don't deserve it.

"So we can be stronger together. Please Morro!" Morro gasped, still painfully indecisive. Some piece of him urged him to take Wu's hand now, and figured it out later, to live now, and die when he wasn't recklessly high off adrenaline.

Leaning forwards, but still sinking down slowly, Morro grabbed the old man's hand. He looked up at him, heart full with emotion he would never have time to sort through if he died now. But always, always coated in the sour taste of regret and envy, so he could never savour it. Why was he always self-sabotaging? Morro pulled himself up, only to be held in place by the dying Pre-eminents tentacle, which apparently still had enough strength to end him. Or spite. Why are you doing this? He thought bitterly, but he didn't know who to.

The dread in his heart thickened as the Pre-eminent continued to pull him down, against his wind and Wu's grip. His stomach fell with finality and grief as he decided. But he felt nothing.

The pupil looked up at his mentor, both changed beyond comprehension from when they first met. A moment that felt lifetimes ago. He began to speak, slowly but not softly, coming ever closer to the water. "You can only save those-..."

Morro shrieked as Wu's hand spasmed for just a second, releasing the ghosts ankles into the water. The pain stung him, blinded him with the likes of which he hadn't felt for 40 years, well, he hadnt felt anything like this in his lifetime, either. It was indescribable agony. It was mortal. And it horrified him so.

The burning wouldn't stop, it didn't wear down, it didnt subside, it only intensified until the world melted and sparked before his eyes. He was pretty sure he was screaming, hyperventilating now, his eyes shot with the most fear and pain he was sure Wu had ever seen from him, because the man was, well, pale as a ghost. (No-one can save you now, no-one can save you now-)

At his reaction, the Pre-eminent continued to take him, almost with a sick glee. Morro screamed again as more of his spectral flesh seared away, it was animalistic, and vulnerable. It was also incredibly loud, but not loud enough not loud enough not loud enough to stop the burning.

He couldn't escape, he couldn't fly away, he couldn't move his feet.

It was the worst feeling imaginable to be suddenly brought back to the physical world, against his will. Nothing ever had, or ever would compare to this moment. He couldn't breathe, it was like he had locked up. 

He was being torn apart, brutally and unforgiveably, by one of the most important beings in his life.

"𝘕𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘰-!" He panicked, he wailed, like the child he was. It was a thousand needles, blades, stabbing deep into his flesh from all angles, so deep that he could never ignore it, never forget it. It was a hurricane spun out of his control, destructive and unpredictable, pounding in his head.

His flesh, which had been blind and deaf and numb to the world for four decades straight, now faced with being eaten like a leaf in a river of molten gold. Morro couldn't stop himself from being swept away and reduced to not even ash. He could not stop the inevitable, and with this fate, there would be nothing left of him. It was unbearable, it was all he could think and see and remember and flashes of light danced in his vision, everything was seeking to distract him from survival. This felt like forever.

Had he had a life before this? This was all he could remember. (I did not forget my own name.)

Morro didn't even notice his light-headedness as he fell further into the water, torturous pain causing him to hysterically screech, he realised he was holding onto Wu so tight that his nails were digging into the others flesh, drawing blood.

This small detail brought his consciousness back to this world, and his shaking vision focused in on Wu. His only hope.

Trembling, Morro realised something.

He didn't really want to die yet. He had so much left to experience and figure out and... so many amends to make, if he died now, he would only ever be remembered as a failed villain. As a run-away. As a prideful, disgraced student. Nobody would ever know, or care.

He didn't want to die yet.

Especially not so slowly and so painfully, the fire at his hip was furthering every second, and he was twitching and sobbing.

"Sensei....help me-" He shuddered frantically, and Wu seemed to smile softly, and with other emotions he couldnt read right now, and Morro wondered how anyone could be calm when his own world was so disturbed by jitters and explosions of light and pain and he was moving so fast and so slow at the same time and-

Wu took his hand off a rein, and pulled Morro up with both hands, out of the never ending prison.

Morro had never felt such genuine relief and joy than in the moments before he passed out on the back of Wu's dragon, already flapping away.

Kai looked at Nya, both faces stricken with an unreadable emotion. They had both seen Wu fly out to save Morro, and all of them had heard Morro's screams at he was slowly disintegrated in the water. It was, frankly, horrifying, and even though Morro had tried to kill all of them multiple times, he still never wanted to hear his sounds of pain or terror again.

But, the siblings seemed to have a silent agreement. Morro should've died in the water back there. And the fact that he was still alive was betraying Lloyd, and like, every villager in Stiix.

Neither of them spoke a word as the others herded the villagers off the ferry and back into the almost destroyed village on stilts, or as Zane summoned the Bounty to them, so they could all go home, finally. Home had seemed a long way away when Kai watched Lloyd be devoured by the Pre-eminent, and when it began to walk towards them in the water. Home had seemed a long way away, even during the first time they realised that Lloyd wasn't in control of his own body.

He didn't know how he had survived all that, especially when he had accepted his end so many times. Everything was surreal, a dream. A brains last moments of activity before the final black-out.

To be fair, none of the other ninja spoke much either. And Morro was passed out (since when could ghosts pass out??), Wu had taken him elsewhere. Kai guessed they were all exhausted, like him.

The difference was, that the Master of Fire could not rest easy until the threat was well and truly gone.

How could the rest of them?? How could Wu willingly save him? I mean, Kai understood it was his first student and all, but by this point, surely his master could see the ghost was irredeemable?

The guy possessed, threatened and fought with his own nephew, and tried to kill all his students, and even tried to take over the world. He had even put Wu's life in danger. However, all Kai really cared about was what he had done to Lloyd.

They had only had the Green Ninja back for a few hours, and despite countless amounts of comforting, promises, and hugs, he still had that distant, sad look in his eyes. The face that said he would not forget, not for a long time, and that he was frozen, refusing (or unable) to move on.

That, making Lloyd feel like that, was irredeemable alone.

And Kai hadn't even beat Morro, not slightly! Even though he deserved it so severely.

And even though his fists ached to maim his treacherous body, and his mind plagued him with fantasies of his tragic demise. He still had enough self restraint!

He wasn't even being rewarded for it.

Kai snuck a glance at Lloyd for what must've been the the 20th time that hour. He couldn't help it, he cared for Lloyd like (almost) no-one else, and the fact that he was in pain that Kai could do nothing to ease weighed down on him like a ton of bricks.

If I could, I would take your place. The Red Ninja had thought those words many times before, in many different contexts, (Zane before the Tournament, Nya with Samukai, Lloyd when he was revealed to be the green ninja) and he was sure Morro had too, but this one was the sincerest meaning one he could find in the bottom of his filthy heart, blackened with mistakes he had made.

He sighed, subtly. The last thing Kai wanted was Lloyd asking him what was wrong.  

Had anything changed between them? Could Lloyd not trust him because he failed to save him from Morro? The thought stung Kai with righteous regret, why hadn't he tried harder? Surely there would've been a way to stop the ghost sooner, or he could've warned Lloyd not the go to the museum. But he didn't.

He couldn't think about this, not now. There were bigger things on his plate. Kai looked to Nya, who nodded, and they both began to walk.

Like the ninja they had trained to be, the two walked in heavy silence up to the only spare room in the Bounty. Outside the door, they could spot Wu, and Morro, asleep? Kai took a too-shallow breath, and put his hand on the doorknob, ignoring Nya's warning glare.

(A/N: I HAD TO FUCKING REWRITE THIS NEXT PART COS I LOST IT)

He stepped inside, along with Nya, and the two bowed, Wu looked up, his sad smile fading into something of concern as he noticed the siblings grim expressions. Kai spoke, "Sensei," His Master nodded, "Respectfully, what the fuck are you doing."

Nya hissed, in a way that told Kai this is why she thought she should've done the talking. The old man almost seemed unbothered by his students borderline disrespect. "Well, Kai, I am helping a child who strayed too far, into places they should not have gone." "I'd rather you didn't." 

Wu almost chuckled, "The best way to defeat your enemy is to make them your friend, have you forgotten that lesson so soon?"

"What he means, Master, is, are you sure you've thought this through? Morro doesn't seem like the type of guy to switch sides so fast. How can you be sure he has no ulterior motives?" "Alas, I cannot. I am only glad he is still with us." 

"Yes," the Master of Fire sighed, ignoring the last part, "so we cannot keep him here. I really don't care if he was your first student-" Kai took a step forward instinctively, not realising it was his own mentor he was trying to intimidate.

Though, Nya promptly yanked him back. He shut his eyes, and exhaled sharply, Nya, however, seemed the picture of silent, simmering rage. "Sorry. It is way too risky to keep him here, within the living space of Lloyd." "Yeah, I second that. We really don't have the manpower to stop the rip-off of our most recent world-threatening crisis."

Sensei Wu sighed, "Morro is weak. I can guarantee he won't be causing another world-threatening crisis anytime soon." Was he trying to make light of a situation like this? "You can't guarantee anything." He insisted.

"Why are you even really keeping him here?" Nya pressed. "Because I cannot let him go again. I cannot live another lifetime regretting that I let him leave, I can't do that to him, or myself." 

There was a few seconds of silence, mainly filled with Kai's angry breathing. 

The Master of Waters voice was cold, but not calm. "He will be your responsibility, Sensei. You will be to blame." Kai huffed, adding, "The guy can be held accountable himself. If your pupil steps one toe out of line, I will find him. We all will." 

It seemed the son of the First Spinjitsu Master had been backed into a corner by two teenagers he had personally trained, so he could do nothing but agree to their terms.

"I understand." 

Apparently sated, Kai relaxed slightly, and turned to leave through the door. When had it closed? He opened it, passing through, Nya, however, suddenly looked up.

She turned back, adding, "Oh. And, give me the Realm Crystal." Their sensei searched her face, before quietly producing the crystal and handing it over into her cold hands. "Keep it safe." He said it almost like a question, but the finality was there nonetheless.

"Thanks." Then, the siblings actually left the room, anywhere away from Morro was better. 

Immediately, Kai was more comfortable, "Pfft, 'keep it secret, keep it safe' who is he, Gandalf?" "Shut up, Kai." "No, I think I make a valid point."

When she didn't respond with humour, or even annoyance, he looked at her. Nya was looking at the Crystal in her hands, iridescent, every reflection a flitting image of some long gone world. In there, the fire burned, and so did the ice.

"I don't like this." "Yeah, no shit, I don't think anybody does." "Seriously." "Yes seriously, literally no-one wants a dead teenager from a different generation that tried to kill us like 20 times minim-" "Kai why won't you fucking listen to me?!" Now that annoyed him.

"I am! Why are you so angry at me?!" "With the way you're acting, it really seems like you don't even care about Lloyd or what will happen next." She growled through gritted teeth. Kai stared at her incredulously, then waved a hand in her face, and stomped off.

"Of course I fucking care. Can you really blame me for trying to lighten the mood at a time like this?" "Yes, because you're only doing it to relax. You think that the threat is past, that the tallest hill has already been climbed, but it hasn't." "There's no way you actually think that." He said, in disbelief, rather than seriously.

However, her face was stoick, challenging him. "I care as much as the next person and you know it, Nya." "I didn't say that." "You just did!" "The point is, be on your guard, and for the First Masters sake, don't abandon Lloyd." 

"Now that, I definitely never implied." Kai growled, 

"So you admit to implying the last one?" But she didn't really mean it, her tone was teasing. He smirked, "Shut the fuck up."

"Says you." "Yes says me, here I am saying you to shut the fuck up." "I'm not even going to point out how much is wrong with that goddamn sentence." "Exactly that's what I thought, I'd beat you up if you did." 

Nya scoffed lightly, eyebrows lowering, prepared to retaliate, before they both looked up and noticed they had already walked all the way back up to the deck. Where Lloyd was.

Before Nya could negotiate or warn him to not be stupid, Kai leaped over to where the Green Ninja leaned over the railings, looking at the shadow that the flying ship left.

Kai slung his arm around Lloyd's shoulders, who grinned weakly, mood imperceptibly lifted.

Morro looked through the door to the monastery, he frowned, holding out an empty bowl. This was taking too long. He shook the bowl with annoyance, to communicate that he was growing impatient.

He tried not to look into the darkness as the gate creaked open, but the darkness knew he was thinking of it anyways, and just as he was about to turn back, Wu appeared at the door, moving in the spaces between Morro's vision. 

His heart jumped in his throat, but he decided to just get it over and done with, holding out the bowl again. Wu looked at it without reaction, and for a second, Morro thought he had angered him, but when he looked down, the bowl was gone from his hands, and Wu stood aside to let him in.

Morro nodded thankfully and stepped into the strangely lit training area, Wu's voice sounded from strangely far away.

"Remember that not every enemy is your fault. Some people can not be fixed." Morro frowned at this, "Like me?" Wu smiled but said nothing.

They walked inside, to check if he was the Green Ninja, and on their way, Morro passed a mirror. He stopped in front of it for a second, confused.

He was...tall, and older, and bitter, in his reflection. The distance from the floor to his eyes didn't add up with the reflection and his own eyes. The reflections lips were moving, eyes darting around in rage, but he didnt want to listen. It would be painful.

Morro knew enough to know he was forgetting something, but not enough to remember. 

They continued walking, shouting echoed from inside the room as Wu lay a hand on his shoulder, and when Morro turned around, he said, "Morro, it must be you." He smiled, before pondering whether his sensei meant what he thought he did.

But just then, Sensei looked very afraid, and the air around them grew cold and spun in undiscovered colours, when he opened his eyes (when had he closed them?), there were two Wu's!

Morro looked on in curiosity and mild concern, as the newer Wu aged rapidly, far past what Morro had ever seen him as.

Then, the older Wu ate the younger Wu! That made Morro mad, because his Sensei had kind eyes, and this old man look as cruel and bitter as his reflection. "I won't train with you." Morro hissed.

The impostor Wu looked outraged, before Morro suddenly witnessed himself pull a door off his hinges, and storm away, ranting about not being the Green Ninja, which was silly, because he was. He almost laughed at that, but he couldn't. 

Suddenly remembering that Wu was there in the original memory, he raced into the room, hopes high, but younger Wu was still not there. He was well and truly eaten.

Morro almost cried, but he couldn't. 

"It's because of you. If you had turned back this wouldn't have happened." The impostor gargled in a painfully distorted voice, but Morro knew he was wrong. The boy ran out of the monastery, sliding down the stairs to the mountain, all the way down to snitch to the village about how this Wu was way worse.

Morro awoke with a start and immediately began to writhe in agony. Cursing under his breath, he realised that he could actually feel his legs. He blinked slightly, it was more like his eyelids twitched, really. His legs hurt like all hell, though, he didn't know which he preferred.

Within his mist of pain, he hardly noticed Wu sitting by his bed....

Why was he in a bed? Where was he?

Morro jerked, hearing some unexplainable noise, and realised he was far too weak and disoriented to fight back against whatever it was. Instead, he opted to hide beneath the covers.

"...ro. Morro, please." He gasped, more like jerking air into his theoretical lungs than an expression of surprise. He took the covers off his face, and examined Wu again, slowly remembering a dream he had.

"Oh. Its you." At that, Wu looked like he wanted to chuckle, but he raised his eyebrows, and asked, "Who were you expecting?" "The other one." Morro snorted.

"Very funny, I'm glad to see you're well enough to be making jokes." The Master of Wind rolled his eyes, "You're not fooling me." Wu seemed to take notice of that, his expression became more serious.

"What? Are you...-

-ng OK? Morro!" Morro blinked, gritting his teeth, the sharp ringing had subsided, but Wu's voice was almost as annoying. He didn't understand what was happening, but his legs felt like a tree had been felled onto them, and he wanted to fall asleep to ignore it. "Stop saying my name. I know what it is." Someone blinked, he couldn't remember who.

"I never said you didn't.. Morro, how do you feel?" The ghost snapped to him, and hissed in a voice more aggressive than he thought he could be. "I know what my name is."

He suddenly twitched, pain throbbing in the back of his head, and behind his eyes. He pressed his palms against his eyelids, not caring about the interruption in the conversation. 

"I did not forget my own name."  Morro insisted, but who was he trying to convince? Wu seemed like he was agreeing to calm him down, but it wasn't like he was hysteric. Right?   

When Morro looked down, strange things came rushing back. About his death, his time in the Cursed Realm, his time with Lloyd, Wu saving him and...

Fuck.

He had almost died. Yet, he was still alive and now, owed Wu and the ninja a massive debt. The ghost flinched, tearing his gaze away from himself, as if it would erase his memory. His actions.

His unavoidable consequences.

Letting out some drawn-out, petty groan (as if anyone other than him was to blame for this) , he tore the blanket off, to Wu's unrest. And he just, froze.

It wasn't like he found comfort in himself, but it was nonetheless unsettling to almost not be able to see his own legs, but still feel them. Even if he was a ghost. It was unnatural feeling, unlike the other times. The pressure was becoming unbearable, and the place where the water had stopped was still burning faintly.

Taking a deep breath, Morro pulled the blanket back over him, and looked at Wu, his vision swimming.

"I'm sorry, I do not know much about ghosts or their near death experiences." The Master of Wind scoffed, "I wouldn't expect you to." "Ah, but I will still travel to the library of Domu to search in depth for ways to help." "In fact, I'd be pretty confused if you did know."

Wu probably ignored this, and Morro looked around the small room, "S-.. Where are we?" The old man blinked, "Right. We are in the Bounty, that flying ship, and you are in an extra room, where we decided to put you."

"Decided?" Morro grimaced, "I really doubt any of the ninja would willingly keep me here." Wu's face darkened, "We have yet to talk of that, but you are still my student, Morro. You will always be welcome with me."

That must be a straight up lie. Morro remembered reading the look on his sensei's face when they discovered he wasn't the Green Ninja. There was no way Wu wanted to keep him anymore after that.

Who would? Morro certainly wouldn't keep some useless street rat in his house, why would anyone else give him that courtesy? The people in this generation didn't make sense to him.

"Okayyy." He drawled, still the teenager he died as. Now that he paid attention to it, the room did sway slightly in a way that couldn't be his own disorientation. Were they in the air?

Just as he was about to look behind him for the window from which the light was coming, a head covered in brown hair bobbed past the glass circle to the door. It stopped, rewound slowly to stare at Morro in shock.

Morro recognised it as the mouthy one, lightning, maybe? Anyways, the ninja swiftly drifted away, a sheepish smile on his face, as if he wasn't about to go tell the others that their most recent enemy was awake again.

"You should've let me die in Stiix, like I deserved." He grumbled, to which Wu looked horrified at. "I would never refuse someone who asked me for help. Especially not you."

"You know that the only reason I asked for help was because I didn't expect death to be so painful. I'm a coward. You know this, you still should've just left." The silence was littered with Morro's deep panting. (I have hurt too many people. You're not making sense, Sensei.)

"I don't think you would've been very pleased with me," Wu smiled, his incessant smile, one that had hardly changed over the forty years Morro had been gone. Actually, it looked.... less lonely? "knowing you, you probably would've found a way to survive just to vanquish me if I had done that." 

Morro didn't know what to say to that, he didn't know himself well enough to judge whether that was true or not. Instead, he asked, "What did you do with the Realm Crystal?" A subtly disappointed, but not surprised look washed over his former mentors face. 

"It is away, for the foreseeable future." "Good choice." The ninja would be bigger fools than he thought if they had let him just have the Realm Crystal .

"We will see." And with that he strode to the door, stroking his beard and muttering. "Get some rest, Morro. I promise the ninja will not bother you." The ghost drew in the phantom pretense of a breath. "Thanks."

The door clicked shut. Morro groaned, falling back onto the random mattress they had probably fished out of a closet. Who even has room to keep a whole entire spare mattress in like, a ship with what, seven people?

Maybe they just had different priorities. Or maybe they just lived somewhere else, and this was equivalent to their caravan.

I did not forget my own name.

The words echoed in his mind, and he pointedly ignored them, as though they were as petty as he was. Words and sounds swirled around his mind, the chaos had somehow begun the moment Wu had left.

There was no fog to squint past now, he could see the world and all its secrets so clearly it hurt his eyes. Everything was a mess. His inner monologue was a hurricane. 

Was he going insane? Was he delirious? How the fuck was he still alive? Literally none of it made sense to him.

Nothing made sense. Nothing ever had. It had always been other people understanding before him, had always been others gently guiding him to the right path, that Morro had so blatantly ignored. Maybe he shouldn't have done that.

"Fucking kill mee." He whined to himself as he knocked his head on the bedframe, just to check if he could. Suddenly, Morro turned to the side and sat up. Maybe, he could get out of here and kill himself in like, a dirty puddle, if he tried hard enough.

But the moment he straightened, his vision spun. And he felt sick. And there was the fake feeling of blood pounding through his head. He hadn't felt so much at once for such a long time, it paralysed him.

Somehow, he managed to just lie down again, before he melted or something.

Wasn't water supposed to fully kill ghosts? Since when had ghosts almost died, and had half their body removed?

Was he just an old man, clinging to some false hope of life, of a second chance, trying to forget a terminal illness? Life is a terminal disease, he realised uselessly, blankly. Well, not for him, unfortunately. He was still here, even after dying.

Was his existence more unnatural than it usually was? Was he supposed to be dead right now? Imagine, if the one time he didn't want to, he had defied destiny.

How ironic that would be.

Maybe he could tell that to the children that wandered too far into the woods when he ran away and became a cryptid for 100 years straight.

Actually, a desert would be a better bet. Forests often tended to have rainfall, what with the whole vegetation needing water thing, there were also less people in deserts. This was usually due to the whole people needing water thing.

Pathetic. All of them.

He should be dead, and the rest of them knew it. They could smell it on him like bloodhounds, that this was not meant to be. 

Maybe... he should just get it over and done with. The only thing that scared him was the pain. Actually, that was a lie. Morro was, ironically, afraid of death, he didn't want to be dead, exactly, he just wanted to restart. To leave.

But that was all far too complicated to become a reality. Life was just difficult for him, it always had been.

He had lived on the streets, for FSM's sake, he had died trying to prove his destiny. He had come back, only to fail again. How did Wu still have any faith in him? Morro had given up his hope a long, long time ago.

There was no way he could do this right now. He let his head hit the pillow, preparing to fall asleep the only way that ghosts could. Goodnight, a mental whisper.

And just like a light switch turning off, he fell asleep. 

Lloyd wasn't listening to the conversation happening less than two metres from his face, and he sure as hell didn't have the energy to pretend he was. He watched the trail that the stirring spoon left in his coffee.

He never used to drink coffee. He had always preferred hot chocolate, or sweets in general.

About time I grew up, he thought grimly, wondering if the others had secretly judged him for holding onto childish habits for too long. Anyways, coffee was more useful in general, he had had a hard time staying awake lately. It was far too tiring to exist. (A/N: Mood, Lloyd, mood.)

Really, it didn't even make sense. Lloyd had been through worse, such as when Kai had betrayed him in the Tournament, or when Zane 'died', or when he had to fight the Overlord (did it count as his father?). The point is, that the list just went on and on.

Statistically, what was different this time to make him so... unmotivated? Had it just been his last straw? Was he going to be like this his whole life now, useless? Oh FSM, what if they kicked him off because he couldn't fight anymore?

Or was it the things Morro had told him? They can't help you now. You're too much effort for them, anyways. Only idiots would waste their time on a burden like you.

Burden. Thats all he had ever been. A problem child who had to be dealt with, a ninja who had to be trained as quickly as possible, and now, a weakling. He was pathetic and everybody here knew it.

Lloyd certainly wouldn't burden them with his mental state, it had been difficult for them too. And... saying anything about his issues made him feel like he was being selfish, taking their freedom from them.

And Kai. Kai had tried so hard to help, to make him feel better, and it made Lloyd want to cry. Because no matter the jokes Kai made, or the promises he spoke, Lloyd's subconscious refused to cheer up. And he didn't have the energy to pretend it had.

He hated to see the way the Red Ninja's face fell a little every time he realised that this wasn't something that could be fixed overnight. He felt so guilty to be making Kai feel bad for him. Lloyd wished that his brother would stop trying, just like Lloyd already had.

The Green Ninja didn't deserve anyone's sympathy. Just by Morro's existence, it was evident that he was alot more privileged than he had thought. 

One of the ninja slammed the table, from whatever heated topic they were discussing this time, but it made Lloyd jump. When he blinked, looking up, and saw Kai hissing at Jay, he figured out who it had been.

He wanted to crawl into the floor, he wasn't worthy of Kai's protection, he was just pathetic.

Against his will, his ears slowly tuned in to the conversation, words actually reaching him. "-OU INSANE??? HE IS A CHILD PRODIGY PSYCHOPATH THAT IS DEFINITELY STILL OUT FOR OUR BLOOD." Jay's shrill, panicked voice reached his ears.

As Lloyd grimaced, he realised that some things never change. "I hear you, Jay," Sensei Wu stroked his beard, "but he is still my student. And you will all treat him as such. Show him the respect you showed Lloyd when we first brought him upon the Bounty."

Suddenly, the focus of everyone at the table was directed to him, he froze, eyes darting between them, holding his breath until they looked away. "Did we remember that differently? Because I specifically remember showing that little kid a fucking exiguous amount of respect!" Jay countered, still pretty loudly.

"Whoa there Jay, your head might hurt if you use too many big words!" Kai teased in mock concern. "How are you not upset about this??" The Master of Lighting said, turning to the Master of Fire, but Lloyd didn't miss his eyes flickering to him.

Kai shrugged as he leaned back, the picture of nonchalance. "I already talked to him about it. We took the crystal, Morro will be to blame for his actions blah blah. He's weak right now, anyways." Jay's face turned from one of frustration, to that of disbelief, and humour?

"PFFFT I can imagine how well that must've went." "Well-" 

"Actually," Nya butted in her brothers sentence, sneering. "I specifically remember saying Wu would be to blame for his actions, and you just ignoring that." Jay was now silent, almost making an ( :0 ) face at Kai.

"Wait wait, so who is being held accountable for the bastard?" The Master of Lightning questioned. "Why not both of them?" Lloyd decided, speaking up. Everyone, even those not speaking, looked at him in mild surprise.

He licked the coffee off his spoon, rolling his eyes. How did they ever expect him to get better if every time he spoke up, they looked at him like he'd just controlled the wind?

Eventually, Kai nodded. "Sure, why not." Jay, Nya, Zane, and Cole, hummed their agreement. Well, that was that.

Just as he stood up to leave, Jay opened his mouth again. "Hang on, is this gonna be like when Garmadon lived with us? Is he some crazy insane evil man who eats slugs and evil?" 

Almost everyone in the room drew a collective sigh of dispointment. "No, Jay." Wu replied. Zane spoke up, in his robotic tone of voice. "In fact, I believe Sensei was comparing Morro to Lloyd as a child, more than Garmadon. Someone who we should try to give a second chance."

The words second chance sent a cold shiver up Lloyd's spine. He had thought and thought and mulled over them for far too long, almost to a painful point. 

Cole, too, spoke up. "Also, maybe don't call Lord Garmadon a crazy insane evil man in front of Lloyd??" The Master of Earth rolled his eyes, but Lloyd stiffened, ignoring the (fewer, atleast) eyes on him yet again. Every time Cole was in the corner of his eye, Lloyd froze, because all he could see was a ghost. Just like Morro.

"Mhm." Lloyd stood out of his seat, walking past Cole, who was muttering something about human decency.

As he left the room, he could still hear Jay, "OK, but the difference was that Lloyd did not chase me with a prophecy sword in God's ice tomb with the intent to ki-!"

One day, this was going to be the death of him. Wincing slightly, Lloyd stumbled down the hallway, taking a swig of the cooling drink in his hand, as he tried to convince himself to like its taste.

As he entered the open air, he relaxed slightly, only for a second. The fresh air usually helped clear his mind, key word; usually. 

Something was different, off. The wind swirled around him, heavier, slower, it was changed. And not in the way that wind was always changing, a storm was coming, that was it.

His body began to panic, it was a reflex, really. Small tremors shook his hands, making it hard to hold the coffee without spilling, and the fresh air was now suffocating, he was almost unable to breathe it in.

Feelings, rather than images, flashed through his consciousness. He was trapped. Trapped and alone and a burden and he deserved this. He didn't want anyone to save him.

But he wanted help nonetheless, maybe he could run far, far away-

Lloyd jerked air into his lungs, and squeezed his eyes shut, but he could still feel the wind. And he hated it. Hated that every time he walked outside of their base, which was a flying ship, he would start to break down. It was pathetic.

But he still wanted to get out of there. He didn't know exactly where his new sensitivity to the wind had come from, but he could sure guess. After all, he has been in the same body with a Master of Wind for quite a while.

The newfound gift was unwanted. Lloyd shuffled back inside, trying to control his breathing, he walked like a person would pace, fast and jittery.

When he finally arrived in his room, he collapsed in his bed, eyes closed, and did not open them for a long time, his coffee forgotten. 

Chapter Text

Morro awoke again (unfortunately.) with a wince. Sharp pain throbbed in his side, it was incredibly annoying, actually. Was this how alive people felt when they had stomach aches?

He panted, waiting for it to subside, but it didn't. Eventually, he just zoned it out, it was only something he was wasting energy on at this point. Morro took a slow, deep breath.

Ignoring the fact that ghosts couldn't breathe. The breath would've gone through him, however, he had no diaphragm to pull the air towards him in the first place, Morro tried to ignore it.

He would never admit it, but he hated that. That a part of being a ghost was being unable to subtly interact with his element, the wind was only his when he commanded it to, in this form. Like it was a slave.

The wind had never been his slave in his lifetime, it was a companion, an equal, some sort of mutual respect with an intangible being that he could never begin to explain. It was his and he was its'.

Now, it was a cruel imbalance of control. Well, most ghosts in the Cursed Realm are in fact cruel, maybe it was fitting. (Maybe he was cruel.) That didn't stop his heart from sinking every time the wind responded to him like he was a stranger. They were simply no longer in harmony.

It would never understand if he pleaded, if he tried to convince it, and on the off chance it was just his gut feeling, he would never beg for forgiveness to some made up ideology. He would never beg anyone for forgiveness.

Morro knew that he could either earn the person's forgiveness, or just suffer, because if they didn't forgive him, then he must've done something so terrible that he deserved to be punished for it. Morro could accept that, because it was about to be his reality, now.

Slowly but surely, his thoughts came around to, What the hell am I going to do?? Because, there's no way he would live with Wu's other students, and there no way they'd live with him either.

Would he just... start wandering? Where would he go? Would they decide to kill him for the greater good? Despite himself, the possible thought made him start to panic, subconsciously, of course.

Ah, First Master, his legs still hurt. Well, they weren't in agony anymore, but he could still feel the strange pressure that was so strong it almost hurt. If only he could use that new invention... the, painkillers in pill form, he forgot their name.

It was strange, Morro had always just used some form of Kampo, (A/N: Kampo: a branch of ancient Japanese medicine) which name he also forgot, in his life time. The things that had sprung up while he was gone were many, and it was all too complex for him. 

Not like he'd ever have to use their medicine anyways, so what's the point spending time trying to decipher them? None.

Glad we agree, he snorted in mockery to, his inner voice? He didn't know, he was probably just talking to himself. Was he going insane so soon? That was disappointing, he would've thought he'd hold out a month or so.

Just as Morro was pondering on that, glaring into the distance, a round, slightly pointed hat appeared in front of the circular window to his door, facing downwards as they turned the doorknob. He still recognised it as Wu's. Morro scoffed, his master hardly used to wear hats, what was he hiding nowadays, dandruff?

Wu opened the door, heading facing the floor, slightly. He looked up in mild surprise to see Morro awake, the ghost raised his eyebrows in grim acknowledgement. His Sensei stood by his side, stroking his beard, and asked, "Are you feeling better today, Morro?" 

"Agh, probably as good as I'm gonna get." "Why do you say so?" The ghost shrugged, "A hunch." To be honest, there was a part of him that didnt want to get better, and maybe that part was lazy, or self-destructive, Wu sat on the side of the bed, eyes calmly searching Morro's eyes, which were harsh, and revealed nothing. They almost bit back to his former mentors gaze, villainous in comparison.

"Morro, the ninja would like me to ask you what your plan is. What are you going to do next?" "Not resurrect the Pre-eminent, if that's what they're worried about." He stated, bluntly.

"No, but I am worried about your sense of direction. Everybody needs a reason to live." "Don't need one if im not alive, technically." He offered, all but ignoring Wu's concern.

"Well, I suppose not resurrecting the Pre-eminent is a step in the right direction." Morro grimaced, gripping the covers. Wu was acting like he was a small child, who didn't understand why what they did was wrong. It was like he was being told off, for First Masters' sake.

Told off gently, though. Which was worse.

Like when one of Wu's friends came to visit the monastery, and when he flew into a fit of rage, (predictably) they would say things like 'You're a good student, I know you can do better than this.' 

And Morro had never understood, never understood the wave of emotion that came over him, never understood why they would pretend to know him, or see anything in him.

When Wu had said it, though, Morro remembered bursting into tears.

Maybe it was reverse psychology. (Maybe he didnt get why anyone would be so kind to him.)

"Oh, perhaps I have an idea." Wu's actual voice snapped him back to his painful reality, "Maybe you could help to train the ninja." His sensei smiled, but Morro immediately stopped, sputtering, and looked at him in disbelief. Slowly, he felt his eyebrows raise in mockery, and a similiar, weak smile on his mouth.

"What- why?" "Well, even though they've reached their true potential, they still have a lot to learn. And they could learn it from you. To this day, I have never seen a student who learnt faster than you did." 

(And it led to my demise.) "Yeah, no, I don't see that happening." Wu stood up, "Perhaps it is the first step to learning to trust each other again. To give each other a second chance."

Morro slowly turned to Wu, and after a few tense seconds of silence, the air almost so thick that a spark would set it off, burst out laughing cruelly. "That's not going to happen, old man. You're living in a fantasy." Morro couldnt take this, couldn't take the scenarios hed already ran through his head to prove how disappointing he was to Wu, and how many expectations the man was placing on him. They bore down on him like hot coals. Wu would realise how useless he was, how unchangeable, how undeserving, and Morro wasnt ready to be quickly dealt with in his sleep once they realised that he was nothing but a threat. 

He grew restless very quickly, the hot coals proving too unbearable, something, maybe anxiety, exploding in his chest, suffocating him. He had to get out of here, he needed to be able to breathe. Suddenly, he stood up, just as Wu continued to talk again. On shaky feet, Morro rushed to the door, he couldn't take being in this room much longer, also, how did he not realise that his legs had been bandaged? And who had bandaged them?

Not looking behind him, Morro practically fell through the door, groaning but not slowing, and hurried through the corridor, floating through and up the stairs, and ignored Wu's stern voice, warning him to come back here.

He scoffed, and continued to stumble through corridors, hanging onto the walls for support. Why was he so light-headed? Maybe if he just kept moving, he would walk it off, there was never an excuse for being so weak. He hardly even felt how his legs were aching and throbbing with pain.

Goddamn, how many corridors did this tiny ship have? Morro slowly began to chuckle deliriously, under his breath for seemingly no reason, it started with a giggle but continued until he couldn't stop, it turned into a cackle, and he paused walking for a second, physically unable, and clung onto the walls like some strange leech.

That is, until, Wu turned the corner with an angry, worried face. Then, Morro caught his second wind, and picked up the pace a little, often almost tripping on his own toes, because he couldnt feel where they were, and he was trying to move something he couldnt feel or see, so it was all a blind game of luck.

His laughter started up again, at the ridiculousness of this situation, and maybe because of his nerves, but when he passed an open room, that appeared to be a kitchen, or living room, with all the ninja there, coincidentally facing his direction, and all their expressions changed drastically when they saw him, Morro almost choked.

He almost fell over, and started to snicker involuntarily again, louder, both nervously and hysterically, from what? The fear, anxiety, the surrealism of it all? Because here he was, vulnerable, unable to run, with his worst enemies right behind him, the people he had hurt the most, and who wanted their revenge. Or was it just at how caught he was, a bird within a cage, wings captured. Fear overwhelmed him, charging his blood with adrenaline and forcing him forwards, or he felt his throat was going to implode.

(There was no second chance, no redemption.) However, Morro did have the common sense to continue walking, leaning against the interior of the ship, even though his shoulder were riddled with tremors from the delusional laughter, his only release in all of this, the endorphins his one anchor.

The ninja's faces were burned in his memory already, Kai's shock and hostility, Nya's confusion, Zanes cold, and yet somehow still wary, eyes, Coles disgust and readiness to fight. And Lloyd, the kid looked like a damn rabbit before a wolf, he was so terrified, of somebody as pathetic as himself.

Why haven't you all forgotten about me already? It would do you well to not dwell on me for too long. Morro sighed to himself.

Instantly, clamour erupted from the room he just passed, but Wu was gaining on him, and Morro's legs were weak, as if he was losing control. His vision darted around, and just as he began to see the light from the last doorway, and many footsteps coming towards him, he lost control of his feet entirely, and they collapsed under him.

His light-headedness won at last, and he fell into unconsciousness, with an uncanny sense of unfinished debts being the last thing he remembered. 

"That was terrifying." Nya sat down, almost chuckling. Jay's eyes were wide, head snapping around in disbelief.

"First Master of Spinjitsu..." Kai cursed, sitting down next to Lloyd, to subtly check he was alright. He wasn't, but surely, Kai could help, right? The whole room was tense, as if preparing for the ghost to jump back into the room and start swordfighting them all with the Sword of Sanctuary. Or maybe they were all waiting for their own heartbeats to die down, like she was.

Nya could feel her heart pounding from the sudden rush of adrenaline, she couldn't explain the explosion of fear she felt when she heard Morros' incredibly creepy laugh from down the hall, and then spot him stumbling away from Wu, panic in his eyes, only to collapse metres away. Morro's unexpected laugh from somewhere nearby, that she couldn't pinpoint, wasn't ever something she thought she'd have to experience. His glee sounded exactly as it had back in Stiix, when he was at his peak, high off power and practically unstoppable, all the ninja struggling to even place a dent in his dearest Pre-eminent. He was taunting what he thought had been Lloyd, but was really Nya in a green gi. She didn't think she could ever forget the way he had laughed at her, thinking he was Lloyd, the laugh of a man who had everything to lose, but was confident he wouldn't.

Bad memories.

"What was he doing?"  Cole probed Wu, as his master attempted to pick up Morro to carry back. "I think he was just stressed. And ill."

"Pfft, yeah, mentally ill," Kai muttered angrily, "That was some sick joke of his, I bet." Wu looked up at him sharply. "I know this is difficult for you all, but atleast try to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was disoriented."

Kai looked at Nya and smirked, "I'm gonna make him disoriented, you know?" He snickered, miming a punch, and looked pretty startled when Jay began to cackle. "I really don't think that sounded the way that you wanted it to." 

As the realisation dawned upon her, Nya covered her smile, trying not to laugh out of shock. Jay drew an inhale, and said "Kai x Morro who?" Then continued to laugh at the horrified gasp the Red Ninja let out. 

Jay, Cole and Nya were now all giggling in one way or another. Zane only raised an eyebrow, as if wondering whether to say something. "NOO. NO. THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT????" "Sounds like something someone who meant it would say." "NO, STOP IT." In his friendly anger, Kai stood up and kicked the Blue Ninja. Jay had almost fallen over, when Nya shushed them. 

"Shush guys, it's OK Kai we already knew." She paused for Kai's groan of embarrassment and some others laughter to pass. "But seriously, Morro is unhinged, we're doomed." "Mmmm yeah, I don't know..." Cole droned in response.

Zane looked deep in thought, but Lloyd was turning around in confusion, like he didn't understand what the previous joke was, before he could be answered, Zane spoke up. "We are far from doomed, Nya. I calculate our odds of being betrayed by Morro again at approximately 65%." 

Lloyd twitched his lips to the side, "That's more than half." To which Nya agreed, "I don't like those odds." Kai sniffed and looked at them all suspiciously. "Was anyone at all surprised by this? Seriously?"

The Earth Ninja rolled his eyes and shrugged, "He said approximately. We're not dead yet." Everyone slowly looked to Cole in disappointed unison.  "Whaat?" 

"Yet." Kai murmured with finality. "We have bested him before, for a reason. We can do it again, if it comes to that." Nya reassured,  putting her hand on her brothers shoulder. Sure, they had almost failed, but it hadn't happened. They had defeated him.

And it was for a reason. 

The reason was that Morro was a petty, jealous, and spiteful person. So spiteful that he pushed everybody away from him to prove he could do it without help, and died trying. 

Nya certainly wasn't kind or generous enough of a person to help him get better. She owed him nothing.

None of the ninja owed him anything, in fact, the only person here who maybe did would be Wu. And he was trying, so, Morro better lift his side of the bargain and mend their relationship, because without their Master, nobody was keeping him here.

It was comfortably dark, in the room that would decide the course of his fate. Morro was not afraid of the things that inevitably lurked in the dark, after all, he had been in the dark long enough to become one himself.

And there was nothing to fear down there. Just a bunch of cowards.

He could not look directly at Wu's eyes, as if they were the sun. Their bright, sharp light penetrated his mind no matter where he looked.

The four weapons of Spinjitsu lay at his feet like dead dogs. Surrounding him, encircling him, powering him. But he could not forget where he came from, or he would be lost.

When he looked up at Wu this time, Wu looked back. Sharply, Morro cried out. The light was too bright, it was burning, stinging, blinding his eyes. He would just have to deal with it.

He couldn't look away. The Green Gi in his Masters hands flickered in and out of focus, like a lantern was being spun around before it, was something crawling on it? Here it was, the one thing he wanted most, the one thing he lived for, he worked for, and all he needed was confirmation. It was practically in the palm of his hand already, this was just formalities, he assured himself.

If he wished for it hard enough, part of him knew he would get it.

So, when the light in Wu's eyes died down, and he slowly shook his head, Morro was frozen. It must've been a mistake. He couldn't move, breathe, think, pray, he couldn't pray that this was a dream, because the moment had passed. It had already happened, it was written in stone, and there was a witness.

He could not undo the hand of destiny. 

Something stabbed him, sliced open his abdomen suddenly, cutting so fast that it made a wet noise, it cut through him like a butchers knife through pork, it cut so deep that he knocked himself backwards, not because of the weight, but the shock and pain and he almost fell over right then and there, because his legs became secondary. All of his being focused in on the excruciating pain, the tear so deep it couldnt possibly be called a tear, but it had opened so easily, he was so weak, so bad at staying on his guard, his skin was soft and had been sliced open by scissors, blades gliding across his skin as the sensation intensified, until he suddenly couldn't breathe, until he could feel as his intestines slithered out of the gap so deep it burned every part of him. It was horrifying, suddenly, he was empty, part of him had physically fallen out. And he could still feel it, he could feel the cold wooden floor against his organs, as they moved without his command, unnaturally, like snakes, painfully tugging at the rest of him. He let out an elongated shriek, and fell onto his knees, shaking and whimpering.  "Get up, Morro. It was not my choice, but destiny's. You cannot argue with fate."

His sensei hadn't seemed to have noticed.

Tears pricked his eyes, he pushed his palm against the incision to alleviate some of the pain, but he couldnt, because it was far too slippery, and tender. Pulling his fingers back, he could see they were wet with an alarming amount of blood, and the colour was such a dark red, yet somehow simultaneously so bright. When he applied pressure again, his fingers slipped off, or worse, slipped in, and the jabbing intrusion into his torn, raw flesh only made him sob louder. Blood was running down to his legs, soaking through what would've been his temporary replacement for the Green Gi.

Foolish, foolish child.

Now that there is nothing special about you, you will be forgotten.

You will be cast out.

With every sentence, the shard stabbed deeper and deeper into him, as he fell further, his head blocked his complete descent, Wu sighed disappointedly. "I cannot teach those that will not listen." The tears pouring from his face were almost as painful as the blood.

But Morro was listening. Something was just blocking his mouth, a tentacle wrapping around so there was no hope of him informing his master, that he was not falling over because he was weak, but instead because of the words that cut and sliced in so many angles inside him. It burned. It more than stung. It stung in the way that the essence of a thousand suns would, turmoil burning and spreading through the very core of him, pain so fierce it paralysed him, as he waited for his inevitable end, only hoping it could come faster. It ate at him, and silenced him in the way that overpowering decay would, like the fungi had jumped onto his body to ravage it while his blood was still warm.

And every nerve was still intact.

Why wouldn't Wu see? Why couldn't he understand? Why was he destined to a life of misunderstandings and pain?

And you have the audacity to expect forgiveness.

You cannot change your destiny.

How embarrassing. You really thought you were that important?

People like you can never change.

This time, when he opened his mouth to scream again, the tentacle blocked it. Morro had made a mistake.

Now, the tentacle had an entrance, it began to seep inside his bleeding body, not calm, nor slow, it was too fast for him to stop, it slid down further, his gag reflex proving useless as it began blocking his mouth, his nose, his throat, his lungs, from the inside. Morro noticed his mistake too late, far too late, this thing moved faster than he could bite, and now, his jaw was locked open. Was it dislocated? The pain was constant in all his body, he couldnt tell the difference. He couldn't breathe, he couldnt move, the floor was wet with blood, try as he might, his gasps proved ineffective. 

The horror of this whole situation left him trembling, he was going to die here, and Wu had left, he wasn't coming back, and nobody would ever know how he died here, alone and so, so afraid.

There was a voice, unlike the rest. It rang in his ears, when he looked up through his fading vision, blurred with tears, at first, he thought it was Wu. Come back to save him.

This person had darker hair, though, he was strange, familiar in some foreign way. It was not his master.

Morro was no longer clinging onto consciousness, he was beginning to drift away. It was heavy, resentful. The darkness from which he had escaped would consume him once again, despite his efforts. Despite all that had happened.

"Li- ten- to me.- ---- a - iar."

What?

"-e is--- iar!" Why couldn't this be over with faster? The strange man made him remember the pain below his navel, and he would've groaned, if there was any strength left in his lungs to blow out.

"He ---s a liar! Mor---"

What? Who?

"Wu-!"

"Wu-!"

Morro awoke with a jolt to all his limbs, he was trembling, sweating, and he waited for the adrenaline to subside.

He opened his mouth to check that his airways weren't, in fact, blocked by an all-consuming tentacle. First Spinjitsu Master, what kind of nightmare was that? He propped himself up on his elbows, eyes shut tight, and head thrown back. It didn't happen. It never happened. It was all in his twisted, subconscious imagination.

The shaking wouldn't calm down, and neither would his nerves. The fact that he couldn't quite take a breath meant his body couldn't really distinguish reality from the dreams and he was panicking.

"It was only a dream, Morro." The sound of Wu's soft voice made him flinch backwards, almost falling off the bed, and the blanket was thrown upwards slightly from the momentum, he watched it billow back down. It settled on his legs as he winced internally at his reaction, and at the realisation that Wu had seen all of that. He needed to try better to shut up now. Why was he never alone, anyways? Did they seriously think that he was dangerous enough to have to be kept under constant supervision.

"I know." He managed to choke out. Morro's sensei stood up to check on him, worriedly, and when Morro made eye contact with him, feeling like a cornered animal, neither could bear to break it.

He wanted to plead, to beg, somehow, through only the body language of his eyes, to Wu to kill him. Morro was a coward. And life when it was his was too painful to bear.

The consequences he would have to eventually face, the nightmares, the integral voice in the back of his head telling him that he could never be weak, but also that he would never be good enough. He could not train hard enough, he could not be skilled enough, there was always somebody better than him.

Kill me. Kill me. I don't deserve this, I don't deserve the good or the bad, I don't deserve your care, or your effort, and I dont deserve another chance. The frantic, almost nonsensical voice at the back of his head gradually became louder. "Sensei..." He hated how shaky his voice sounded.

"Please..." His head fell into his arms, he didn't even know what he was begging for. Yes I do. I know what I want. I know what you want. Kill me. Kill me. Ask him to kill you, tell him to. You don't deserve him. You're not the Green Ninja. He has other students now.

He can live without you. But can you live without him?

Morro buried his head further away, from voices both real and imagined, trying to ignore the voice repeatedly begging for death. (Coward. Only cowards beg for an escape the moment things become too difficult.)

His sensei sat down on the bed, close to the corner where Morro had hidden away to. The ghost must look so incredibly pathetic, so weak, like a child, not somebody who couldve ever been the Green Ninja. Slowly, Wu's arms encircled him, in a hug, a comforting one, one where Morro could push him away at any time.

He froze. Emotion he couldn't explain tearing at each of his seams, like he was simmering, slowly, but just as painfully, boiling. He began to cry, softly, and without tears, of course. Just the noise, really. Morro couldn't explain how alone he had always felt. It was normal, he was detached from the others, so of course he was alone.

Nobody was special in the way that he had been. He didn't have a team of other ninja his age to help him. He had had to help himself, because no-one else cared enough to, and he knew it.

To be the best, you must rise above the common man. And, to rise above something, you have to cut it off first, or it will inevitably drag you to its level. And Morro had wielded alot of scissors. As a prodigy, or an urchin, before that, he had never had any friends, not really.

Except, maybe, Koyan. He had briefly known the kid just before he met Wu, but they had never talked more than twice. The person he would've actually considered closest to him in his childhood would've been Wu, but after his death, which he had blamed his very sensei for, he had detached himself from Wu, too. Then, the Pre-eminent became his connection, his power, his mentor. 

His structure. His purpose. The purpose was revenge, and the Pre-eminent would train him and guide him on the path to obtain it, so he could help her in return. He thought he had friends there, he had Bansha, Ghoultar, Soul Archer, but he knew that their relationship amounted to nothing. Less than nothing. All they had been were pawns in the Pre-eminents game, generals, and his colleagues were only following orders.

They would've been pretty bad choice for friends, anyway. Maybe it was better to be alone than ever have friends like them. Right?

When even she died, he was really left completely alone. There was simply nothing, and no-one left for him. 

And now, Wu was hugging him. Like he had forgiven him, after all he had done, all he had said, and all he had tried to do. Just like that, he had been forgiven. It was foreign, and Morro wanted desperately to reject it, because that was easier.

How could someone forgive him when he didn't even forgive himself? Logically, and comparatively, Wu was acting without sense. But he didn't reject him yet, he let Wu hold him as he tried coming to terms with the fact that someone he had hated, and cut off all emotion to, was trying to reform something with him.

Why?

Morro wasn't even sure that he could ever trust someone like that again. Surely, Wu knew that.

So why was he trying?

Morro wasn't used to the physical sensation either, it made him high alert, aware, ready to strangle someone or run away, like it was some sort of threat, because it sure was foreign. The thing humans had been universally taught to love, it seemed, and it also seemed that he was the only one who couldn't. Maybe it was, just something he didn't know yet.

Maybe hugs weren't made for people like him, who had grown up with no friends. He craved physical touch, and felt uncomfortable at best when it actually happened. Violent at worst. Shivers ran up his skin, a foreboding sense of danger rising, blocking his already impaired ability to think clearly.

Suddenly a wave of inherent wrongness swept over him, choking him. He couldn't, couldn't do it, couldn't accept this now, not now. You don't deserve his care. Morro shoved Wu away, harshly, but still unexpected. He was indecisive, erratic, like some animal that didn't know what was best for it, his muscles spasming slightly, for no particular reason. 

He held himself for a bit, as he calmed down, with nothing to panic about now that Wu wasn't holding him. The Master Of Wind realised, unfortunately, that he was now calmer than when he had just woken from the nightmare. It was unfortunate in some intrinsically petty part of him, like he was losing some argument by being calmed by Wu.

He was.

It was just too complicated. He couldn't do it. Too many conflicting emotions, Morro didn't like emotions normally, but when they were conflicting with eachother, he tended to have a strong urge to explode and die. (A/N: Same)

Now, his Sensei was surely disappointed, or hurt, but when the Master of Wind cautiously looked up, Wu was calm, accepting. With a face that said 'I can wait here until you need me, if you ever do.'

What was he supposed to say to that? Wu's eyes were gentle, forgiving. And light flickered distantly off of the complex brown that they were. Why would anyone be willing to try again for him?

Morro was many things, but he was not worth fighting for.

"I'm sorry, Sensei." He gasped out, trying specifically not to think about anything. The mentor only chuckled sadly, asking "Whatever for?" "For... everything. For everything. For running away, for going against you, for fighting you."

As the list went on, Morro slowly became aware that he was lying. Maybe it had started off genuine, but... Morro knew that he would never be able to apologise and mean it with his whole heart. It left his back open. It made him vulnerable for the chance of rejection, and he wasn't going to let himself be humiliated. He was lying so blatantly that to Morro, it seemed like sarcasm, and was much easier than actually apologising. Was he still dreaming? "I'm sorry for hurting you and your students. I'm sorry." 

Morro was shaking again, and he didn't know why. Everything was swirling, painfully, and jittery. "Morro..." Wu's voice didn't help him, it only pushed him further towards the edge, he was so uncertain, he couldn't wait any longer. Wu sounded so disappointed, so soft and gentle, not matching nor understanding the storm inside of his pupil. 

"Oh, Morro, child. I have forgiven you from the moment that you left the monastery, to search for the First Spinjitsu Masters tomb." He froze, guilt racking his body. That wasn't his real apology, but Wu had forgiven him anyway. Wu had... forgiven him. He had never held a grudge against Morro, but Morro had held a deadly one against him.

Against a forgiving man.

He was so lucky, so incredibly lucky to have this man as what had been his sensei. Anyone else would've been killed on sight, or atleast disgraced, and Morro was sure that many had. Many others so much more worthy than him, and while they suffered, he sat here, ungrateful, treacherous, and ill.

Well, Morro supposed that he always had been a pathological liar. Tell him it was a lie. Something hissed in the back of his head, Lets see him forgive you after all the lies you've told, on top of everything else. Don't you want to see what happens?

The apology hadn't actually been directed at Morro, but Wu didnt know that, the words 'I forgive you.' had been given to a false version of him, a phantom, if you will. A version that he himself had created, but he was too tired to fix it.

Misguided anger built up in his throat, he didn't want to breathe or think or look at anyone, he wanted to disappear. When Wu gently asked, "Do you want to come to breakfast with the rest of us?" Morro wanted to scream. And freeze. And sink back into the wind from whence he came.

Because no, he didn't want to. But he would have to face his consequences, and the world, soon.

Morro had just hoped it wouldn't have been so soon.

Morro walked along the floor silently, or as silently as he could, with the bandages. His body made no noise of contact, so the only thing that tainted his perfect absence was the quiet slithering of cloth along a hardwood floor.

It was kind of stupid.

Wu, however, didn't seem to notice. His mind was probably focused on the in-coming task at hand, while Morro was admittedly, distracting himself. The ten minutes that Wu had allowed him to use to calm down hadn't been nearly enough. Also, having breakfast with a bunch of colour-coded children whose guts he hated had never been first on his to-do list.

It never would, but here he was, why had he agreed to this? Was it because some part of him wanted to mend their relationship? Morro thought on it for only a second, before deciding no. Absolutely no part of him wanted to befriend the ninja. None. Agh, who would? Only lonely fools, or children.

The ghost liked to think that he was neither. 

In just the short walk from his temporary room to the dining room of the ship, his legs had already begun to ache from the inside, his spectral bones throbbing with arising discomfort. It wasn't a pain like that of a stab wound, nor muscle strain. This pain came from the very centre, unquenchable. Morro just hoped that he wouldn't fall in front of the ninja, he might actually kill himself if he humiliated himself that badly.

Perhaps he could bribe Nya to murder him without hesitation if that ever happened. Actually, she might keep him alive out of spite.

Wu looked back for a moment as Morro tried to calm his thoughts, the students eyes flickered up to his mentors and then back down, void of any expression but the feeling of slowly sinking away. Light came from the doorway up ahead, and faint clamouring noises, Morro winced already.

Was everyone here always this loud?

Morro had always been a loud person himself, both internally and externally, but the Cursed Realm had changed how he perceived mortal surroundings. The Cursed Realm was perpetually silent, his imagined ringing was almost deafening. It was so, so lonely, and yet, he knew that he was always been watched.

He also knew that the thing that was watching him was not something he wanted to make friends, with, or talk to. The Pre-eminent did not reward diplomacy.

However, when the Cursed Realm wasn't silent, it was torture. Sometimes, in the midst of his existential, physical and mental silence, a scream would arise, just one, loud enough to make him dramatically flinch. It was ghostly, like a banshee, piercing and sharp and vengeful. In comparison to the silence, it was unpleasant, but he couldn't discern which was worse.

It never ended at just one scream though, no. No matter how hopeful, or skeptical he was, there was always a pause by the time his adrenaline had died down, and then another scream, and another wail, it was almost like the Realm had taken notice of his awareness, of something he wasn't supposed to know, like a secret, and now he was being punished.

What had began in nothingness so obvious it was painful, ended in an endless cycle, a cacophony of tortured, unheard, soulful cries so loud they echoed constantly, overlapping in a way that if there were words, it was impossible to make them out. The sounds of betrayal and rage and the feeling of being forgotten rang out, the wails of the damned. But Morro would never forget them.

He could never forget the hours upon hours where he had fallen over, hands pressed so hard against his ears that he could've been certain he almost clawed his skull away, eyes shut tight as if it made a difference, spasming on some weak, cold floor. Or sometimes, it was rock hard.

Really depended on where he fell over. The screeches were so unbearable that he could've sworn that if he was still alive, he would be deaf, or atleast, his ears would've been bleeding. At some point, he was sure that he too, had been yelling, as if to fight back, or maybe it was an involuntary response. Though, despite his best efforts, it had never stopped it. Never stopped the song of the cursed.

When it had ended, after some of the worst hours he had consistently ever experienced, it took him a long while to realise, and even longer to peel his hands off his head, blink his eyes open and shakily sit up. The silence was even more out of place after. It was pressing in on him in a way that the noise had not, it was watching but not speaking, eyes prying open the safe that was his subconscious. Morro had always managed to keep it closed, though, it was one of the few factors that meant he kept his sanity, unlike many of the others.

He couldn't remember anything in those moments, what he was there for, where he came from... what his name was. All he could remember was the childlike vulnerability he had felt during the previous hours, and how he knew he was supposed to feel grateful it was over. But all he could feel was bitterness.

So no, Morro didn't like loud noises.

Or maybe he didn't mind, depending on his mood, but today, he was definitely not in a good mood. He could blame his nightmare for that. And, you know, everything in his life that had led up to this point.

Finally, the door was a few footfalls away, and the pace did not slow. Morro wondered if he could even walk that far, but nonetheless, he entered the room with a feeling akin to that of holding his breath. 

He didn't look at their faces, the clamour was muted for a few seconds as the ninja looked up to what must've been an uninvited guest in their eyes, Morro wanted to disappear, but he had already made up his mind to get through this meal.

There were seven spots at the table, and one chair shoved in the corner closest to the door, when Wu sat next to him, he knew this must've been his assigned seat. Atleast someone had the decency to give him an easy escape route, and also to not be sat directly next to Lloyd.

Morro inhaled sharply, and blindly grabbed his hands on the corner of the table and as he fell, directed his body onto the chair. He tried to make it look intentional, as if his legs hadn't actually collapsed halfway to the chair, but as he casually adjusted, he knew the slam had drawn everyone's attention.

Maybe if he ignored them they'd look away.

Lloyd was almost opposite him, if a little to the left, but Morro only recognised him by... the colour of his clothes. How ironic.  The whispers of the ninja brought him back to the present, and he snapped up, eyes still sticking to the ceiling, or falling down to the table. He would not look at them, they didn't deserve his attention. (And if he didn't look at them, he could pretend they weren't real. Just some of the many ghosts in his head.)

When the others apparently seemed to get the hint that he wasn't currently a threat, they slowly returned to their conversation. At first it was cautious, but then it finally became boisterous again, if slightly nervous.

Morro didn't exactly enjoy it. Well, he had wanted to disappear, and here people were, talking as if he wasn't in the room. 

Cry about it. He taunted himself, as he lifted one hand above the table, staring down at the white porcelain plate before him, a blank nothingness. It was empty, nobody had bothered to put anything on, which didn't really surprise Morro. However, he wasn't going to draw attention to himself by reaching out into the middle and probably knocking something over.

Orderly scattered across the whole table, Morro could recognise miso soup, steamed rice, and ohitashi. Obviously, the soup he couldn't eat, so luckily, it wasn't near him anyways.

Slowly glancing, the only thing actually close to him was, dried seaweed? He sighed through his nose, and gathered a small portion with his chopsticks, and bit off a small corner.

Surprising to no-one, it tasted like salty fish. Morro had had seaweed before, trust me, and he used to not mind its flavour. Now, it reminded him of the sea, of the smell of that fateful day in Stiix, of the smell of the ocean, so close to him, as Wu's arm spasmed for just a second, releasing his ankles into the wa-

He swallowed, and shut his eyes, tight but briefly, calming himself, the taste was faint anyways, as was everything when you were a ghost. Oh. There was rice, to the right of him, before Master Wu. Good.

Morro's hand hesitantly reached out for the shamoji, and dumped some on his plate. He was tired, too beyond caring to do anything, especially eat. The Master of Wind slowly regained energy as he nibbled on the rice and seaweed, which faintly concerned him, because ghosts (as far as he knew) were never actually able to process food into energy.

Probably because he, you know, didn't have organs. But, that was why the ghosts that the Pre-eminent released ate constantly, and in massive amounts. They could never really be full, after you lived your life, and missed your chances, there was no satisfaction, only emptiness, didn't stop then from trying, though.

Morro hadnt tried to close his eyes and pretend that the food in the mortal Realm actually filled him, instead of poking at the gaping expanse within. The other ghosts just preferred to live in denial.

The cowards.

Eventually, Morro's ears caught snippets of the talking, and he tried not to make it too obvious that he was listening. 

"Okay, okay, what the Fangpyres did to my parents, not amazing, that boombox?? Amazing." Jay was speaking, no surprise there then, he was also speaking complete nonsense, which was again, not very surprising. 

Lloyd's quiet scoff sounded. "That wasn't even my boombox." "I doubt anything you had was actually yours, but what was that song called?? I've been trying to find it for forever." Morro was still now, staring into a distance that didn't exist.

What was he waiting for?

His shoulders fell slightly as he relaxed, he blinked and looked up, as if awaking. What he didn't expect, though, was Lloyd's eyes to be directly where his were, even though he was mid-sentence, Morro made no move, he wasn't even breathing. The other seemed to be staring at him with wide, confused, but scared eyes, almost trying to calm his oncoming hyperventilating. 

Now that he was paying attention to them, Morro turned his head to glance around at every ninja, curiously, as if he was trying to intimidate them. Nya met him headstrong, but eventually stared into the distance beside him angrily instead of him. The titanium one didnt even seem like he was actually seeing him, and instead... doing robot things, Morro didnt know.

Jay's eyes flickered back and forth erratically from Morro's, and Cole, who was next to him, how had he not noticed? Just rolled his eyes and continued 'eating'. When Morro looked at Kai, however, the Fire Elemental glared at him with eyes so sharp and hot it seemed like they could cut through glass. He was enraged, more so than Morro had expected Lloyd to be, when Kai seemed determined to not be the one break eye contact, Morro dragged his gaze up and down the other, and smirked, how were they all so stupid? Why was Kai so angry on Lloyd's behalf? Did he really not realise that the Green Ninja had to learn to fight his own battles?

Looking around at these children of martial arts that he had been worried about not five minutes before, Morro felt rather silly. And confident. What could they possibly do to him anyways? Anything that he hadn't thought of doing first?

A wave of carelessness and apathy washed over him, relieving him from whatever stress he had had over them. They could try, but everyone knew that Morro was more skilled than all of them, even without the Pre-eminent at his back, even with his faded limbs, he could best them all at once, just like that day at Wu's tea shop. They could read it in his eyes, how he was taunting them, whispering like the wind at their ears.

He was by far, more powerful. Right?

Glancing to Lloyd once again, the boy's trembling physique was turned away from Morro, and almost subconsciously towards Kai, his too-green eyes clearly panicking. At what, an enemy?

How could someone with a destiny so great, someone who had achieved so much, someone who had defeated the incarnation of the Overlord, for FSM sake, be so afraid of one ghost? How could the chosen Green Ninja be so weak? It frustrated Morro. After all, the fact only proved that he would've indeed made a better Green Ninja. Agh.

Destiny was crueller than he could ever be, hopefully one day, they would understand that.

Lloyd may have been a kinder, or more inspirational choice, but Morro knew that he was superior, more powerful, and just... better! It was so unimaginably unfair. Lloyd was somehow still making eye contact with him, as Morro grew angrier and angrier over his own thoughts, his glare burning a hole through Lloyd. The ghosts nails dug into his palms, the faint pain fading into the background of anger and other pains.

That is, until Kai cleared his throat. Morro blinked. He hadn't realised how silent the table had become, everybody watching the tense staring match that the ghost had only been half aware was even happening. Immediately, he dropped his gaze, and then fought to keep it down.

"Morro?" The Fire Ninjas newly familiar voice was cold, unlike his element, Kai was asking someone to defend themselves after he had already decided their fate, rude. Morro's eyelids stuttered, and he looked up with a slight smile on his face.

Maybe he could play ally.

"Yes, Kai?" His own voice was sweet, and like honey it seeped into the air, but his was foul and bitter, no matter how hard he tried to disguise it. "What are you doing?" Kai was irritated, and almost disappointed sounding.

Morro shrugged, still unable to stop smirking, and with his chopsticks, played around with the rice and seaweed before him, practically untouched. "I'm not doing anything." He murmured, as a quiet wave of frustrated sighs and some sort of realisation went around the table. The ninja whispered among themselves, the split between the enemy and the protectors. The two sides, the hunter and the prey, but the ninja were delusional on who was who.

He wondered if he would ever know what they were saying, if he would ever be the one conversing with them, on their side. But Morro had no intent of ever becoming a hero, and he never would.

So for now, he would stay on the enemies side, if not for anything but convenience. It was easier like this. Easy.

The voices at the table talked suspiciously, thought it was not forced, they all seemed very enthusiastic to discuss his behaviour, apparently. Morro tried to not let it get to him, but his recent apathy was dissipating restlessly into twitchy, barely controlled anger. He didn't even understand why he was angry, maybe it was all the eyes on him, making him nervous.

No, that wasn't it, he had been bathing in the attention mere moments before. What had out him on edge? Was there danger approaching, and only his sixth sense could warn him? Morro forced himself to be still, and he listened through the conversation for anything, a crash, a shake of the ship, even footsteps. 

The only thing that that accomplished was his catching of a snippet of the Lightning Ninjas words "... how could Wu have thought he was the Green Ninja..-?" Immediately, Morro snapped his head back around and stood, ducking upwards and forwards violently, the chair he was sitting on thrown back loudly, and jerked his hands onto the table, gripping it with force strong enough to bruise a person. Wind from the sudden momentum swirled around him briefly, blowing his hair, clothes, and all the others at the table as he looked down at Jay with disgust.

Morro lowered his head slowly, staring straight into the terrified, now sweating, Blue Ninja's eyes,who laughed nervously. The ghosts black hair slipped into his vision, the ghostly green tint ever present, though the eye contact remained painfully clear. The whole table was deadly silent once again. "What did you just say?" Morro snarled, quietly but definitely not gently, with a clear threat behind his jagged words.

It seemed that a constant theme in this breakfast was the way that the conversation turned on and off, like the day and night cycling in a matter of seconds. The spontaneity put everyone on high alert, actually, more likely it was Morro putting everyone on high alert.

Especially with how he was acting now. Like a child with throwing knives, dangerous and unreasonable. A hazard.

"How could Wu have ever thought he was the Green Ninja?" He was right. This idiot could see the truth with clarity that he never would. (And you wanted to be the nation's protector. Fool.)

It made sense that everybody was staring at him with the same glare they'd spare any other threat. That was all he was, another threat, shallow, a villain with an evil laugh who locked up the ninja, until he was finally defeated, and everybody cheered and then slept sounder. Morro closed his mouth as he leaned back, hands releasing the table. Fuck, couldn't he go one day without proving Wu wrong?

Morro stumbled back a step, almost tripping over the chair that had flown so far backwards, had he used the wind without thinking about it? Every single pair of eyes in the room were locked on him, the entire team of elementals had stood up after him, emotions ranging from rage to fear to steady determination, in defensive stances, some even had their powers already activated and aimed, prepared to attack. Even Wu was holding his staff.

The Master of Wind blinked, regret already burning deep in the cracks of his being, like rainwater on his skin. (And you wanted to be this nations protector.) He opened his mouth, unable to form a sentence, unable to think of an excuse, of an apology, of a reason. "...ssorry." He muttered, the words just slightly too fast or quiet, they were unnatural on his tongue. He watched idly, his body almost frozen as all the teenagers shoulders moved up and down with their waning panting.

Then, Morro turned around, darting out of the room, not paying attention to his unsteady legs. All he knew was that he was getting out of there.

How could he be so stupid?

And that ninja, Jay, it had been his fault in the first place for provoking him, for speaking a sentence that would clearly upset Morro so loudly. The boy was silly, and fucking idiotic, he needed to learn to keep himself in check. (Fool.) Morro finally came across the exit of the quarters to the deck, and he stopped himself for just a moment to bathe in the pale light for what must've been the first time since he'd died. 

Even if it hurt his eyes. Even if he was far more used to the sharp darkness of the Cursed Realm, he savoured the split second where he was edging on thankfulness for the fact that he was still here. Then his situation hit him again, like a train, and his spiralling emotions swallowed up any trace of gratitude for the sun, he was in no position to enjoy such simple things.

Atleast it was cloudy, the small amount of sunlight streaking through and reflecting on the grey sky. And windy, actually? How had he not noticed? Who cared, anyways. (You do, you're not yourself without full control over your wind powers. You can't even sense an oncoming storm.)

Morro hissed to himself, and knocked on his temple, not trying to be gentle. "Not you again. Shut up." The ghost practically rolled his eyes, these degrading voices at every turn he made were starting to get inconvenient. (You're losing yourself, Morro.) At that, he scoffed, sure that it was some foreign being that had taken him over and not his inner voice, because not even his sub-conscious would ever utter something so absurd.

"I lost myself a long time ago, you should know that, you're in my head." Morro was very aware that he was in fact, talking to himself, so he kept his volume down to a hum,  inaudible over the sound of the wind blowing through the sails of the flying ship. He was so... disappointed in himself.

What had he become? A monster, a vengeful spirit, incapable of bettering himself, someone that younger him would've promised to vanquish. 

The child version of himself would've been so disappointed, as well. That child would've looked at him in disgust, and disbelief, and cried himself to sleep knowing that this was his destiny instead of the Green Ninja. He knew how much potential he had had, and how much he had wasted. The ghost looked down at his hands, green and glowing at the edges, and yet somehow also so faded, the faded, phantom, husk of what he had been. He was unnatural.

Morro felt quieter now, alone and outside, with only the sky, himself, but it wasnt the calm kind of quiet, it was the kind where he had accepted his cruel fate, it was the kind of silence a man made before he drowned. The ghost sauntered over to the railing of the Bounty, and leaned his elbows on it, staring down and into the distance, watching idly as the leaves in some forest danced back and forth in lagging unison, each separate edge glittering in the now-risen sun. How many days had he missed by being unconscious? The leaves pulled and pushed and swayed and it all seemed so chaotic, yet somehow so synchronised. It reminded him of an oceans waves, except he preferred this version better.

If only it was all as easy as going with the crowd. You could only blend in if you had the knowledge from being part of the mob before, but Morro never had. He was always the strange one, the left-out child in the playground games, he didn't know how to interact with people normally, and it annoyed to no goddamn end. If only he was smarter, if only he was calmer, if only if only if only.

Perhaps he needed to try and adapt, instead of bending all the metal around him to fit into his mold. Was it not the world that needed to change? Morro wasn't the one to blame, he knew that. (Or wouldn't accept it otherwise.)

Before the Master of Wind could argue with himself, his ears picked up soft, careful footsteps behind him, probably relying on the wind as cover. But Morro was no fool, and he wouldn't be crept up on by those lesser than him. 

"You know, you could've always just come up to talk to me like a normal person." He hissed spitefully at his sensei, who had probably come to tell him to apologise, but Morro wasnt in the mood. To drive his point further home, he didnt even turn his head fully to look at him. Instead, his eyes remained on the horizon, desperately, yet weakly searching it for answers that were never there. 

The footsteps were no longer sounding, it seemed the person had stopped a few metres away from him, silently watching. Morro made a noise of annoyance and whipped his head around, preparing to lecture anybody and everybody nearby--

Oh, fuck- Morro flinched back, his arms flailed and grabbed onto the railing as he casually faced his head up, trying to pretend that didnt just happen. He dragged one hand across his face in a show of irritation. It wasn't his sensei at all, it was the Green Ninja. How had he not noticed?

Before the ghost could mockingly ask him what he wanted, Lloyd said something, in a low voice that would've been lost in the wind if Morro wasnt paying attention. "You sound like the mail man." What?

"What?" Morro could've been expecting alot of things to come out of this boys mouth, but being compared to a postal worker was not one he would've thought to happen. Lloyd stood completely still, watching the ghost with careful eyes, it reminded him of a cat, trying to stay as still as possible, but also with an easy escape. Because Morro was a threat.

"The mail man used to complain about how the ninja would sneak up on him." Morro blinked, unmoving. What was Lloyd's game here? "OK?" The ninja acted in the same uncanny way that the ghost of a child prematurely dead would act, he thought. Lloyd turned his head sideways, no clear emotion on his face, then, stepped up to the same railing as Morro, though about two metres away.

The ghost almost hissed and fell back, but managed to keep his composure, still internally simmering. "What was that all about?" Was the Green Ninja mocking him? "I was defending my honour." He replied in a haughty tone, hoping that Lloyd would back down. Hadn't the boy been pathetically afraid of him minutes before? Was that all an act, too, to strip Morro of whatever pride he had left? The world's destined elementals were much more twisted beneath the surface.

"Hm. I think you're just sick, what happened in the water, it affects you like an illness, doesn't it?" The Master of Wind stiffened, disturbed at the others thought process, and even more disturbed at how much this, this basically, child was correct about the situation. "I...guess so." Morro mumbled, still thinking about how Lloyd could've possibly known.

He hadn't been there in the talks with Wu, and now was the first time Morro had purposefully shown himself to the ninja on the Bounty. Was this some all-knowing ability that came with being the Green Ninja? 

Morro leaned in slowly, trying to look at Lloyd's face, which was turned away, against the horizon, just like his had been. Their silence was invasive, it was a challenge, and one Morro would not back down from, not this time.

The others mouth was open, sharply inhaling but somehow still not getting enough air for his satisfaction, maybe out of nerves. Look at me, the ghost thought. Prove to me you're better, prove to me that I have no right to throw you and your team around like that. Nothing. His unsaid demands were just that, unsaid, and without a response. Why couldnt the fucking Green Ninja stand up for himself?Just then, Lloyd began to hold his breath, shakily, and his eyes darted across Morros face, pointedly ignoring how the ghosts face was set, almost carved in stone, his jaw locked and his eyes unmoving, daring the blonde to look him in the eye.

Lloyd hissed air in through his teeth hesitantly, like he was going to say something, and seemed to decide against it. Gripping the rail harder, Morro grit his teeth, and suddenly realised that he was getting aggressive over nothing again. Again.

(What was wrong with him?)

Fucking First Spinjitsu Master, couldn't he even come close to making friends? A toddler could do better than this in less than five seconds, by... asking what his favourite colour was. Lloyd was probably friends with a lot of five year olds, from how shy he acted. The Master of Wind felt his eyebrows twitch as he carefully stepped back. 

Why shouldn't he be impulsive? Master Wu would encourage him to follow his heart, no? Actually, that would usually sound like a horrible idea, but Morro felt like now was a good time, spontaneity could break the tension, Morro could, for once, attempt to right his wrongs. Maybe just this once, he could be good. Just as Lloyd turned his head away from Morro again, the ghost snapped his head up, hardly realising it had fallen.

"What's your favourite colour?" Morro snapped it quickly, as his eyes stayed on the ninja, who's head didn't move, but a shocked smile quickly arose on his face, and he barked a short laugh of surprise. Lloyd's eyes were shut as he threw his head back, blonde hair whipping in the wind, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Morro stood straighter, head tilted up and mildly offended at his response.

Then, he placed his forehead onto his hand, elbow on the railing and turned to him. "Morro, I- What-?" Atleast he was looking at him. The ghost narrowed his eyes, almost seeming solemn, if the pettiness on his face hadn't been obvious. "Yes?"

Lloyd giggled again, making Morro's mouth twitch upwards for a second. "OK, alright. Uhmm, I'd have to say magenta. It's a pretty colour, you know?" "Ah, I see where you're coming from." He agreed, playing being pretentious, as if this discussion was incredibly serious. Morro would've guessed that he knew Lloyd's favourite colour, having shared his memories and all, but oh-so-surprisingly, none of them had exactly been thinking about that during the time of possession.

The Green Ninja shook his head, as if this conversation was going entirely differently than he had imagined. "What about you, then?" Morro clicked his tongue, "Green." The atmosphere shifted slightly, and Lloyd's smile fell from a somewhat cheerful one to a grim one, and his eyes matched his face, probably being reminded of their history together.

There was a silence, as Morro couldn't bring himself to smile or laugh to lighten the mood. All his work had been ruined, they had come full circle, of course, again. 

Maybe this was his destiny, to forever go in circles, unable to learn from his mistakes, never improving no matter how hard he trained  tried.

Or maybe he could play ally once again, if they all thought he was so evil, then maybe he could lie a little. To agree with them, only a little white lie. If they kept treating him like a monster, maybe he would become one purely out of spite, just to look them in the face and say 'Isn't this what you wanted?'

(You already are a monster.) Morro didn't dignify the thought with a reaction.

"Lloyd... i just," Morro paused, with faux hesitation, as the others eyes looked towards him but not his head. "I w-wanted to apologise, really. I am so, so sorry for hurting you. I-I'm so sorry for being stupid, and childish, and, and," (A/N: Remember the scene where Morro tricks Lloyd into being eaten by the Pre-eminent, and to fake sincerity, he stutters constantly? Yeah I thought that was funny, because it's very Morro to be that stupid. So thats what this is from.)

The Green Ninja took his head off his hands, and turned to the ghost, a look of pure, genuine shock and confusion shining as obvious and bright as the moon on his face. His mouth fell open, wandering around for the words he wanted to say, or how he felt, eyebrows lowered as his eyes the colour of spring onions searched Morro's.

Morro happened to be very good at pretending to be an open book, when nobody had ever read further than a chapter or two into him. The Master of Winds eyes were pleading, and seemingly innocent, begging for forgiveness. They were pitiful, he gave off the picture of somebody who had fallen so far, and was asking for one last favour.

He even grabbed onto the railing and bent his knees slightly, so that Lloyd was physically taller than him, so that the Green Ninja felt Morro saw him as superior, as better. The others eyes only widened. Not enough, then.

Taking a step towards Lloyd, he bent his knee even further, and all the way down, so it hit the floor, then dragged the other to and under him, one hand on the floor to hold him upright, so he was bowing, so he was kneeling, seemingly for Lloyd's forgiveness. Morro tilted his head downwards, eyes closed and other fist clenched against his chest, as his hair fell forwards, the slipping sensation brushed faintly against his face, the soft sound practically inaudible. Here he was, bowing so deeply for this naive child clad in green, all in an attempt to fake a friendship with him. 

He almost felt disgusted at himself, but the feeling was drowned in grim relief and pride at how well he was doing. When he next spoke, his voice was no longer needy and whiny and seemingly on the verge of tears, no, this time, he let his voice drop low and quiet, almost accepting.

Morro knew Lloyd could still hear him, though, as he uttered with a seriousness that felt akin to pledging his service to the other. "I hope you can forgive me, one day." The ghost heard but didn't see as the Green Ninja stumbled backwards a step, the wind still shook Morro's fallen hair back and forth. "I-...I... you what?" 

A few shallow pants could be heard. "No way, you don't mean that." Morro snapped his head up, knees still on the floor, but looked directly into Lloyd's eyes. "Oh, but I do. I mean it with my whole heart." (Liar.)

"However untrustworthy you may deem that to be." Morro conceded, he saw Lloyd throw his palm onto his forward, teeth gritting, and murmured something... all Morro could catch was the number 65. When the other opened his eyes again and looked down, he looked less calmed and moreso distant, First Master, the Green Ninja didn't even know how to look down at people properly.

Hell, he looked like he was still afraid of Morro.

"I swear." Lloyd inhaled and exhaled without opening his mouth, only his still-gritted teeth, and said, "Oh, yeah? What do you swear on, then?" Jerky hand movements accompanied his untrusting voice, clearly the boy had no confidence. That gave Morro an upper hand.

"I swear on Wu, and the Green Gi." He could hear how his own voice was being shaped into something persuasive, something stoic and something trustworthy, into the voice of a person who whispered for others to come lean on their shoulder. Someone who earned, and didn't beg for forgiveness, someone who kept their promises. A person that he would never be, a person that he could only ever pretend to be.

A strange look of realisation overcame Lloyd's face, he slowly moved his hand down from his face and narrowed his eyes. "I've been in your head long enough to know that swearing on Wu means next to nothing. However..." The ghost almost scowled at that, wanting to correct that he had been in Lloyd's head, and not the other way around.

But today, he was not so foolish as to let his mask slip. The body above him turned to face his, "I believe you'd swear on the Green Gi and mean it. You're delusional like that." The boy tilted his head up, in a late show of superiority, and reached his hand outwards to Morro, who grinned wolfishly, took it, and stood.

With the help of the Green Ninja, his ally but not his friend. Finally.

Lloyd inhaled evenly. After the whole interaction with Morro, (he still had absolutely no clue what that even was.) the (ex?) villain had gone back to his small room and fallen asleep. Ironic that Morro of all people probably had a better sleep schedule than him.

Anyways, after that, Wu had called them all outside to spar, or generally train, and had apologised for Morros behaviour. Lloyd felt like he was holding some tainted secret, something nobody else deserved to know, and it was starting to eat at his nerves, which was why he was here. 

Sitting in front of the TV, watching The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies, his personal favourite franchise, with Kai and Nya. The elemental sat, hugging his knees, head tilted to the side as he thought carefully about what he was going to say to his two friends. 

Cole had been here before, actually, but Lloyd had quietly asked him if he could talk to Kai and Nya alone, and the Master of Earth had agreed, no questions asked, even though he loved The Hobbit too, Cole was just reliable like that.

Now, all Lloyd had to do was bring up the topic of Morro in a way that wouldn't cause immediate carnage, but still quickly, so that Cole didn't miss too much of the movie. The Green Ninja had absolutely noticed the way that the two siblings harboured so much hatred for Morro, even though they thought they were being subtle.

The complex glances they threw eachother after Morro did anything, including make eye contact with Lloyd for a straight 10 seconds, the way that they were both so prepared to fight when the former Cursed Realm resident had stood up and yelled at Jay, it was all rather clear to him. But the thing was, that Lloyd didn't know how he felt about Morro, so he didn't really hate him, though definitely didn't love him, his feelings were just a little too sore to sort through.

He didn't want the other two to tell him how to feel. What he wanted was to figure it out on his own, a privilege he wasn't sure he'd get. Kai stifled a snicker to the right of Nya, who scoffed and elbowed his brother, as he was laughing from something on his phone, and ignoring Thorin Oakenshields dramatic hissing to Bilbo Baggins. 

"Kai..." The Water Elemental sounded like she was rolling her eyes, even though Lloyd's eyes were on the screen. "On my life, I will not part with a ssingle coin..." the heavy, almost hypnotic voice blared from the screen, and Lloyd spoke with him, having memorised almost every line in the film. "Not one piece of it.." "Not one piece of it..." 

"Yeah?" The Master of Fire asked, strangely sincere, like he actually didn't understand why Nya would be annoyed. The girl sighed, stretching in her seat, "Lloyd wants to tell us something." What? 

Lloyd sat up straighter immediately, voice already stuttering to an excuse, and then Kai turned around too, eyebrows low in concern and curiosity. Both the siblings eyes were on him, in fact, both mimicking eachothers growing worry. Eventually, the Green Ninja groaned, "How did you know?" 

At that, she raised an eyebrow. "You said something to Cole and he left, in the middle of the movie he had talked all day about watching." Witnessing Lloyd's slight annoyance at himself, she smirked, and added, "You're not as sneaky as you think." "Gee thanks. You know, we're supposed to be ninja, being sneaky is like 50% of my entire job." Nya shrugged, a smug smile still on her face, and she turned back around to the TV, "I guess, yeah."

Kai, however, was not as easily distracted at this moment, the teenager craned his neck around Nya to glance him up and down. "Sooo what were you gonna tell us?" His sisters eyes flickered back to Lloyd, as though she'd almost forgotten. Dragging a breath into his lungs, he prepared himself for every imaginable scenario.

"Alright, so, after breakfast, I talked to Morro, I didn't actually go to the bridge, and, uh...?" His already uncertain sentence trailed off at Kai's comically betrayed face. Nya, eyes sharp with focus, waved him away and beckoned Lloyd to continue. "Mhm, yeah, I talked to him and he was acting really weird, like, came reeaally close to my face and then asked me what my favourite colour was." 

He almost started laughing at the ridiculous memory himself, and so did Nya, however, Kai's face was still just as serious, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. "It was very strange, I concur, but then he was even weirder, because he apologised, and went down on his knees and begged for my forgiveness?" 

That was it, the spark to the gunpowder. Both their faces hardened, rage written in every line and angle of their faces, even Kai's, he didn't think it was possible for his brothers face to become anymore serious. They were clearly having alot of thoughts that they weren't about to tell Lloyd, a fact which was cemented when they both turned in unison and made eye contact.

"No fucking way." The Fire Elemental growled, to which the Green Elemental tutted and reprimanded, quietly, "Language." However, his comedic genius went unnoticed as Kai stood up suddenly, standing in front of both of them, steam practically rising from his ears. He was, very inconsiderately, blocking the screen.

"You know what that means? One of two things, he means it, and thinks he's deserving of goddamn forgiveness, or he's trying to snake his way close to Lloyd, again." The subject of discussion groaned at Kai's overreaction, looking back to Nya for reassurance, but she looked just as pissed.

"Only this time, he's taking the long road." Nya hissed. Her eyes were like a frozen lake, ice coating every crack and corner of the familiar water, cold and sharp and unforgiving, but you could just spot the shape and colour of the water underneath, waiting for the ice to thaw. 

Her brother, however, was consumed by his flames. All he was was fuel, logs and coals waiting for the day that they'd set off into a great bonfire, which seemed like every day. He chased the spark, and then relished in the heat, letting it become him, as he stopped listening to the logic trying to put him out. The flame burnt bright, red, catching.

Two sides of the same coin. Two heirs to their parents opposing elements, come together. Closer than anyone could guess, twin reactions, flame danced delicately around rushing water, in sync, a formidable force for sure.

And Lloyd was the one who had to try to both put out Kai's bonfire, and thaw Nya's ice at the same time. Great.

So, he stood up, too. Kai liked to feel in charge, his confidence was his weapon, Lloyd would make him put it down. "Hey, now, don't you think you're jumping to conclusions?" "No." "No." The siblings both responded, and the Green Ninja rolled his eyes. 

"You can't fight someone everytime you get suspicious of them, Kai." The Elemental grinned slightly, but it was not all friendly, his wild character laughed a little as he said. "I can, and I will." Lloyd pushed Kai's shoulders away from the himself, who happened to be in front of the only door in the room.

Shit, when had Nya stood up? "Lloyd, this is serious business." The sister took a step forwards, too. "H-how about we discuss it first??" The Green Ninja hastily compromised, and surprisingly, at that, they relaxed a bit, accepting his idea.

The Master of Fire grabbed the remote, paused the currently ignored Hobbit, and sat on the chabudai, that was actually kinda useless, as they used the sofa instead of the floor. All it was really used for was for placing drinks on, and now, it was Kai's seat.

The teenager crossed his legs, anything but composed. "Morro can't keep lying and getting away with it, we need to try be civil, at least, and set some ground rules for him staying here. I mean, after all, this is our home before his hotel."

Lloyd felt his heart drop to his stomach, even as he tried to catch it, even as he tried to not let it affect him. He felt his face fall as well, and his voice came out pathetically meek, his change in mood had come about so fast, it was almost embarrassing."..You think he was lying?"

When he heard his tone, Kai snapped his head around, eyes softening with sympathy. "Green bean, bud, everybody here thinks you deserve one hell of an apology, but Morro isn't the kinda guy who just changes his mind like this. I can see right through his act." Nya stepped closer to him, and even as she held his hand reassuringly, Lloyd felt alone, and empty, the sudden, gaping tear deep in him hurt. It tugged, and he wanted to fall into it, even if he didn't allow himself to.

Cold shivers ran up his back and along his arms, despite the rooms warmth. The one thing that comforted him was... that Kai was wrong alot. He felt guilty for finding comfort in it, but Kai could very well be wrong. Lloyd had never been sure he was deserving of an apology from anyone, no matter his brothers words, and this one time, just this once, he had let himself believe that Morro was genuinely sorry for all the scars he had cut.

Just this once.

And on the off chance that Kai was in fact, like himself, impulsive, Lloyd didn't want to subconsciously detach himself from the concept of reforming a relationship with Morro. There was some kind of release in the idea of befriending one of the people he was most afraid of.

Couldn't he allow himself to trust in destiny, just this once? Couldn't fate play on his side? 

He realised that he hadn't been listening to the conversation with a jolt, and blinked a few times, returning to the present. Kai was saying something, "Yeah, I mean, otherwise, what motive would he have to listen to us?" Nya hissed air through her teeth uncertainly, "He may just do whatever he wants, regardless." "Well, obviously, but what else can we do?" And there was nothing. 

Silence, that Lloyd didn't fully understand the weight of. He never understood anything well enough, he was constantly making mistakes, messing everything up.

"Lloyd, are you in?" The Red Ninja asked, on a line between grim and considerate. But this time, just this once, Lloyd wouldn't make a mistake, he wouldn't cut the bud too early, he'd give in, give it chance to see if it flowers. "No, thanks." The two siblings jolted a little, and turned to him in confusion, as if he was expected to be just as outraged as they were. He wasn't, though, he could barely feel anything, it was all cold, vast, and barren emptiness within him.

"Oh... then don't tell anyone." Lloyd nodded, his decision finally set in stone as he turned around, his footfalls muffled on the soft floor, and opened the door, Cole wasnt there, the guy was probably long gone. Nya and Kai followed behind him, but when he turned one way, they turned the other, heading further into the Bounty, all the way down to the bottommost corner, where Morro's room was hidden away, like a vault. Their paths chosen.

At the last second, just within their hearing range, Lloyd spun around, "Wait." The two did, immediately, but it took them longer to turn their heads to look back at him. "Don't kill the guy. Wu would be displeased." 

He grinned, despite the warning and turned around, trotting out of sight before he coild see their reactions. Lloyd knew how emotional and impulsive, the two were, it probably ran in their bloodline, hopefully they'd balance eachother out, though.

Because whatever they did now, they only had themselves to blame.

Chapter Text

Kai walked briskly, Nya right beside him, as they made their way downstairs, into the belly of the ship yet again. He was getting déja vu, how many times were they going to have to meet somebody in that exact room and threaten them into obedience for Lloyd's wellbeing? The thought almost made him laugh, it was all ridiculous. 

The fact that Morro was still alive was even more ridiculous. They all remembered how he'd tried to kill them, without remorse, fuelled by the vengeance of a lifetime. And yet here the two siblings were, being the only ones who were doing anything about it. It wasn't normal to forgive and forget so soon.

Did the Green Elemental even realise how much everybody was willing to sacrifice for him? Did he fully comprehend how they'd give up their lives for him? How much they cared? Because if he didn't, he'd better learn fast.

A whispering breeze swept past and around him, causing a spark of unconscious, heavy fear to lash up his spine, like a hammer had been swung at him. It made him shiver despite the warm air that the cold wind had cut through. How had the wind even reached this far down into the ship?

Would he ever be able to walk calmly through a storm again? Without flinching, without recalling the moment when his heart sank as he stood with his other brothers before the Steep Wisdom, looking desperately for some other explanation as to why Lloyd was standing before them with a glare spiteful enough to kill, unmoving, a scarf wrapped around his throat and mouth? (Unrecognisable.) Without being so gratingly reminded of the way Morro had cackled at them all that fateful night, buildings floating into the air, with the Realm Crystal and Sword of Sanctuary that they had fought so hard to get, firmly in their enemies grasp? To Kai, the wind tasted like failure. Despair. He didn't like it at all.

Kai snapped his head up, not wanting to fall into bygones. That wasn't important now, at all. The past was the past and the present would shape the future, so he'd better goddamn focus.

A wave of determination washed over him, comforting him, because after all, he had Nya by his side, and what they were about to do was for the good of all the team, and Ninjago in general. Was this what it was like being the one behind the scenes, organising it all and never getting any recognition? Was this how Nya had felt as Samurai X? (If only I could've helped. It should've been me.)

The present would shape the future, he reminded himself roughly. Focus. They were now approaching the door that they'd been to, was it two days ago, or three? 

Kai thought it uncanny that some door so simple and ordinary was hiding something so wicked. Morro, the cruel, antagonistic ghost. The one who had almost taken Lloyd away from them. Inhaling as steadily as he could, Kai watched as Nya reached her fingers out, latching onto the doorknob, and turned it. An unanticipated wall of regret almost knocked him over, some cowardly part of him hurriedly warning to turn back while he could. Needless to say, he crushed it savagely into some corner. Kai would show no sympathy for himself as he followed Nya into the room.

Kai also suppressed a violent recoil as he stepped into the stuffy room, because he was immediately greeted by his eyes. Morro was waiting for them, sitting cross-legged on his bed, smiling faintly, facing the door without any visible activity, had he just been staring deep into space before they came? What a psychopath, damn. The ghost gave off a faux air of politeness and friendliness and willingness to help, the lie was such a handcrafted, derisive counterfeit of genuine kindness that it was almost insulting.

Sensei Wu's first student raised his eyebrows, not looking at either sibling in particular as he grinned that insufferable grin with too-sharp teeth, it was one that bullied him and then played innocence. It was false. It was a mockery. And it made Kai really want to punch all the guys teeth out.

"Woow, both of you? I feel honoured." Morro's sly, slow voice matched the rest of his sarcastic, currently honeyed self. 

"Drop the act." Kai hissed, rolling his eyes. A few seconds passed in silence, thankfully, Nya went along with him and they both stared into the spirit's eyes. The duality of unnatural phantom green with the darkness of suffocating smoke singing some long-forgotten song. The challenge was clear, and even though Morro tried to bounce it off, his mood was noticeably dented by their defiance to play along. His childlike mood swings reminded Kai of Master Chen.

"Morro." Nya finally said, just as Kai was about to open his mouth. The Wind Elemental went to speak, but paused, reconsidered something, and replied, "Nya." No way he had forgotten her name. Did Morro have no shame? She drowned his entire Realm! That wasn't exactly forgettable!

The twos strange greeting led nowhere as Kai silently grappled with his, in this situation, nuisance of a temper. He needed to start off in the shallow end, to coax him in, before he could be properly drowned. "So, Morro." Kai began to continue, when Morro's eyebrows lowered, seemingly as far as they could fall, and sneered. "Are you just gonna keep saying my name? Did you even plan this out at all-?"

"Shut your mouth," Kai growled, endlessly aggrieved by the interruption, he'd hardly noticed the step he'd taken forwards, and continued before the other could start talking again. "Morro. Nya and I have come to a decision for the good of our team. I think it's best we discuss it with you." He tried to mimick the annoyingly fake sweet voice that the ghost used, but it came out strained, and hasty instead, which matched how he felt a lot more. 

Morro spoke again, "How, interesting. What right do you even have? I thought Lloyd was the leader, being the Green Ninja and all." It ended on a flat note.

Morro was stalling. "He's not. All of us are a team, equal, if you'd like." Nya responded factually, but Kai scowled at the continuous setbacks, eager to get this over with or start fighting, whichever opportunity presented itself first. Morro hummed casually in acknowledgement to Nya's response, as if this was a normal conversation, as if he actually cared about their team's balance of power. 

The acting was getting on his nerves incredibly quickly. "Our... proposition, is that we have some ground rules for you. After all, we are being so generous by letting you live here, and we're even feeding you. You can't expect to live here for free. After everything you did." The ghost looked skeptical, dead eyes gradually shifting back to the wall behind them, chewing his lip, but Kai really didn't care what he thought.

Nya began to declare the rules, evidently as impatient as her brother. "First rule: you will obey the word of anybody on this ship like it is the law, do whatever we say, when we say. Second rule, you will act legally and morally while you live on our ship, or generally under our supervision." She always had been much better at words than he had. He nodded thankfully before turning to the considering Morro, picking up where she'd left off.

Kai spoke harshly, his words were the snapping of a wild animal's jaws, it was the first and last warning. "Third rule. Most important. You will not possess Lloyd, in fact, you will not go anywhere near Lloyd. Stay away from him, or we could be inclined to believe you have ulterior motives." Kai's face didn't change, set in a constant glare, which only deepened as Morro's eyes widened in practically gleeful disbelief, his mouth fell open, and then doubled over laughing, while still sat down, hands crossed over and gripping at his stomach. Like it was funny.

The sound of his screeching cackles hadn't changed from any of the times they'd heard it before, still as villainous as ever. Fear sparked along Kai's back. He heard as Nya shakily inhaled. Maybe, just maybe, the ghost held a little more power over them than they'd hoped. 

No matter. Kai would not accept defeat.

His black hair with one green streak spilled out on the bedsheet as his shoulders shook with inane cackling. Kai felt his blood heat up until it was boiling beneath his skin, fighting to move him, to make him jump, to do something indescribably violent to the ghost before them, mocking them. Mocking them.

"Please, tell us what's so funny." Nya uttered next to him, a dangerous quiet about her, which was much preferable in terms of their secrecy compared to him screaming at Morro instead. 

"Yeah, what are you laughing at?" He fought to find his voice under the drowning waves of fury. It came out dry and thankfully, venomous.

Morro lifted his head up to look them in the eyes, palm pressed on the spot between his eyebrows to hold himself up as he continued to chuckle. His eyes were wild and stabbing, like sharpened bone. How could someone still seem like they were looking down at somebody else standing tall over them, so clearly in control? How delusional did you have to be to believe you were the best in any situation? Finally, his painfully sardonic voice washed away the laughter.

"And what if I don't want to?" 

The fire came rising in his veins again so fast that Kai wondered if it had ever been gone in the first place, burning and sharp and consuming. It was like a bonfire, and it decayed him, shattered him into swirling embers that reformed into the mould of his skin. He could feel as the tips of his fingers warmed up from the sudden bloodrush, the feeling spreading up until he curled them into his palm, only then did he realise that his fire powers had actually been triggered. Flame licked along and around his palm, and Kai let it bite into him, relishing the pain and refusing to extinguish it, the feeling only focusing him. It didn't truly burn him, of course. 

Morro's audacity was more insane than everything he did before added together. Kai swallowed as his legs ate up the remaining distance between the bed and where he stood. Soft sounds behind him told him that his sister followed. Now, the only thing blocking him from strangling Morro was a short stretch of the bed, as he sat in the middle of it, staring up at him like a roguish cat.

Kai lifted one of his hands and jabbed at him, huffing. "I happen to have many ways of ensuring you will." 

Morro smirked in disbelief. "Uh huh?"

Seriously, was nothing going to get through to him? Now he was trembling slightly, red seeping into his vision and blinding him, stealing his breath. Goddamn the anger management to hell, he was going to act however he wanted to this bastard, nobody that hurt Lloyd and then could still laugh deserved to feel safe. 

"I know a chamber, deep down in Kryptarium prison, where there's nothing but a table, soundproof walls and vengestone chains. There's a vent, on the roof, where water vapour can spill in. And believe me, I'll make sure of it, I'll increase the humidity of the room until the water vapour is so thick that every breath you take burns at the lining of your lungs, and it dissolves your skin at the same time, until you have no lungs, until you are eaten from the inside out and the outside in and your flesh is seared off your bones slowly and painfully. And I will laugh."

Kai didn't even know he could sound so barbed and disturbed until after the words were spoken, and as the memory of them sparked and fizzled in the air like the aforementioned water vapour. Had he gone too far? His eyes flickered back to Nya, who was pale, but smiling slightly. Morro's calm superiority complex melted away into embitterment as his eyes searched Kais with almost violent consideration. The intense eye contact didn't frighten Kai, he didn't allow himself to be afraid of Morro in any way, ever. Maybe out of spite. It would've been easy to miss the way the Master of Wind's eyelids stuttered, looking down at his legs for only a split-second, obviously remembering how it had felt last time around, but Kai didn't miss the glance. He noted it with a grim satisfaction, that had shut him up.

The ghost's lips were slightly parted, a vague look of disgust on his face. "How dare you?" He finally whispered, in a low seethe, leaning in just like the other had.

Kai hissed, jerked forwards and threw his hands onto the bed in retaliation, completely prepared to fulfill his promises and prove his point, Morro jumped back, away from him, but then seemed to relax a little. The piercing smell of smoke reached Kai's nostrils, and he blinked, then hurriedly waved his hands heat away. Wu shouldn't know that they'd been here, and black, sooty hand marks branded onto sheets were a pretty obvious clue to Kai's location under any conditions.

A small, shrill giggle escaped Morro's throat, his now weaker grin still bared. Fear shone in the reflection of his eyes. "Well, consider this logically, Spitfire, what if Lloyd comes to me? Am I supposed to so rudely turn him away? I already apologised to him, so I don't doubt he'll talk to me." Kai scoffed so hard it almost sounded like he was hacking something up, and then snapped, "Yes, and I don't care if you pretended to apologise to him. Stay away at all costs, or you will have me to answer to."

Nya added on to his words with a growl, "He will have to answer to us all, Kai. Don't forget, I am the Master of Water, and I am much closer than Kryptarium Prison." 

Seriously? Did she have to do this now?

"That's very nice. I'll keep it in mind, ninja." 

Kai inhaled, again about to punch something, preferably Morro, when the ghost stood up, phasing right through Kai's solid, imposing body. His first instinct was that he was being possessed, and he just about bit back the yelp of fear. He shuddered, jerking back at the dry cold that followed the ghost like a trail, seeping into his body. For a moment there, he had felt like the ghost.

Kai blinked, trying to calm himself, and ignored the way Nya uncrossed her arms and tightened her fists.

When he turned around with a promise in his eyes, Morro had already opened the door, and was gesturing to it with a sweet, yet somehow still cruel, smile. 

"Now, please, do me a favour and fuck off." Nya clicked her tongue in annoyance and stomped a few steps towards the ghost. Face to face, now that Kai had that cool, creeping feeling up his spine, she seemed surreally brave.

"Three rules. That's it, follow them and we'll leave you alone. Don't, and, well, I feel like Kai explained it well enough." With that, she left the room, her warning hanging in both their minds like a gunshot. Kai shot a glare at Morro, who seemed uncharacteristically disinterested, and then followed after his sister.

And so, the two left, Morro sufficiently cautioned on his actions, and leaving the tang of smoke poking around in the room. Oh, who cared if Wu found out? They'd done what was right, and that was all that mattered. Now, all they had to do was hope that it was enough to stop the restart of the ghost-pocalypse. He blinked and gritted his teeth, giving up catching up to Nya, and instead allowing her to stride ahead at her own, annoyed pace, probably preparing to sleep, or rant at someone.

Or maybe she was going to work on some new tech, whatever she did at night. He never knew, his sleep schedule was stressful enough as it was. He didn't have time to check up on everyone else and their mothers as well. Even if he wanted to know what Nya did. He simply didn't have the time.

A headache began to tug at the edges of his mind, Kai groaned more in discontent than actual pain. For now. Not again. He blamed Morro entirely for this, too much stress had been thrown at him, and now he'd pay the price.

Kai began to make his way to the bathroom, using whatever texture was on the walls to bear his weight, and to take the strain off the rest of him. He was so incredibly tired, but he knew that once he collapsed into his bed, he wouldn't even be able to close his eyes due to the amount of restlessness that he felt. The fatigue was just his body lying, pleading to his mind for something that it'd reject, and it was pretty fucking annoying.

Finally, he made it to the thankfully empty bathroom, it was empty because everybody here either went to sleep at 8 :30 pm (cough, cough, Zane, Cole and Lloyd) or 2am, (cough, cough, Nya, Jay and also somehow Lloyd) and now, Kai was in the in-between zone, where his team was either already asleep or wouldn't be for a while. 

It meant he had privacy as he stumbled forward in the dark, his hip knocking against the sink, the only illumination the light in the corridor behind him, because he'd forgotten to turn the light on as he walked in, and he wasn't doing it now. The headache's intensity increased surprisingly fast, jabs of agony throbbing throughout his skull like pulsing, neon club lights, and pressure pushing behind his eyes, so it was both constant and sparking.

Looking at his vague silhouette in the mirror on a cabinet before him, Kai frowned. He looked ill. That was visible even in the near-twilight level of darkness. Red marks under his eyes, heavy eyelids, a dead stare. Maybe all that recent ghost fighting, and paranoia and insomnia actually did affect his appearance. Shocker. That was inconvenient, but nothing that some of Jay's makeup couldn't fix.

First Master, when had he become so soft? It was just a headache, not something to worry about. It could be easily helped with his meds, that was also the case with his... insomnia? During the appointment that Nya had forced him to go to, Kai had kinda just talked, not listened. He didn't know its proper name, or type or whatever, all he knew was that he took a pill or two a day, no matter if he was tired or not.

And sometimes, it worked. That was useful, much more useful than being in emotional agony every night and being too drained the morning after to do proper training. The problem had persisted his whole life, but had gotten worse after Zane's death fiasco with the second incarnation of the Overlord. Truthfully, most of his problems had worsened just from the moment he became a ninja. Anger regulation, insomnia, migraines, what wasn't a condition he had? Wu had offered him a session with the Ninja's specialised therapist, trained for incredibly odd and specific situations like his, but Kai turned it down.

For now, he could handle it. Even if it did continue to progress downwards, he'd just end up rising above it, he believed in himself.

Kai's mind quickly wandered away, pointedly, eager to think about something else. Actually, every time he was in a bathroom with a mirror, he was reminded of the one time that he and three of his teammates had travelled back in time to stop Lord Garmadon's plan, and he had scolded his past self, as a reflection. He still felt affronted that he'd believed it. 

Those times, with the Golden Weapons and Lord Garmadon, they seemed lifetimes away. Impossibly far from the now, when hours of his life fell away, and he trudged through the days like blizzards. 

He found himself asking, what changed? Why had he suddenly fallen so useless, so unable to stay strong? He doubted that he'd ever find out.

The reason why he was here resurfaced. The headache, and the medication.

Muttering quietly to himself and blinking rapidly, Kai blindly searched the sink edge for his square package, before remembering that Zane had moved it to the cupboard, so then, he opened that. 

Why did Zane always have to organise things? Kai functioned best in chaos, after all. There were a lot of containers in there. Kai pinched his fingers on his nosebridge, trying to focus his eyes onto the familiar white and blue colouring.

Eventually, he discovered it, somewhere buried near the front. Who even used all these products? He himself kept all his hair gel in a separate area, so who even needed all this? Was it Jay? Because, Zane was a robot, and now, Cole was a ghost, so it was either Jay or Lloyd.

He carefully tugged the package out, like a game of Jenga, but alas, he had never been good at Jenga. Two somethings fell down on him in the dark, one hitting his forehead and one clattering in and then spinning around in the sink. A noise that sounded somewhat between a cat's yelp of surprise and Kai's signature pained groan of confusion escaped from his throat, the physical pain on top of his migraine but an inconvenience in comparison.

At least his own medication was still tightly in his hand, as he held one of the other containers up to the light, he registered that it read; "Natural green chamomile anti-aging and acne-preventing gel." Huh, who knew that Lloyd used anti-acne products? Maybe he'd overestimated the pipsqueak's ability to have such smooth skin based off genetics alone. 

It was time to end the day. Kai downed his dose with a handful of water from the bathroom tap. 

Maybe tomorrow would be better, he reasoned, even though he knew that nothing would change. 

Then, he inhaled slowly, and sighed, his heartbeat faintly pounding in his ears as he stared into the shadows of the room, unwilling to move. Hopefully, he'd get some sleep tonight, because he couldn't afford to let his guard down, not while Morro was up to something. He couldn't let anything preventable happen again, right under his nose. He wouldn't let anybody else get hurt because of a failure on his part. He wouldn't be able to take it.

(This is Lloyd we're talking about. This is one mission we cannot fail.)

Kai remained shakily silent, not acknowledging his thoughts with even a sigh, then turned around and padded out and into their shared room. Two bodies lay calmly in the dark, and soft whirring of Zanes mechanics covered up any deep breathing. Trying not to make any noise, the Red Ninja pulled himself up to the top bunk, the muffled sound of cloth sliding over cloth, yes, he'd forgone changing his clothes, but it didn't really matter all that much. He had to grasp at sleep while he could, or the chance would be entirely gone. The clothes could be washed later, anyways.

And so, there he laid, counting his breaths and lazily examining each section of the ceiling above him, with sparks in his blood, until he finally felt he could close his eyes. Though, due to the darkness, it almost made no difference. After ten minutes, his erratic heartbeat, which was so desperate you would've thought he'd chugged coffee, died down. The silence was so complete that it almost felt surreal. Suspicious, like something was hiding there. He tried not to let incoherent thoughts scare him awake, his mind frantic despite his closed eyelids. Kai felt deep in his bones the humility of how useless this was, trying at all.

It took a while, hours actually, and he didn't notice near the end, but Kai did indeed sleep that night, carefully, quietly, and thoughts murdered as not to disturb the waters of his fragile slumber.

Morro awoke with a distant sense of inexplicable threat, one that was quietly washed away as he returned to the Realm of Ninjago once again. Today was, strangely, not begun with a tasteful dose of emotional agony, and he had dreamt some dream, but it was lost in the caverns of his mind a while ago. Morro had recently learnt that he didn't like dreaming, so this was a good thing.

Yesterday had sure been interesting, with all the Lloyd and Kai shenanigans, it made him feel oddly peaceful. Peaceful because Morro knew how to remain poker-faced in the face of a genuine threat (that was all he knew how to actually handle), so he wasn't mulling over Wu's expectations and who to make eye contact with, and instead planned to annoy Kai as much as possible and then dodge a few flamethrower-style attacks. Peaceful in the way that a general found familiarity on a battlefield more than he did his own home. What was the real harm in talking to Lloyd a little, as a rebellious act?

They wouldn't dare cage him. They couldn't. 

The challenge made everything alot more fun, even if it clearly wasn't the same for Kai. Morro really didn't know how to function without some unhealthy competition, it was simply what he was made for.

Whether or not he knew it, the Red Ninja was helping him, in an odd, disturbing, way, which despite that, would definitely make Kai immediately do the opposite of what he was doing now, purely so Morro felt uncomfortable again. All he could do was hope that he didn't become honestly provoked by the Fire Elemental, because then it wouldn't be fun at all, and he'd be sent back into his excruciating spiral of conflicted emotions, one he never would've thought he'd ever snag a break from. And also have to deal with the other ninja after he broke Kai's bones.

This moment of existential content was one he had to cherish at all costs. 

Morro stretched, mainly for some silent show, but it also relieved some tension somewhere in his lower back, which surprised, then deeply troubled him. This near-death death experience as opposed to a death experience was teaching him so much about his ghost body. And he didn't know if it was a good thing, nothing about his body had changed in over forty years. It was like puberty all over again.

He'd never even finished puberty! Morro knew that he'd be taller than everyone else here from spite alone, if his growth hadn't been cut short, permanently. But alas, he'd accepted that that would never happen. No matter his innate potential to be taller than Cole, Morro would never live, or grow again. At the back of his mind, there was always the desperate, fairytale-esque hope, that was so painful he tried to crush it at all costs, but somehow, it always scuttled from beneath his foot last second. He wished it would fuck off, because there was no hope for cursed ghosts, (Least not ghosts like him.) or he would've found it by now, and childish hope were only twisting the knife. 

Maybe heroes would be blessed by the First Spinjitsu Master. Maybe Cole would be human once again, be given a miracle, a second chance, but not him. Never him, and he damn well knew it. He'd given up praying for a saviour a long time ago, because nobody was coming.

There was nothing to do, sat here in this bed, he didn't even know what day it was, or what time it was. Did ghosts even have an internal clock? Was it messed up by his sleep? Morro had no need to keep track of the time in the Cursed Realm, and no way, either. Not like it mattered, because every year, he'd hear the Pre-eminent whisper, in the back of his head, in that grating voice. She'd say, "It's the next year again, my child. You are another twelve months closer to your catharsis." 

He would just shiver and clench his jaw and nod. 

Quickly looking around, Morro confirmed that there were in fact, no clocks in this room, or anything else of the sort. Maybe he should install one. He huffed, as if there was anyone around to be annoyed at. It was only because he knew he'd have to go up and outside to ask what day it was, maybe for a clock, and during that, he'd have to see the ninja. Then probably talk to them. To convince them he wasn't robbing them like Ronin the moment they turned their backs, or whatever they believed he did in his spare time.

Perhaps it wasn't even worth it. How long could he sit in one room out of contempt before he started going insane and trying to resurrect the Pre-eminent again? Morro decided that, though it sounded entertaining, he'd rather not find out.

The ghost stood up sharply, refusing to acknowledge the pain lancing through his legs yet again, it was such a nuisance, having to adapt his lifestyle to an injury of all things. So he just wouldn't. Morro ignored it, like he would any child clinging onto him. The pain was bearable, he'd died by being burned alive, he wasn't so weak that he couldn't handle some... strong leg cramps. FSM, even the Pre-eminent had had more mercy than this.

His muscles seized as a tingling sensation ran through them. He hadn't felt pins and needles for longer than the ninja had been alive, and he'd hoped it would stay that way.

Morro groaned fiercely, this was getting annoying fast, he couldn't even walk. Since when did ghosts feel pins and needles?! The Cloud Kingdom were really stretching their own limits with this one, making him pay back for what he'd done, huh? Agh, he didn't even have nerves! It was unfair!

So, he made the executive decision to not walk. Instead, he stilled himself, stuttered his eyes closed, and casually shook himself from the plane of physical being. It was an unsettling feeling, but one he had long become accustomed to. He himself didn't feel all that different, just lighter, really, but the strangest part was how everything else felt in comparison. 

The bandages fell through him, suddenly without an anchor to cling onto, and fluttered onto the floor. He swore under his breath, Wu had probably put those on for a reason, but now they'd be useless. Unless they were going to be applied again. All he could do was hope that his former sensei had the common sense to knock him out before he did it, because no way was he letting him get that close again.

Morro almost swam through the air, directing himself into some unexplainable current of the realm, and moved up to the floor that the deck was on, completely skipping the stairs and the corridor. As he floated through the ceiling, he tried not to shiver. It felt like mist washing around him, but if he focused on it too long, he'd realise that he was the mist and lose focus and become solid and stuck in the floor from panic. He'd never let anything so humiliating happen to him.

A noise slowly grew louder, it was like static, buzzing, some sort of roaring or ringing of his ears that intensified the longer he stayed intangible. It wasn't that bad but he felt like he was blacking out, and reminded him vaguely of the Pre-eminent, he'd make it, though. His destination was only a few metres away, after all.

Just as his head poked above floorboards, sunlight flashing into his eyes, and the long, faded blue expanse of the sky swirling above him, the noise sharpened. The humming quickly evolved into unnatural, impossible shrieking, and he could've sworn there was some prolonged wail in the background of the arising chaos. He flinched frantically as his mind began to race, were those the screams he heard? Were they coming back? Was the Pre-eminent still somehow reaching him from beyond another world? Was he right when he thought that the cycle would repeat endlessly, constantly returning and tormenting him? Did the song affect him even when he was in Ninjago?

He panicked violently, his form shifted in and out of stability, but by the time he'd gotten his hands up too, grappling desperately for some handhold to save him, his focus betrayed him. He noticed the ninja training, but mercy smiled upon him, because they were facing away. Thank FSM. Gasping air that didn't obey him, Morro continued to struggle, as the noises stopped altogether, fading into blissful absence. Now it was just like the vague familiarity of when he'd pressed his palms against his eyelids as a little kid, to watch the painful, hypnotic patterns dance away into the tide of blackness.

Except the blackness wasn't silence. He noticed there were birds chirping, actual birds, and Wu's cool but projected voice, alongside the underlying breathing of all six of the teenagers he'd come to recognise. It was almost... calming. It was so easy to pretend that he wasn't real, that he was observing this world unnoticed, just the reader of the book that was Ninjago. 

It was almost relieving to know what it felt like to be someone else. And free. If only for a second. Then, the voices from the real world grew louder.

"Kai, that is my foot." Jay groaned, almost comically, and Kai huffed an apology. Morro winced at the interruption.

Why was he still here, anyways? 

Eventually, he fully regained his composure, and noticed that only half of his upper body was through the floor, and his legs and waist were just... hanging from the downstairs ceiling. Great, the one thing he'd warned himself not to do had happened, he should probably fix that before the ninja, or Cloud Kingdom forbid, Wu, noticed. The moment he began to concentrate, Lloyd yelped with impeccable timing. 

"UuAUgh-...ah...I mean, Morro, First Master, what are you doing there?" The ghost almost yelped with Lloyd as panic strengthened its grip on him. He felt like a stray dog snapped awake from its fragile nap. He hadn't wanted anyone to see him, least of all Lloyd. He narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth, desperately creating some sort of alibi, purposefully not actually looking at him. Before he could proclaim his lame excuse, the Green Ninja laughed tensely, eyes troubled faintly by alarm and dread. Facing the ghost, he held out his hand, in a friendly gesture. Morro blinked, the cogs in his head stuck and unmoving. Why was Lloyd helping him? "Did you seriously get stuck in the floor?" The tone of his voice was genuine curiosity, not cruel or teasing. Not kind, either, though.

Morro reached upwards and took the hand carefully, again making his lower half intangible. He caught how the other hissed slightly at the feeling of his spirit. 

Morro gave no sympathy. He'd had to live with his own cold for decades. Lloyd eventually dragged him up from the floor. "Apparently." Morro drawled. He let go immediately, desperate to not be touched, and looked around nonchalantly. The nindroid happened to turn around just then. Just as Morro began to calm down. The moment that his bright blue eyes landed on Morro, he shrieked, actually shrieked, a metallic accent to the sound, and jumped about a foot in the air. Morro watched on in silent horror as he fell back, stumbling upon landing, and sent out a clamour of clunking, mechanical noises. 

The ghost almost jerked away at the loud noise, very suddenly tense and prepared to flee, feeling like a cornered animal. Couldn't Zane shut up a little? Why was he acting so afraid, anyways? It wasn't like robots could feel, no matter the way that everyone pretended they could. So why didn't he use it to his advantage? He would be a much better fighter if he didn't feel fear, nor anger, nor grief.

Dear FSM, Morro wished he could have that. The others all looked over because of the commotion, reflexes almost in sync, and spotted Morro as well. Zane laughed nervously and nodded, eyes darting around, like he was alerting the others. Morro scoffed.

"Oh, apologies Morro." Zane said, and Morro stood completely still until they grudgingly accepted it, or got bored and turned away. Everybody except Kai, who caught and kept his stare for a good few seconds longer than anyone else, in clear warning.

Warning, challenge, what was the difference, really? Their sensei, too, looked at him for a moment too long, considering something that none of them would ever be able to guess. Wu was an odd man, a lonely one who had lived far too long and seen far too many things. Nothing about him was predictable.

Morro reminded himself that this place wasn't safe. He had to watch his back.

Couldn't everybody get over themselves and stop acting so hostile for the sake of being hostile? (Like you're one to talk.) Shut up. Morro had a reason to be hostile. He was living in an enclosed space with a bunch of erratic teenagers that wanted to fight him, and knew how. 

There was nothing special about him, Morro knew he was nothing new to them, they who had been through so many horrors that they almost shed all morals, that they saw nothing but the target in the distance and the bow with a loaded arrow in their hands. They were inhumane, and it was all because of Wu, really. (Had Wu made him like that too?)

Something in him knew that was a lie. Why else would Lloyd have helped him up? So that he'd be in debt to him?

Morro realised he had been staring into the distance, stone-faced with an unintentional air of aggression, so he snapped back, shaking himself from the tempting labyrinth of a mist that was his own mind.

Lloyd's eyes were wide, almost questioning, they almost seemed like a stereotypical child's gaze, about to tug at someone's sleeve and ask hundreds of questions. The faintly concealed apprehension didn't trick Morro's eyes, though. It almost made him feel guilty for all he'd done in his body, but not quite. The ghosts face twisted into a grin as he looked down at the pathetic excuse of a saviour before him. Silently laughing at him. The Green Ninja narrowed his eyes, almost imperceptibly, and roughly turned back around.

With a frown, the boy again copied the exercises his sensei was demonstrating, interaction already forgotten, or more likely, ignored. Like he was better than him. 

Like he hadn't been possessed with ease. 

Agh, that wasn't important anymore, all that mattered was making Lloyd like him, for now. He would be useful. Soon, Morro would have to get out of here, and he needed an escape route. Glaring at the only person willing to help him was probably not the way to go about anything. If he ever wanted a way to get out of here and live his own life, it would be through Lloyd. People that are forgiving have nobody but themselves to blame, he thought, and for a heartbeat, truly believed it. For a few moments, Morro just stood there, at the back of the group, unsure of what he was supposed to be doing. Or what he wanted to do. He watched as Lloyd attentively trailed Wu's every word. Some bitter part of him withered. (It could have been me.)

Should he join in with their warm-up, or would that be insulting? 

Did he care? (Why are you always your own enemy?) Nope, he didn't care. If it was only to shut up that masterforsaken voice in the back of his head. It was always shrieking, always whispering. It annoyed him to no end. Focusing in on Wu's voice, Morro shuffled back a little, so it was definite that nobody could see him. He hadn't done these exercises for a long while, in his first few months of being dead, he'd done them out of muscle memory and to waste time in the bottomless, but temporary silence. However, after some years he'd forgot to keep track of, he'd done them less and less regularly, until it was a rare occurance, because his mind was so corrupted and poisoned and weighed down with the addicting thought of revenge. Bittersweet, but it was all that kept him going.

Petty revenge that had gone nowhere because the emotion within was so thick he couldn't see clearly, that he didn't even plan it out properly. If he could go back in time, he wouldn't make the same mistakes twice. For now, though, he'd just relearn the kata that had been long forgotten. 

The old man shouted out instructions, and the ninja paused, then stepped outwards from each other so they'd all have enough room, Morro hastily copied, head turning around, paranoid of watching eyes. As his sensei continued to say words that he only half-caught, the ghost realised with a jolt that they were about to perform seisan, or, only some of them were? Wait, what?

Morro wildly searched the deepest corners of his memory, trying to remember how it started, what the details were, and what order the steps went in, and reeling back hardly anything useful. He'd learnt seisan, of course, Wu had taught it to him when he was still alive, as he had learnt well and quickly, climbing up the ranks of any other student his sensei may have had. It was also one of the oldest to exist, so he'd been taught it in an attempt to... expand his horizons and teach him his history, in Wu's words. 

But now- no, he could do this. He was still more skilled than the ninja no matter what they said, and he wouldn't be disproven. He wouldn't. The diligent students around him relaxed themselves, preparing, and bowed. Morro followed suit awkwardly. Then, they arose once again, order coating every second they breathed, and from that point on, only motor memory and copying the others carried him.

They cried a word in unison, something that Morro didn't catch, and was too late to join in, the noise almost jumpscared him, but he smothered it and continued to move through the motions. Ah shit, he straightened his back quickly, almost unaware it had bent in the first place, his strength in his posture was also pathetically bad, positioning shaky and overall inept. Maybe he should just give up. His feet scuffed apart as he continued to do what he could. The ninja seemed to be doing fine, well, excluding Lloyd, while Morro was clearly struggling, it seemed he wasn't the only one who had forgotten the intricacy of seisan. At least he'd placed himself at the back, thank FSM nobody could see him.

Wait. No. That wasn't right. Morro was struck with the sudden realisation that during this kata, there were parts where everybody would turn… and face him. Fuck. What would he do then? 

Could he hide?

His mind wasn't working, he couldn't think. Nobody but Wu could see him right now, but he could hardly even tell if his former sensei was looking at him. How disappointing it must be to watch what was his best student crumble before his eyes, moves unpracticed and will shattered. He was a disappointment, a failure, and a disaster. Morro moved one foot out, and his arms up in the way everyone else did. He crossed his fists awkwardly.

A quick, panicked glance at Lloyd's loosely held fists confirmed that his own were facing the wrong way. An inaccuracy he promptly adjusted, praying that Wu hadn't seen. Why did his form look so strange? It was noticeably off, but Morro couldn't actually tell what was wrong. Too many years without a teacher, he supposed, would do that to his kata. There were so many things that he constantly had to check, nothing came naturally, it was all strained and unsure and his feet were facing the wrong way and he was turning his fist too slowly and he needed his knees a little more bent and his head had to be looking straight ahead and it was all far too fucking complicated.

Frustration built up under his skin like steam. Hadn't this been easy? Hadn't this been fun? Hadn't he wanted to please his master so badly that he became a perfectionist down to the last detail? Where had all that eagerness and desire to learn gone? Where had that little child who absorbed techniques like a sponge gone, and why couldn't he return so that Morro could finish his masterforsaken kata?

The anger and self-loathing pulsed through his limbs like a parasite, reawakening the distant agony in his legs. It was all slowly becoming too much, his toes proving unreliable and pain tolerance proving pitifully low as he began another section of the seisan with the others, attempting to lunge forwards with his leg in quick succession and move his hands correctly. It failed miserably.

As Morro's second step landed, arrangement already loose and displaced in comparison to the teenagers, he burst out in a short yelp, but cut off himself, as his leg suddenly shot daggers up and through his torso. He stumbled forward, instinctively not using the excruciating leg, but also instinctively not wanting to ruin his positioning. So, the ghost just kind of fell into the beginning of a roll. If it wasn't for his distressed last second thinking, he would've sprawled out.

Instead, his hands reached out and forwards to catch his fall in a panic. That was when he remembered that he had wind powers. Morro opened his fist and launched wind at the ground. Immediately, he was launched backwards, and his hair slapped into his face dramatically. 

Spitting it out, he just about shot out his good leg behind him. And he caught himself.

That didn't stop him from tripping upon landing, and flailing his arms for a brief moment to stabilise. Morro stood there, now still, apart from his rising and falling shoulders, panting uselessly out of frustration rather than exertion. The yelp of pain that had escaped still hung in the air, the humility of the memory cutting him like shurikens. He looked down at nobody, jaw clenched and fists tighter than they had been during the kata. Why was he so useless? Stiffening, he swiveled his head around to greet the stares he knew were there headstrong, but he was not as prepared as he thought he was. He felt the familiar expression of disgusted anger meld his features. It was just a reflex, at this point. The ninja were in varying positions of shock, or defense, Zane was still going with his seisan, and the look of deep-seated panic quickly faded from Lloyd's face into unfriendly neutrality. Cole looked blankly at the nothing next to Morro, eyes low as he distracted himself from something. Nobody looked away, they were all still, waiting for something to happen, waiting for him to attack or whatever. Waiting for him to break the unsaid promise, that they were safe while he was here. 

Waiting for an excuse to get rid of him, once and for all.

Their eyes were all on him! They wouldn't forget. The all-mighty protectors of Ninjago City couldn't believe that Morro had tripped, couldn't get over the fact that he'd made a mistake. Their beady little eyes clung onto every part of him like fruitflies on the corpse of a cherry tree, like the stupefied, mocking gaze of a child. Children, that's all they were. Little children who all strayed too far from their homes and now scavenged into those half-dead as a pack, because they couldn't even kill it on their own.

They were all so fucking useless. 

Masterforsaken fools. Pressure built up and up in his throat in unison with the rising emotion, like he was water bubbling in a kettle. He couldn't fucking take it, the sentence rattled in his head as he clenched his fists even tighter still. These idiots that refused to leave him alone. (You're a disappointment, a failure, and a disaster.) Morro could feel himself twitching all over as he met their stares with an intensity that he hoped was disturbing. He felt unnaturally hot. Deep inside his chest, it was burning like coals. He didn't care. His thoughts were all yelling at him, noises swirled chaotically in his head as the rage burned into his blood, branded him, fuelled him. Consumed him inside out like a firestorm.

Unexplainable ferocity welled up inside him as he struggled to stay afloat in his own mind. Violent, black thoughts swamped him, drowned him, and he was choking on it. 

He staggered backwards, and clawed at his hair, desperately trying to summon pain, something, anything, any anchor to pull him out. His head dipped down as he held it there, with nails digging into his skin. 

Why couldn't he just explode already?

Finally, it all proved too much, and a crack in the dam became a flood in the valley. It all overspilled in a guttural yell, honed by his ghostly nature.

His scream was short, explosive, and flew out of him like shattered glass shards. The sound echoed venomously along the expanses of his wind. He sounded like… a child throwing a tantrum.

When it faded sharply from the air, Morro could've sworn he heard ghostly keening.

The muscles in Morro's limbs were so taut that he thought he'd snap in half.

He whirled around, wind tugging at his hair as he stomped towards the edge of the Bounty. For a moment, he was distracted.

What if he jumped off?

Even though it brought him no small amount of comfort, he decided it would be too much hassle if he was found alive. 

Morro felt that restlessness begin to build up again, swirling, changing, nudging. Nudging him closer to destruction. 

He threw his elbow up instinctively, hand in a fist as if to crush something beneath him. But he found there was nothing there to crush.

Wu's voice reached him. "Morro!"

Morro glared down at nothing at all with unblinking eyes. Something in him changed, some anger spilled out into a bottomless pit, some hatred cracked and reshaped into something a little more familiar. 

Grandeur.

The sounds around him were soft and weak as he released his fist, then, the sounds strengthened. When he became aware of every breath of the air around him, it felt powerful, it felt like control, the way it all flowed and whispered to him alone.

Even if it spoke like a stranger.

The breeze gathered around him like spool around a string. Morro was the eye of the storm, and he was a god. For now, just in this moment, he could be in control. His hair billowed harshly and his clothes flapped erratically, but it didn't matter. He found such sweet release in the chaos of the sky. In the way his eyes stung.

Warning cries grew louder behind him, but it mattered not. He would not be brought down by petty ninja, or his own anger ever again.

He didn't want to make out the words, so he didn't. But he knew that they became panicked, and even louder. He pulled his arm back further, and with an open fist, threw the start of a gale at the Bounty, just because he could. The ship rocked tremendously from side to side, and the voices of unrestrained surprise and rage only widened the wild grin on his face. The thrill of his force sang in the air, it whistled around them all and bounced through the clouds. Wood creaked and the sails flapped so aggressively that it made snapping noises. Maybe being a villain was his destiny after all, if he found such shameful glee in causing chaos. 

Nobody could silently mock his kata if they were being thrown about. Nobody would dare to challenge him if they remembered the true extent of his power.

The spikes in his blood lessened with each phantom heartbeat, the world swaying and throbbing with his lens warped by red. The colour of rage, of blood, of mortality. The colour of getting high on his own strength.

….and, maybe the cold sting of regret began to sober him up. 

He paused, blinking his eyes. They'd been open before, he just wasn't sure that he was actually seeing. If he could've, Morro would've swallowed, or taken deep breaths, anything to ground himself back down. 

But he was just a ghost in this world, untethered, and dangerously close to the edge.

He slowly lowered his hand, back down to his side, and turned his head behind him.

The ninja were all in very different places from where they'd been last time he'd turned around, this time, they didn't seem afraid to express their combativeness, and hatred for him. Everybody was making violent, exasperated noises. They weren't very good at the whole organised fighting thing, were they?

 Jay in particular was jumping around, screaming something to his compatriots, who ignored him. In fact, they were arranged in an attack formation, a triangle-esque shape directed at him. Let them be disappointed, he hissed to himself, its not like I ever owed them anything. He only tensed harder.

Wus figure stood eerily still from the corner of his eye, and he couldn't muster the courage to look at his sensei. 

Morro was about to turn back around, when he caught a glint of green within the shadow of the mast. Lloyd was the only exception on the team, he didn't seem anywhere near ready to fight someone. In fact, there was an empty space at the front of the formation, presumably where he was supposed to be.

He'd curled in on himself, crouching and watching with an expression barely visible from the shadows. The boy looked pale. Those strange eyes were fully focused on Morro, but unseeing at the same time. 

Before pity, or guilt could form in Morro's gut, he bared his teeth and slammed his head away from all the watching eyes. As he stomped towards the edge of the Bounty, again, a bitter voice snarled from his subconscious.

Useless.

He couldn't even tell who it was meant for.

Morro turned, and slumped against the railing-like thing on the edge of the deck. Staring up through his eyebrows, with his knees covering his face, he could spot the chaos he'd stirred.

Nya stomped at the ground as she threw mindless words at Morro, louder than anyone else,

"Can nobody on this ship restrain a singular fucking ghost!?" Morro's jaw clenched. Cole looked awkwardly at Kai, who shrugged. Nya then growled, and swiveled around to continue learning her seisan with much more force than was necessary. It stirred nothing in him. Morro's outburst had died down into numbness, and now he couldn't even remember why he'd cared so much.

Apathy throbbed in him like an open wound.

The red figure of Kai regained his temper and spun around to where Morro sat, throwing his hands up, like he wanted to yell, 'What the fuck, Morro?'. As if they hadn't been the ones to provoke him. The Red Ninja shook his head in sarcastic disbelief, sneering, as Wu's clap rang out, summoning them all to distract them from his outburst. Like he was a goddamn problem child. Like they told each other that if they ignored him, he'd get bored. 

Nya was still shouting, her voice audible even from this distance. "Sensei, please, I'll drain the clouds and soak him to death, watch! Just let me!" 

Morro gripped his shoulders tighter, she was talking about him like he wasn't there. Or like she didn't care he was there. 

…How could he ever have considered being the Green Ninja if he couldn't even perform a single kata better than anyone else? If he couldn't shut up someone that was insulting him?

What was the point of having these powers if he couldn't be bothered to use them for anything?

 The anger washed over him again, awakening his true self for what must've been the thousandth time since his escape from the Cursed Realm. He ignored the cries of a distant, tired child within him, the exhaustion that pulled down at his edges, and crushed it mercilessly. Determination and spite was all that kept him going, all that gave life to his demise, and he would not fall.

He would not fall.

Not yet. He refused. The Master of Wind shut his eyes tightly, and faced up, as if bargaining with himself, if I block out the light, will you look up? Can you do that for me? Like he was coaxing a child, it riled him up to no end, but it worked in the end. Did it really even count as patronising if he was patronising himself?

Morro noticed a faint smell of smoke in the air. The world was cold as he silently calmed himself down.

Opening his eyes hesitantly, Morro noticed that now, they'd moved on to sparring, still ever-so-slightly on edge. The six had paired off, and notably, Lloyd was with Kai. They bowed, and then, after a pause, immediately began to trade blows, violently, clearly still within whatever rules Wu had twisted, but it was no kumite. Lloyd seemed clumsy, constantly on the defensive, scrambling to stay afloat, and the sight struck Morro as odd. 

That wasn't what his memories implied, Lloyd had easily beaten all the ninja even as a child, let alone Kai, why was he failing now? 

Was the Green Ninja weakened? By his own possession? The thought rang a chord of horror and regret deep within him, (How could you do that to the Green Ninja? That could've been you.) and it was easily washed away, by the decades he'd had under the Pre-eminents hand, his learnt callousness overpowered such feeble things as guilt. Morro couldn't remember the last time he'd regretted any of his actions…right? He wasn't about to start now. There was no reason to.

He'd been justified in his actions, Wu had carved a wound too deep to not be repaid, and paid it had been. Still not fully, still not enough for Morro to forgive him, still not enough to lessen the pressure he'd placed on himself. Maybe it was just fate that Lloyd was in his way. Morro hadn't been raised to step aside and let go, he'd raised himself to cling on and fight.

Lloyd lost the spar, to Kai's mild surprise.

Morro's ears were ringing faintly when whispers of their conversation reached him, the Red Ninja's eyebrows rose and his mouth fell open, looking over his hands, as if they'd suddenly started sparkling. His face twisted into mock surprise as he gasped, "Could I be the Green Ninja?" 

Immediately, Lloyd, Kai, and even Jay, who'd been in the vicinity, burst out cackling. It must've been some inside joke, some fond memory that he hadn't seen in Lloyd's mind. Because it didn't seem very funny to him. 

Morro watched with bitter eyes as Kai helped Lloyd up.

Again, the ghost still couldn't get over it. That destiny had chosen such a feeble Green Ninja, somebody who couldn't even fight on their own. Somebody who needed help to get back up again.

He couldn't believe that destiny had chosen somebody so unwilling when he had wanted it so much more. When he had trained so much harder for it, when Lloyd seemed so frustrated with himself as he sat on the sidelines, obviously aware of his futility. 

The Cloud Kingdom could go fuck themselves.

Now, Kai challenged Zane, riding out his victory with overspilling confidence. Morro blinked, and began to uncurl himself falteringly from the corner on the floor, first his hands, then his legs. When had he become so rigid? Then he sat, arms by his side and legs straight ahead, uselessly, as he rallied any energy within him to stand once again. Why was it so difficult? Had his will deteriorated that far?

No way that one bad thing would happen, and he'd just collapse. He knew he wasn't that weak, it was evident enough, so why couldn't he just, get up? (You're lying to yourself. You're weak.) Morro heaved himself upwards, with slight help of the wind, standing himself on aching legs. Then, he began to walk, clutching the support next to him. But the thing was, he didn't want to be stared at for the hundredth time today.

The others were loosely gathered below the entrance to the bridge, on the opposite side of the deck that he was. To the left of him was the mast, and then even more left was the bow of the ship. If he could circle out to the mast, but then inwards towards the end, Morro could avoid the ninja entirely. Surely, he could put his stealth training to good use.

With watchful eyes and silent feet, Morro slunk around and followed his designated path. In an arc, around to the back of the group. Nobody noticed him, he made that completely certain by being invisible.

But now, the important thing was that he was standing behind the Green Ninja, and even Wu, and nobody had seen. He allowed himself a small moment of pride, maybe he wasn't completely useless. Morro felt as his focus latched onto the one donned in green, once again, like he'd never seen the kid before, like the first time they'd met, caught in a storm of confusion and rage and heartless promises. Lloyd had had no idea, back then.

No idea of Wu's past, no idea Morro even existed, no idea of the pain his title had left in its wake, and no idea what was coming.

The same was vaguely true now, Lloyd didn't know the future, but then again, neither did he. Morro frowned as he dwelled on it all, trying to snap himself out of it.

Why could he never stay focused?

Just then, Lloyd straightened, his crestfallen head snapping up as Kai called him over again for a rematch, coming back after having suffered an easy defeat to Zane. Morro's eyes followed, ticking along like the hands of a clock. He didn't expect much from Lloyd this time either, it was clear that he didn't understand what he'd been doing wrong, and nothing would change if he tried his hand at the game the exact same way twice.

They bowed, shifted on their feet and launched at each other on Wu's command, this time, with the help of Elemental power. Morro hadn't been listening, so the loud flashes of green and bursts of engulfing flame shocked him, only for a moment, though. Then, he blinked, as he realised that this spar was different. It was powerful, it was unrestricted, and it was dangerous.

Some sort of… exposure training? Kai paused, and suddenly threw himself at Lloyd's legs in a slide. The strength put into it was considerable, even Morro could tell that. If it worked, the move would've slammed the other down onto the floor. It seemed that the Fire ninja was relying on brute force instead of any form of stealth or trickery.

Not like this was news to Morro. He remembered pretty well from the last time they'd fought.

Lloyd wasted no time. He bounced back a step before leaping over the Master of Fire without an inch of room to spare. The landing paled in comparison to the miraculous jump, because it was clumsy, and heavy. The ninja stumbled, stifling his hiss of pain to intuitively block Kai's punch. Barely.

A flashbang of neon green energy sent the two flying apart, violently. They both hit the ground, but ironically, Lloyd took longer to recover. Those precious seconds he spent wincing and carefully picking himself up cost him.

Kai sprung up and slammed him back down, landing with knees on either side of Lloyd. When the Green Ninja's head knocked against the floor of the Bounty yet again, he cried out meekly. 

It must've taken him a few moments to process his predicament. When his eyes widened, and he realised that Kai had him tightly restrained, it was too late. 

In this position, Lloyd couldn't move his arms, nor his head. And also, there was an open flame, courtesy of Kai, inches away from his face. Apparently, the warning flame flickered too close to Lloyd for Wu's comfort, because the sensei quickly ordered them to separate. 

"This session is over." He barked.

Morro almost smiled. What was that? 

Kai hopped up briskly and held out his hand to the slightly battered Lloyd. The Red Ninja smiled sheepishly and scratched the back of his neck.

"Hah, sorry about that, dude. No hard feelings, yeah? You did great!"

The other ninja simply laughed.

"Don't apologise, Kai. I haven't gotten that weak." Kai grinned grimly and excused himself to go spar Nya.

Lloyd waved his hand once, with a weak smile, and dropped it all immediately once out of Kai's eyesight.

But what he hadn't realised was that he wasn't out of Morro's eyesight. No, he hardly realised anything at all, as he drooped his shoulders, eyes on the floor, and teeth grit in a self-loathing reminiscent of Morro himself. 

"Sensei, what am I doing wrong? I'd be able to beat, or at least match Kai on any other day. What's different about me?" Lloyd preached exasperatedly, almost rhetorically, like he knew there would never be an answer. However, his sensei hummed, eyes switching from his other students to the one before him, placing a hand on his shoulder reassuringly. "You must give your body time to rest, nephew. Being possessed, I imagine, will take a while to fully physically recover from. It was a bad idea on my part to allow you to partake in training today." Morro froze entirely, feeling tendrils of an unnameable emotion wrap around his throat. 

Of course it was because of how Morro had treated him, how had he not thought of that? He recoiled at his own ignorance, deciding that he really was stupid. 

"No, Sensei, I take back what I said, I'm fine, actually! I can keep training!"

The desperation was obvious even to Morro's ears.

For the sake of the First Spinjitsu Master, he'd locked him in a cage, starved him, attacked him, made him live without rest for two weeks, physical or mental, and even gotten drunk, all in Lloyd's body. Not to mention a few other illegal substances that Wu would've harshly disapproved of. No fucking wonder he was weak! How Lloyd could even look him in the face without immediately ending him was beyond him.

That or collapsing on the spot.

Dear gods, Morro truly was an imbecile. He snapped his teeth together, in anger, trying to think of something, something to try to redeem himself. Just to make living with himself slightly more bearable.

But what could possibly make up for all he had done?

An idea eventually crept into his head, and he slowly considered it. After all, Lloyd had made a pretty loud noise when his head had hit the floor.

Morro's restlessness was getting uncomfortable as he tutted to nobody in particular and turned abruptly on his heel.

He stalked over to Lloyd, who was only a few metres away, and still agonising over something with Wu. Now, they were a few steps away, but Morro came ever closer. When he was out in the open, he spoke curtly, and with a deadpan expression.

"Look at me." 

The Green Elemental jerked backwards, eyes spilling wide open in terror before he hastily recollected himself, eyes now narrowing in suspicion. He seemed to huff a few quietly displeased breaths. Morro could've sworn that he could hear Lloyd's heartbeat, still pounding.

"...what?" Wu, too, turned around, a blink his only sign of shock. Maybe his former mentor had known he was there the entire time, maybe not. Lloyd certainly hadn't.

Though he may have been one to disobey out of spite, as most pre-teens are, Lloyd had unwillingly complied. He met Morro's eyes, probably by muscle memory, Morro peered, leaning marginally closer, Lloyd's pupils were a fraction larger than normal, probably because of his fight-or-flight response. They were probably matching in that aspect. However, he couldn't exactly blame the kid, after all he'd done.

Morro couldn't deny how on edge he felt, being this close to the Green Ninja. Close enough to see how the roots of his hair were slowly growing into a deeper, darker blond, something more akin to pale brown. Close enough to see how his eyebrows twitched constantly, despite his forced stoic expression. Close enough to see that his pupils were equal in size, and pretty usual-looking, meaning no concussion. 

Morro leaned back, now standing straight again, and smirked in a poker-faced way. "Good news. You're not concussed." Lloyd tilted his head in a distinct show of bewilderment. 

A few moments passed with nothing said, as Lloyd searched for words. 

"I feel like I'd be aware that I was concussed, if I was." 

"Sure, that's what you'd think. But it's not that easy." The Green Ninja scoffed at that, relaxing a little, to Morro's surprise. "Oh yeah? How much do you know on the nature of concussions, Sir I-Died-Before-The-First-Paractemol-Was-Invented?"

At that, Morro hissed lightly. "When I died has no dictation on my knowledge of biology. This is common sense." 

Lloyd rocked on his feet. "Yeah. Common sense that I would feel if my brain was 'stretched, damaging brain tissue and triggering a chain of harmful changes within the brain that interfere with normal brain activities.'" 

Morro's jaw fell open blankly, and he sneered. "You what? When did you have time to memorise that? And how can you understand that but not the fact that disorientation makes identifying the source of the disorientation hard?" 

He noted how Wu coughed down a chuckle at the scene, and shuffled away.

Lloyd rolled his eyes comically and stuck his tongue out in a show of bravely petty mockery. "I learnt it off Google. I got really bored one day, when I ran out of Starfarer comics to read, and began looking into concussions on a library computer."

Morro almost began to snicker, but smothered the urge, settling on gesturing his hands wildly before saying, "You are a menace to society. What is wrong with you." 

"Pfft, says the ghost that brought a realm full of other ghosts here to take over the world. I'd say that's pretty 'menace to society' behaviour." Wow, Lloyd was feeling ballsy today, huh? Morro pressed his lips together, eyes narrowing more and more as he considered whether or not it would be socially acceptable to slap this child. Most likely not. 

"Mhm." He eventually grunted out, despite how strongly his heart urged him to say 'shut the fuck up.' The impatient Lloyd barked out a laugh at his curt response, 

"Is that all you appeared over here for? To watch me fall and then check if I was injured? Because gee, I'm honoured." Morro frowned and straightened his spine, "I did not appear here, I walked. And no, I came over here to talk to you." 

Lloyd raised his eyebrows, walking through and past Morro as he spoke, "Sure, whatever you say. But concussions have symptoms. Trust me, I'd know." Morro ignored him, and the shivers that came with having his illusion of tangibility broken.

Lloyd inclined heavily onto the railing behind Wu, no longer putting up the act of good health for the sake of his master, nor Kai. Morro suspected that even this was just some trick, some pretense of feeling better than he was.

Who was Lloyd, really? Did anybody know?

 Maybe the Green Ninja had been ending the conversation, but Morro followed anyways, evidently making the right choice as he asked, "Talk about what?" "Your sparring." 

The other stopped in his tracks, eyes flicking back and forth as a smiled branded onto his face. "Are you my sensei? Are you going to lecture me on my posture and how closely my fist was tucked to my side?" He joked breathlessly, but Morro shook his head tightly. "Obviously not. I just... thought that I could give you some help. To prove my sincerity. Sincerity of the apology." As he uttered the last sentence, Lloyd's demeanour instantly switched from an apathetic one, to an unreadably wary one. His green eyes darted over to Wu and back with a small curl of his lips, as if warning him non-verbally to keep his voice down.

That wasn't going to be a problem, the sensei had stalked over to where Jay was carefully reciting a kata. He was also jabbing the loud Lightning Elemental with his staff whenever he slipped up.

"Agh, ah, Sensei, this is definitely not helping-!" 

"Nonsense, Jay. Iron sharpens iron. Get up." 

Morro got the hint, focusing back on Lloyd again. The Elemental in front of him loosened once again, apparently certain that no prying ears were nearby. 

"What kind of help?" Eventually, the soft words were spoken, and Morro grinned mentally. "A kind that your beloved sensei can't give you." That had caught his attention, but the conflict behind his face made Morro wonder whether it was for good or bad reasons. 

"Is anything that uncle doesn't know, worth knowing?" Lloyd joked. "You and I both already know the answer to that." There were some things you could not learn in a monastery, some things that you only learnt at boarding schools full of jealous, abandoned children, or out somewhere dark, deep in the streets of the slums of Ninjago, or from an antagonistic ghost. 

Things that were learnt when everything was dangerous, and you were only little, and when you had to learn fast to survive. Useful skills indeed. Ruthlessness learnt from near-death early on came in handy more often than you would imagine.

Morro didn't make eye contact as he explained to Lloyd that, "OK, first off, you and I will spar. Just to test you. I'll go easy on you, and just to show how generous I am, you can use your element, but I can't." He stopped in his tracks and turned to Lloyd, head tilted up slightly and hands behind his back and he looked down on the Green Ninja. (His ally?)

"You up for it? Or did Kai tire you out too much." After that, Lloyd's face, uncertain like the disturbed surface of a puddle, hardened. "Hah, I'm almost offended. Let's go." The Green Ninja hopped backwards, checking there was enough space. He was energetic, almost on his toes despite his brutal loss mere minutes ago.

In fact, he almost looked excited. 

Morro too, looked around in an excessively suspicious manner, before shuffling his feet into place. Were they actually about to do this? If you'd told him a week ago that he was having a friendly spar to teach the Green Ninja some techniques, he probably would've stabbed you. Just as he opened his mouth to begin the countdown, for fairness reasons, of course, Lloyd hurriedly whispered. "Hang on, how do I spar a ghost? You're not even solid." Too little, too late. Morro smirked, with his sharp teeth visible, and ignored him, "3.." They bowed, Lloyd slightly behind the rhythm. "2..." He tensed his legs, preparing to leap into action, "1..." 

"Kiai!" Morro called out harshly at the top of his voice. The noise was assertive and sudden, and it startled Lloyd enough to give him a headstart. He leaped and landed beside Lloyd. In a sweeping movement, he roundhouse kicked him to the head. The Green Elementals head was thrown forwards by a strike that hit hard enough to make sound.

An involuntary yelp. And he steadied himself quickly enough, whirling around and facing his opponent yet again, 

"I thought you weren't supposed to hit the head...That's like, a red card." Lloyd hissed, rubbing his head and began to stalk around Morro, wiping sweat from his forehead.

"Wu isn't watching, so I don't really care. Also, enemies will definitely go for your head, and you clearly haven't learnt how to protect it yet." "What even was that?" Morro matched him, the two going round in a near-perfect circle, neither taking their eyes off each other, fists tight and arms taut. Lloyd subtly ignited the iconic Green energy in one of his closed fists, the light flooding his figure. "It was me kicking you." "Agh, not that, I mean the scream you scrumpt at the beginning." 

Morro almost stopped in his tracks. Scrumpt was definitely not a real word. Why was his opponent talking nonsense? Did he actually have a concussion this time? He groaned disgruntledly, ignoring it for now and replied, "Are you seriously telling me that Wu didn't teach you kiai? It's not even that hard! FSM, what's his excuse?" Had his teacher completely given up after he'd failed his first student?

"OK then, you said you'd teach me things Wu wouldn't. What was that?" Lloyd adjusted his spine and kept his eyes on Morro as he spoke. Morro finished his tense muttering about how it was a basic, and jumped at the blond again.

Before they could even make contact, Lloyd preemptively countered with an explosion of Elemental energy. Green flooded Morro's vision. He flinched.

But, it phased right through Morro. It landed with a bang somewhere on the planks and fizzled out uselessly. 

Just as Morro barrelled into him legs first, they made eye contact for a brief second. It was like time had slowed down. Lloyd was blocking with both arms against an untouchable enemy, and his eyes widened as he recognised that he had already lost. 

The moment that he passed the Green Ninja, Morro anchored his heel down and turned 180° degrees, transferring the momentum back to where he came from

 He quickly solidified as he punched Lloyd forcefully in the back, almost like a shove. The ninja yelped, swearing violently, (if frick, fudge, and FSM counted as swears) as he fell down on his side, but made a speedy recovery, bouncing back on his feet. He grunted, "Agh, no fair. You're a ghost and I'm not, I thought you were going easy on me!" 

"I am." "Pfft, no, you're just showing off. Spar me at my level. I haven't trained my entire childhood. I'm not a perfectionist." Morro felt his teeth bare, being seriously tempted to blatantly ignore him and attack him twice as hard, just for that. How dare he? 

"FINE." He eventually spat, darting forwards and elbowing Lloyd's shoulders, so that he fell off balance, then stepping back again. He was so much faster than Lloyd that it was almost funny. "Stop that!" The ninja growled.

The whole point of this exercise was to gouge how well Lloyd could fight him, not to let the guy win!

"To your previous question, kiai is a tactic to intimidate opponents, or gather your focus. It's supposed to...uh, prove your fighting spirit, or something," Lloyd finally made a move back as Morro was speaking. He threw a punch forwards at Morro's head, and stumbled when his attack easily evaded. Morro blocked and shoved his arm away without even breaking a footfall.

"You're just supposed to know how to do it. I mainly use it to intimidate little green ten year olds in seventeen-year-olds coats." 

At that, Lloyd scoffed, eyes green with piercingly bitter disdain and lips parted in a silent snarl, a look that surprised Morro enough that he paused for a second.

It was practically… animalistic, that stare.

 Had he really angered him so badly? In the flash that Morro searched his face, frozen with mild concern, Lloyd covered up a small, cocky grin, and lifted up his folded leg, then kicked Morro hard in the chest. One that his whole core had gone into.

Morro was wildly underprepared, and got thrown backwards just as he scrambled to dodge. He was slammed into the Bounty railing loudly, and fell forward. 

He choked for air that he could never have. Blunt pain lanced through his torso, head, and legs. It throbbed along his skin and sparked along his bones. Morro was stunned, unable to move as he recollected himself from the unexpected blow. The world spun faintly around him, he expected the floor to collapse and spin away, like his head was doing but it never did.

Fuck, no way he'd just lectured Lloyd on being weak, and tried to teach him, only to be knocked down by one well-placed kick. Fury, hot and thick and far too familiar built up in his veins. (Weakling. Look how the mighty have fallen.) 

Morro's rage stained him. 

He couldn't even tell who it was directed at.

He was so fucking useless. He'd fallen from one kick, and wasn't bouncing back up like Lloyd had. (Another factor proving destiny right.) What was the point of a fight if you couldn't even get back up the moment you fell? Morro couldn't, though, couldn't bring himself to face that smug face. 

Couldn't face anybody after they realised how pathetic he was.

And so he sat, his body perfectly unmoving, frozen in the position of a collapsed warrior, clutching at their side. 

He was taking too long. 

Morro's stare gradually became more frustrated as he glared a hole through the floor. In fact, he hardly noticed Lloyd faltering to come up to him. From the corner of his eye, the Green Ninja fidgeted, eyes twitching from side to side nervously. Eventually, he leaned right in front of Morro's eyeline, grinning restlessly and hissing air in through his teeth. 

"Who's concussed now?" 

The urge to scream, to destroy, to fight flared up again.

He stood abruptly, throwing his face in front of Lloyd's. Lost in the eye of the storm, Morro was fully prepared to do everything that his sub-conscience urged him to. 

But then, Morro couldn't help but see how the ninja before him flinched, terror and confusion etched on every line of his face.

He caved. His rationality calmed the boiling pit in his gut.

Morro staggered away from Lloyd, and fell back down again. Now, he was too tired to do anything but stare at the horizon. The person who had summoned and gathered an army of ghosts was exhausted, and now he couldn't even escape his own mind. 

How ironic.

He knew of his own wild spirit, his explosive temper, and by now, so did everyone in Stiix. His power trip during the Pre-eminents resurrection had really blasted his true colours at everybody, which was probably why Lloyd was now so confused at his apathy. Maybe, just maybe, Morro had run out of anger. 

Maybe all that was left was fading into embers.

"C'mon buddy, I'm getting worried. Did I really kick you that hard?" Lloyd ventured.

Morro gave in to impulse, anger definitely not run out, "No, you buffoon." He seethed slowly, head snapping in the direction of Lloyd, who had a mildly smug look on his face. The ghost retaliated by clenching his jaw and trembling slightly, eyes turning to sardonic slits, "Do you really think a ghost could get a concussion? I'm not even solid! I don't have organs! Also, you kick like a half-dead infant rabbit, work on that." He spat, having to get his frustration out somehow.

"That was oddly specific. I'll take it as a compliment." Lloyd said weakly, his confidence fooling nobody. The way that he trivialised Morro's emotions didn't exactly help his state of mind. He almost felt dismissed.

"Don't. " Morro growled. The Elemental before him chuckled lightly, almost strangely relieved, as he held out a hand. 

He froze, eyes widening as a switch was flipped inside him, the chaos of the storm immediately converting to dust, he looked down at the outstretched, offer of... what was it an offer of? Friendship? Forgiveness? Help? Politeness? 

None were something he deserved, let alone wanted, from the Green Ninja, was it some sort of trick? 

It wouldn't make sense for anybody to be so forgiving, even if it was Lloyd. But surely, it would be an antisocial display to pointedly ignore him, and maybe even considered outright hostile. To be fair, he was feeling rather hostile, but Lloyd didn't need to start harbouring grudges against him because of it.

What was he supposed to do? Panic bubbled in the depths of his mind as he realised that he had hesitated for too long, and that his incompetence would be mistaken for bad intentions. It was too late. His chances were gone, and he was a villain yet ag--

Lloyd's hand flitted forward, sensing something in Morro, and tightened his grip as he pulled the ghost up anyways, wincing slightly at the sickly cold.

There seemed to be a recurring theme here. 

"Get up. Ninja never quit." Lloyd justified, just as Morro was fully back on his feet again. "I'm no ninja." He bit, a grim sense of finality and nostalgia sown within the words. The prophesied one in front of him only shrugged. "Wu's students never quit?" Wu's first student found his second wind quickly, face twisted in a silent hiss.

"No." (Not anymore.) 

At his stormy expression, Lloyd backed off, almost humorously. "OK OK, how about... Elemental Masters never quit? Doesn't have the same catchiness to it, honestly. Probably true though, I knew this guy named Neuro once-" 

Morro pinched his fingers at the bridge of his nose, "Stop talking. Let's just go again, if you will." The others face lit up, and he hummed, "I knew you'd listen." Morro said nothing to his almost-taunting, and got himself into position once again. This routine came so naturally you would've thought that they were close. He would've taken a deep breath, if he could've, before counting down.

"3..2..1...kiai!" Even though he'd probably seen it coming this time, Lloyd still jumped at how fiercely he'd said the word, it was almost like a command to stand down.

It was just an intimidation tactic, really. But it worked.

"Ugh, I need to start doing that." Lloyd countered sullenly, this time, however, Morro did not launch himself at his current opponent, and instead slammed his leg down, fists ready, angled, and waited. His eyes were open and focused, tracking the Green Ninja's every move. Lloyd seemed determined, now, and not so easily startled. That didn't stop the decision from seemingly baffling him.

Clearly, Morro didn't fight like the rest of his friends. It made sense, Wu's teachings was bound to change once time passed, and experience gathered, but somehow, the old man had only gotten worse at it. 

The kid moved around a couple steps, to see if Morro would fall for it, but the ghost simply kept his eyes on the other, fighting stance ready and as perfected as he could make it to be. It wasn't textbook good, but it would absolutely work on anybody who came too near; it didn't have to look like the others if it meant that his blows would hurt twice as much. 

Morro was taking his opponents advice and going softer on him. By giving him a chance to be on the offensive.

"Go on. Hit me." He scorned, as Lloyd looked the ghost up and down slowly as he began to stalk closer, "What if you just do that ghost thing and then I can't hit you?" "You must be prepared for all situations in a battle, Chosen One." Morro scoffed. 

"Agh. I've survived long enough without having to fight ghosts, and I'd rather not do it again." The ninja was hesitating, deciding, stalling, even, but eventually, he put his fists up and moved to circle warily around Morro, soon reaching where he could not see.

But Morro couldn't make this too easy. Quickly, he alternated his feet, turning around in the process, and meeting a face that was much closer from when he'd last seen it. 

"Oh damn, I thought that would work." Lloyd said.

"Idiot." "Hey!" Just then, Lloyd's eyes flickered. And he ducked low, aiming a punch at Morro's side that never landed. It never landed because the target had caught it.

And now that he had Lloyd's hand, he could use his body weight against him. Morro tightened his grip on the others wrist to an almost painful point.

In the time that it took Lloyd to widen his eyes in realisation, Morro adjusted his feet to secure the weight better. Then, he turned his body so that Lloyd was almost behind him. 

As he stepped, he yanked Lloyd up and over his shoulder, using the momentum and power of his whole body. 

The Green Ninja was thrown onto the floor with strength to rival Cole. His body slammed against the wood and he dragged out a familiar groan of pain and shock. 

An unfiltered look of fright, so strong it devoured the calm simplicity of Lloyds face, passed quickly, like a cloud.

 Were there tears in his eyes?

His arm was twisted, and above him, because Morro still held onto him. Morro realised this and suddenly dropped the arm.

Morro smirked, fighting the urge to chuckle. He hadn't forgotten the disturbing look on the ninjas face, who was just kind of laying there, in defeat, trying to catch his breath. "That was... a good move." Lloyd rasped, his sarcastic smile lightening the mood. "I know. That's why I did it. It's pretty advanced, for you." The Green Ninja looked like he wanted to laugh, but stopped himself, Morro paused for a second. 

He considered something, then awkwardly reached out his hand, in a gesture of gratitude, his face was still and revealing nothing, though. It was...to pay him back, that was all. Lloyd raised his eyebrows skeptically, reminding Morro of himself, and eventually raised his own up to take it, delicately allowing himself to be hauled up by the ghost. "Ow, I think you broke my back." "I wish." "That is not very friendly of you, just-now-deemed-friendly-house-spirit." Morro snorted, stepping back a bit, "...house spirit? Really? And friendly, what gave you that impression?" "Uh, I don't know, I mean, you did just help me up." Not even Lloyd sounded convinced at his own lie. "Because you did first." 

Lloyd muttered as he turned away, "I don't know what half the things I say mean, OK?"

Then, he swiveled back around and countered, "How very generous of you, does that mean that anything I do to you, you'll do to me?" If only he had a weapon to threateningly tighten his grip on to prove his point, "Depends." "Aaaalrighty, then. Should we go again? I totally could." Morro doubted that, he wasn't even completely sure how Lloyd had lasted this long.

Neither of them had realised that Sensei Wu had made his way over to the two, a displeased frown on his face. When he spoke, revealing himself with an orderly yet sharp-tongued tone, "Lloyd." Lloyd jerked away, jarred, before putting himself back into place and bowing respectfully. Morro pointedly remained where he was, as he was, instead haltingly turning his impassive gaze to the old man. 

The threat below his surface seemed to go unnoticed as the old man continued, "Did i not tell you to take a break from training?" "Ah, uhm, hm, yes you did, Sensei, but I just thought..." "No, you didn't think at all. Go rest, and this time, actually listen." The Green Ninja's eyebrows lowered, but eyes as if he was smiling, his face still looking down, in a bow, so that Wu couldn't see his face. But Morro didn't miss the embarrassed, regretful, far from happy baring of his teeth that happened. What was that expression?

Morro mentally dubbed it the 'Ah, shit.' expression, that he'd already seen so many times on Lloyd. The teenager stiffly stood back up once Wu had audibly walked away, turning to the ghost with a loaded, guilty expression, as if he had the social skills to decipher it. When he heard the soft sound of air hissing, he realised that the Green Ninja hadn't been breathing the whole conversation. Out of nerves, or what? Was he trying to suffocate himself? Morro blinked, head tilted to the side in an expression of disgusted confusion, viewing Lloyd in a wholly new light.

Once the other realised that his implicit gazes meant to substitute for an entire conversation wasn't working on somebody who had had nobody to talk to but a bunch of petty, dead, old people for the last few decades wasn't working, he almost seemed betrayed. 

"OK, Morro, sorry about that, ha. I'll see you around." With that, Lloyd turned around and walked away restlessly, a suppressed hop in his step, as the injuries began to seemingly weigh down, after the adrenaline had worn off. The ghost didn't move for a few seconds, apart from the gradual lowering of his eyebrows. Just like that? It was all over? Time felt off, in this moment, he couldn't tell what had actually happened or if it had all been a dream and whether about four days ago he'd actually summoned the Pre-eminent.

If ghosts could get headaches, he'd be having a migraine right now. Morro blinked, looking down into the distance, not quite processing anything. Was Lloyd his friend now? Or not? Did people usually train with their worst enemies? That was a strange thought, it would be incredibly ironic if his first real friend was the Green Ninja. 

But Morro wasn't tired, nor was he hurt, then again, there was absolutely no way he was staying here, to watch the ninja train, or Cloud Kingdom forbid, join in again.

Maybe Lloyd had tried to teach him a few things about friendship, or helping people, but Morro seemed to be the only one that knew that an old dog couldn't learn new tricks. 

If Morro could've redeemed himself, he would've done it by now. And some part of him cracked for the moment when Lloyd would realise that. For the moment that this lovely illusion fell apart, for the moment that it clicked.

That he couldn't be fixed.

Chapter Text

Morro watched as the grand clouds, far, far above made their way across the pale sky. From down here, on the deck of the ship, where he lay with his hands folded under his head and his legs lazily crossed over one another, they barely seemed to move at all. But Morro had been up there more than once, he'd experienced the racing of the sky firsthand, and he knew it was always a violent dance that high up; no matter how slowly their faded wisps seemed to inch along.

The sky behind them was almost blue. It was the murky grey of soiled ice– it was, thankfully, not the brightest thing. Rain must've been coming soon. Not too soon, perhaps a day or more away, but eventually.

His eyes were half-lidded as he cloud-watched, absentmindedly wondering at what an extravagant waste of time this was.

Half the ninja had already left. Something in the midst of their frantic scramble across the rooms about 'weekly groceries'. Morro wasn't sure why Lloyd had the glint of a thrill in his eyes at what Morro understood to be shopping for vegetables. Maybe he had misunderstood that modern word.

The sky was feelingless, intangible, dead. Morro could feel none of its swirling sprint; he could only watch it as though it were a piece of art in a fixed, golden frame. Uselessly pretty.

But, hey. He supposed it was a certain upgrade to the sky in the Cursed Realm. That being– none!

He'd suffered through the suffocation of that realm for too long to be brought back into a world that had sky, that he couldn't feel. Morro clicked his tongue. He was trying to enjoy the, albeit infuriating, scenery while he still could. Wu had promised to protect him, or at least, he'd implied it, but Morro had a sinking weight in his chest that followed him like his shackles in the Cursed Realm. A fear of– no, a preparation for when he inevitably returned.

The Pre-eminent may have been dead, but such simple matters wouldn't stop her from retrieving her prized general. Morro knew he was a wanted man.

So, it only made sense for him to cling to the petty little joys that the mortal world of Ninjago tried to offer him. Because no matter their insignificance, they were a vast improvement to the dense, sickly fog of his Pre-eminent. To the pulsing, rotting flesh that made the path he strode on, the walls he clung to, the ceiling he tried to imagine past.

Morro wasn't looking at the sky anymore. His eyes had trailed down to his own body, to the weakened state of his limbs, to the ghostly wisps of fabric that swayed in wind that nothing else could feel–

And then Morro was bolting upright to stop the rising nausea in his throat. He hung his head as he squeezed his eyes shut, willing the feeling away with a few muttered curses under his breath.

He cleared his throat.

Morro dragged a hand down his face as he let a dry sigh out, trying not to think about how he shouldn't have lost to the ninja in the first place, about how all of this was his own fault. These were the consequences of his own actions, now.

But a new thought came to him in that moment. A stupid, silly thing he would've never spared a thought to, usually.

I need to get some new clothes.

He couldn't stop the snicker that lodged itself in his throat, shoulders shaking as if anybody was around to share in his laughter. A genuine grin arose on his face.

Clothes? He was worrying about clothes, now? On a ship full of trigger-happy children, after spending decades planning his revenge from the depths of murky hell? After all those ghosts he killed? All those houses he destroyed? Every person whom he plunged into the waters of Stiix with no hope of resurfacing? He was worrying about fashion?

The chuckle he made was fast and weak. The idea that these ruined robes he'd endured, and even grown to take pride in, over the course of his lifetime now weren't good enough for him was ridiculous. But he still wanted a new shirt, or something.

He'd never tried taking them off. There had never been any need to. But considering how they never fell off when he passed through walls, Morro assumed it wasn't even possible.

There was never even any real reason to pay much attention to the scraps of cloth. Now, Morro frowned as he traced along the tattered, greenish ends of what was once a real gi. There were no stains of mud, and no bloody splatters, but Morro knew that they held the marks in spirit, nonetheless.

It made him look inhuman. Maybe it bore too much resemblance to the other ghosts– maybe that was why the ninja still looked at him like he was holding a knife in his teeth.

Ah, fuck. A new thing to worry about.

As if he didn't have enough of those already. Morro twisted his legs off the ledge he'd been laying on and rose to his feet, hissing at the flash of pain that ran through them. He rolled his shoulder and quickly concluded it was time for an arm stretch or two.

When the aching had dispersed, Morro cast his glance around the deck of the ship. Had the others returned yet?

Morro trotted down to the entrance into the ship before pausing. Backtracking a few steps, his eyes caught on something they had just skimmed over. Through one of the windows; the thick, round sort, meant for actual sea-faring ships; Morro spotted someone. The glass was cloudy, and the frame was almost thick enough to obscure the view entirely, but he could just about make out the frame of Lloyd Garmadon, sitting on the edge of his bed, atop a tangled mess of patterned blankets, and bouncing his leg in a way Morro thought was excited. Or, more likely coming from Lloyd, nervous.

So, then. They were back.

He wasn't facing Morro, he was facing down at something in his hands. Paper? No, a booklet, a leaflet, a magazine of some sort. He was flipping through the pages with the buzz of an excited child.

Was somebody else in there? The haze of the window was so thick that it was truly impossible to tell.  

Morro pressed his lips together. He was stood a few metres away from the room, still, and though he was tempted to come closer, a wave of caution overcame him. What would the others think? If Cole was standing behind him, coming out from some hidden part of the Bounty, or if Kai was actually in the room with the boy and already glaring at him, what would they say?

Perhaps, he was acting a little strange. He had always had the most antisocial tendencies out of the peers, if you could call the children he fought peers, his age. Was he misconstruing this entire situation?

Morro cast another glance down at his dark and ghostly clothes, and decided he didn't care that much, actually. The distance was closed in a couple strides, and Morro raised his fist, then banged thrice on the glass of the window.

He waited for Lloyd to jump up in shock. He waited for Nya to yank him away, or something. He awaited anything, really, but what surprised him was the lack of response. Lloyd had, so far, been the closest to polite to him out of everybody else in this place. Surely, he wasn't ignoring him?

Morro frowned, his gaze fluttering, and knocked again.

Lloyd didn't react. With every new slam of his hand into the glass, Morro became more and more sure that Lloyd simply could not hear him.

Just as he was about to knock again; he halted. Morro attuned his ears to the sounds around him, where he thought he'd heard movement, and found nothing. But the suspicion ignited in him another hypothetical. With narrowed eyes, he wondered how they would look at him if they caught their (barely) former nemesis banging, crazed and furious, on the window to their beloved, vulnerable Green Ninja's room.

Morro couldn't afford to become any more hated. He needed friends, he needed allies, what he did not need was even more enemies out for his blood.

Morro shook his head, and quickly phased through the exterior wall of the Bounty, stepping directly into the room of the Green Ninja.

He was silent, but now that he was in, Morro could hear the excited mutterings of Lloyd to himself, and the sharp sound of the plastic pages as they turned. Morro ran a hand through his hair and straightened his back, before striding forwards. It would've been convenient if his body was heavy enough to make noise, yet since it wasn't, he couldn't help himself. Before he was in Lloyd's field of view, he grinned.

“Hello, Lloyd,” he rumbled, breaking the silence.

The effect was instantaneous– he hadn't even gotten the words out and Lloyd had already thrown himself off of his bed and onto the floor with a shriek.

The leaflet flew up into the air and cascaded back down, landing on Lloyd's head. His chest rose and fell so rapidly that Morro didn't know what to do but stand there, eyebrows locked in their raise, and jaw slightly unhinged in his surprise.  

They made eye contact, and Lloyd's glitter of true fear melted away into embarrassment.

The silence between them tightened and tightened like a rope– until a smile bloomed on Morro's face, and he burst out in a fit of laughter.

Tension and confusion dissipated like butter on a pan. Lloyd's eyebrows shot up, and he grinned indignantly, huffing at Morro. “Why would you–! Oh, First Master--”

Morro continued to cackle, the vision of Lloyd leaping a foot in the air like a frightened rabbit replaying in his mind. The mighty Green Ninja, afraid of his own name!

Lloyd shook his head in half-hearted disappointment, face flushing as he sighed with pointed loudness. He crossed his arms and stared at the giggling Morro from across the room.

Even as his chuckling was still dying down, Morro stood from where he had doubled over and snatched the booklet off the top of Lloyd's head, flicking through the pages with the remnants of an amused smirk. “Whatcha reading?” He asked, monotone.

“What was that?” Lloyd snapped back, not unkindly. “That,” Morro closed his eyes to smother the laugh that threatened to resurface, “was me saying hello, Lloyd. Quite literally.” Lloyd clicked his tongue and rose to his feet, where he stole back what Morro now recognised to be a comic. They stood face-to-face, or as face-to-face as somebody of Lloyd's stature could be, to Morro.

“Wasn't very nice,” Lloyd whined, walking straight through Morro's body. He sat back down on the edge of his bed and ruffled his hair. “You tell nobody about this, Mister Breezy.” he said, meeting Morro's gaze.

Morro was still focused on repressing the deep shiver at Lloyd passing through him when he nodded in response.

“What are you reading, then?” “Starfarer. Why are you here?” The bluntness of his question stung Morro's pride a little. He had hoped the boy would grow more and more accustomed to his friendly presence– but it seemed he'd overestimated the amount of time it took normal people to forgive. “Oh, Stargazer,” Morro affirmed, the name rang the faintest of bells in his memory. Had Lloyd thought about it during his possession?

“Starfarer–” he quickly corrected when Lloyd raised an eyebrow at him, “I've heard of that one.”

The conversation paused where Morro had expected it to continue. In front of him, Lloyd's eyes were flickering around as he thought, and opened his mouth as if to respond– before he snapped it shut again. And an awkward stillness settled over the room.

This posed a problem for Morro, who had not, in fact, heard of Starfarer, and had nothing to encourage the topic.

Instead, he stood there motionless for what might've been too long. Watching Lloyd's pale blonde hair. They were darker, deeper, richer towards the roots. It reminded Morro of Garmadon.

“So, uh… can I help you?” Lloyd offered nervously, casting up a worried gaze. It appeared that Morro had overstayed his visit; but something snapped into his mind, and yes, Lloyd could help him, actually.

“You can. I've decided these clothes won't do. I need something… more suitable.” Morro tried his hardest to pick out words that didn't make him look like a sneering, conniving evil general. Following this train of thought, he clumsily threw on, “Please. If you can.”

Lloyd breathed out a laugh between amusement and bewilderment, and walked over to a wardrobe that was embedded in the wall. As he searched through the soft piles of clothes, Morro took his chance to scan around the actual room for the first time.

The bed was low, its mattress resting directly on the floor, though it was relatively wide. A small carpet peeked out from beneath it in an attempt to colour the brown-grey wood of the interior of the Bounty. Structural pillars ran through the walls where inane posters didn't cover them up. A pale metal lamp hung over the edge of his bed, unlit, and the black wire trailed messily over the planks of the floor. A discarded punching bag sat withered in the corner, along with a weapon rack that was home to a single light-sword toy. It was nothing like Morro's room at his age– which was all neatly manicured bedsheets and violently dented furniture.

There was a single toy soldier, as well, some mechanical sort of minifigure, Morro craned his neck closer and saw that it was a stiff rendition of a ninja dressed in the iconic green gi– holding a golden sword, eyebrows furrowed in concentration—

Lloyd must've noticed him staring, because he grabbed it and tossed it over his shoulder into the depths of the wardrobe.

Morro crossed his arms in a desperate attempt to come off as nonchalant, and Lloyd held out two plain shirts, and some sort of trousers that Morro couldn't identify. He met Lloyd's expectant gaze and frowned.

“You're actually giving me clothes?”

He seemed taken aback at that. “Obviously…” he let out a resigned sigh and Morro prepared for a lecture. “Morro, you've done a lot of bad stuff, but that doesn't mean I can't treat you better than you– you treated me. You know? Also, even villains in Kryptarium get clothes. It's only fair.”

’Better than you treated me’. Was that a threat? Was Lloyd turning on him? He tried not to show anything on his face.

Morro said nothing, he instead gave one of the shirts a quick sniff and nodded. “Well, thank you for giving poor scum of the earth like me a chance, then. Dear Green Ninja.” He smiled wryly at the disappointed look on Lloyd's face. “I mean that!”

He turned on his heel, but paused at the door. Cogs turned in his mind. “When I said I was sorry, I did mean it. I'll treat you better, Green Ninja.”

Lloyd's wince was audible, and eventually he stuttered out, “Just. Just Lloyd, is fine.”

Once again, silence settled over the two of them. Morro held the fabric of his gifts tight against his arm. “I'll treat you better, Lloyd.”

And then he was gone, strolling down and out the corridor as he wrangled on a new t-shirt and tried to decipher where exactly he was. There was to be no more phasing through walls, now. He would have to walk places. Hooray.

Morro glanced down at himself, his ghostly figure giving off a faint glow that stained this white t-shirt green. It was loose, the way it clung onto his body was foreign, like the tickling of unseen plants in a forest. He hadn't seen himself like this in a long, long while.

He could almost pretend he was normal, a regular citizen of Ninjago, dressed in lounge clothes for the weekend that they didn't have to work on. Ordinary. If you could look past the tangled mess of a gi that poked out, unmistakable, from where the t-shirt didn't cover. If you could look past the translucency of his knuckles. If you could look past the piercing venom in his eyes. If you could ignore the rest of him entirely.

Morro supposed this would do, for now.


—-----


It was early the next morning that Morro was stamping through the winding corridors of the ship, barely lucid in his gait, that Morro encountered any remarks regarding his new attire. He made it to the doorframe of the kitchen. It was silent enough.

His eyes darted around the room, searching every blank space on the wall, and objects on the counters, until they landed clumsily on the pallid face of a clock. Its hands and numbers a stark black, the time read… which hand was it that indicated the hour? Morro's memory was slow to jump-start in the relative darkness. He rummaged through what little knowledge he had retained despite its uselessness in the Cursed Realm, and found with a jolt that he truly could not recall the proper way to read a clock.

The night had been long and dreary. His legs had wailed and cried in a song that only he could hear, whilst he lay still atop his bedsheets. The roar of silence had been overwhelmed only by the incessance of his thoughts. Of things the ninja had said to him. Of the smell of the water beneath the pull of his mistress.

Sleep was a second thought to the topics he was mulling over. When he did turn off his mind, he awoke what felt like minutes later, shivering with pain, and more cloaked in darkness than ever.

Would Morro ever know an end? What awaited people like him? What future was coming to him?

Heroics wasn't an option. Villainy seemed a path that was doomed to fail. Living in the purgatory in-between felt, to Morro, a worse alternative to suicide. He had lost his allies, he had lost his mistress, and he was estranged from his sensei and his wind. Was Morro continuing on only from a place of ego?

After all, the only consensus he could come to was that killing himself would deprive the world of his unmatched skill. And he reluctantly admitted that water was far too painful a death for him, anyway.

At some point, Morro had had enough.

The sky outside was lighter. Or was it? There was still no clock installed in this forsaken room, so Morro had pulled himself out of his neurosis to figure out if it was morning yet.

He barely realised, when he stumbled further into the kitchen to hold the clock closer to his face, that there was even a light on in the room. On the far side.

Morro swatted his hand in the direction of the clock, his senses returning to him in a slow buzz, before realising his hand wasn't even solid. This time, he grasped it fully and brought it closer to his eyes.

One of the hands pointed at a four. The other, at a seven. And through the slits in his eyes, he could make no sense of it. Which one was shifting ever-so-slightly with every faint tick of clockwork?

That was when a spoon clattered to the ground on the other side of the room. Morro snapped to attention with ferocity, eyes instantly locking onto the figure of… who was that? The lightning elemental. His name had slipped Morro's mind, too.

Jay sat at a table, before a half-eaten bowl of cereal, under the single lit lamp in what must've been the entire ship at an hour as early as this— and was stiff as a corpse. His eyes wide and bright in their terrified stare at Morro.

They didn't break eye contact, nor did they move, for a few long beats.

Morro didn't fully understand the stress that pounded through the room, he glanced innocently around and dropped the clock so he could place both hands on the counter and lean forward.

“Can I help you?” He asked, his voice coming out more irritated than he'd intended. Intimidating Jay wasn't even a conscious decision, it just came so easily to him.

The teenager spluttered and threw himself back in his seat.

“You– wha– what are you doing?” he hissed, in that so-familiar frantic manner of his. “Why are you here, dude? It's 4am!” Morro tried not to glance back at the clock; that answered his question, thankfully. “It is?” “Yes!” “Oh.”

Morro relaxed his hackles as Jay furrowed his eyebrows and tried not to spit like a hissing cat. “Oh? Oh? How are you even awake?”

None of his business. “I could ask you the same thing, ninja.” He countered. At those words, Jay suddenly froze in his tracks, wide-eyed with guilt, and chose that moment to sheepishly duck beneath the table to recapture the spoon he'd dropped upon spotting Morro. When he again rose, and wiped his spoon with the hem of his shirt, he sniffed and muttered, “I was busy…” “Really? So busy you couldn't sleep?”

This was fun. Making Jay stiffen and squirm. Much more fun than pacing around the floor of his bedroom, thinking of all the ways Nya could send him back to the Pre-eminent.

Morro padded over to the table Jay sat at and pulled out a chair, to Jay's visoble dismay, where he crossed his arms and tried not to smile in a way that would seem too menacing. He lifted an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.

Jay shook his head more times than necessary and turned back down to his cereal, “I'm not supposed to talk to you. You'll– turn me evil, or something, I don't know!” Morro couldn't care less about what kept the blue ninja up at night.

He was, however, thoroughly invested in how quickly it would take him to fold under a little pressure.

Morro unfolded his arms slowly, slow enough to make Jay look over at him, before shooting his hands forward. "Boo!” and he could've sworn that Jay jumped farther than Lloyd did. The cackle it drew out of him was really, only a reflex. “Come on,” Morro gestured with his head, “tell me, or I'll tell Wu that you're staying up past your bedtime.”

The affronted face he made really solidified the idea in Morro's head that Jay was the weakest out of them all. He couldn't hide his thoughts like Nya, he couldn't threaten like Kai, he wasn't special like Lloyd– truly, what purpose did this one serve?

“Okay, first of all, rude, Morro, real rude. Second of all, Wu's not here, he literally just left. Third of all– a, is that my shirt?” Morro could feel his face darken. The leg he'd been bouncing halted. “What do you mean Wu's not here?” “I mean, he's gone on that mission he kept talking about,” Jay had a habit of gesturing, no matter what he was holding, so Morro followed the spoon he was flinging around with his eyes as droplets of pale milk stained the surface of the table. Did that count as water? Would milk hurt a ghost?

“you know, the– actually, I think he told us not to tell you about it, but whatever. He's gonna hide the crystal someplace secure, and then go l–” Morro interrupted him by firmly grabbing his wrist from across the table. Jay became very, very still.

Morro's eyes flickered between the spoon and Jay's face. “You're gonna take someone's eye out.” He muttered matter-of-factly, releasing his grip and leaning back in his chair.

The ninja bit at his lip and ran a finger over the chill where Morro had held him. Though in his defense, he was much calmer with his spoon-flinging following that moment.

“So, like I said, he's also on the hunt for some ancient scrolls. When is he not? Something about research, you know, he didn't really say.”

Morro nodded carefully, taking in what he knew that meant. His sensei was gone, for an indeterminate amount of time. That meant Morro was now both more free to do what he liked, and more susceptible to being beat up by the bloodthirsty teenagers. Great.

He grit his teeth, turning away from his conversation partner and slipping back into deeper thought.

“...my shirt?” The question pulled him back to the present. Morro frowned as he cast his attention down to the long-sleeved shirt, plastered on the middle with the colourful graphic of a grizzled, space-suited person he didn't care to recognise. Had Lloyd given Morro somebody else's clothes?

“...No?” He said. “Oh… well, I was asking cos it's Starfarer, and almost all the Starfarer merch on this ship is mine, so.” “It's–” “Lloyd's? I guessed.” Morro suppressed an eyeroll, “Is everything he owns related to Starfarer?” Jay met him with a grin. “Almost.”

The mention of Lloyd seemed to sober Jay up a little, and the smile fell from his face. As the cereal was finished up in front of him, Morro was bracing for another Kai-esque speech about staying away from Lloyd. And though Jay certainly shot him darker looks from the other side of the table, he didn't seem to gather the courage to actually confront Morro, in the end.

Good.

“Lloyd's our friend,” ah, FSM, he'd spoken too soon. “and you already know there's nothing we won't do to protect him,” except let him make friends, apparently. “but if you're living here, there's something you should know. We've made friends with enemies before; Skales, Garmadon, Skylor. If you're gonna be our friend, you better start acting like it…”

Had this been triggered by the Starfarer comment? Had Morro been too harsh for Jay's liking, or something?

If he had known that life in Ninjago would be lecture after lecture after lecture, he might have actually considered letting the Pre-eminent drown him in the ocean, if only because it was faster.

Jay left him in the chair and put away his things.

Morro didn't mull. The light bulb of the lamp above flickered back and forth under the force of a gentle breeze he let in. “Then what were you doing to keep you up till 4am?” He muttered. Jay breathed a laugh. “Playing this new video game that just got released.” “Wow, that’s it? FSM, you're lame.” “Thanks.”

“Always happy to help,” Morro sneered.

Jay and he were not friends. Not even close. He wasn't even sure if they'd moved forward from being on directly opposite sides, but right now, Morro could just about bear to sit in the 4am quiet with him, listening distantly as he brewed his coffee.


—-------------


Lloyd narrowed his eyes, eyes flicking back and forth between the two men like clockwork.

His heartbeat was thrumming in his throat as he fiddled with the throwing star in his hand. His skin was warm, buzzing, alight with action.

Over the past few days, Lloyd had very quickly come to associate the presence of both Morro and Kai within earshot of each other as an immediate threat. He had never once been proven wrong. Even now, in the silence of the living room, Lloyd could taste the tension in the air, ready to burst.

Morro's constant smirking didn't do anything to help.

Lloyd was the only one sensible enough to be sitting on the couch, it would seem. Morro and Kai both stood on either side of him, glaring at one another like they were made of dynamite and refusing to sit– refusing to ever be below the other. Neither of them even dared to turn their glance to Lloyd for a moment, didn't dare to show any sign of weakness lest the other pounced.

All that meant was they didn't see Lloyd slouched in his seat, arms crossed and expression withered enough to kill a small child.

It was clear they both wanted to fight, to do something, despite Lloyd's very obvious protests countless times preceding this. Kai's fist was clenched so tight that the muscles in his forearms were taught like stone. Morro wasn't saying a word where he would usually be taunting, because he was too zoned in on the situation at hand. Not one had quite been so arrogant as to shift into a fighting stance, at least not yet, so instead they stood like statues; idiot, explosive, violent statues.

Lloyd reached forward to the table through the gap in between them to wearily retrieve his cup of hot chocolate. He sighed, loudly enough to echo out through the room. But no reaction.

This scenario had happened over and over, so many times that Lloyd had memorised them and almost grown used to them. Almost.

There was no part of him that could ever relax at the sight of one of his closest friends, his brother, his teammate, launching himself headfirst into a fight with the subject of his nightmares; the person he had the most complicated relationship with, save for Garmadon himself. Because neither of them were in the right!

Fear was a constant and unmistakable presence. Lloyd could barely relax.

The first time it had happened, to his knowledge, was when Morro had padded out onto the deck of the Bounty wearing Lloyd's shirt; specifically, the shirt Lloyd had given away to him, after he had asked for one. And Kai had wasted no time in slamming him against the wall, ordering him to give back the things he'd stolen, berating him for ruining their trust.

Lloyd couldn't conceive a moment more stressful than the one where Kai had thrown the Master of Wind around like he was a dummy. A bullet of panic had ripped through him– panic for Kai, panic for Morro, panic for everybody in the blast radius.

The look of incredulity on Morro's face had been one to behold.

Lloyd knew, from that point onwards, that Morro felt no resemblance of remorse for any harm he did to Kai; because he had immediately lost all respect for him. And he thought he was justified in the punches he threw.

The only reason Morro was still here, Lloyd thought, was because ghosts couldn't burn. He couldn't say the same for the walls of the Bounty.

The only reason they even dared to act out in this way was because Wu wasn't here to reprimand them! The duty fell to Lloyd to try and do anything that the volatile pair would listen to, even though it was practically a lost cause.

Lloyd took a swig of his hot chocolate and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Can we just sit down? Please?” His words must've been like fucking white noise to them, because they didn't even break eye contact.

Lloyd stood, too. He turned to Kai. Then to Morro. Both wore the perfect, twisted expression of haughty fury, in frowns, in lowerings of their eyebrows, in glints in their eyes.

Tensions were rising, Lloyd could feel it. His blood raced under his skin, unstoppable.

Lifting up a hand, Lloyd waved it around in the space between the two of their faces, desperate to evoke a reaction. “Helloooo?” He drawled.

There– for a split-second, Morro's seething gaze flickered down to Lloyd's, in a rapid display of disprovement– and he was almost relieved.

That was, until Kai tackled him to the ground.

The two rolled about on the floor in a violent wrestle. Lloyd leapt back with a shriek as the furniture was banged into; as the lamp above swivelled and swung from the whoosh of Morro's wind. Embers shot into the air like confetti.

Noises of punches, kicks, screams and threats rang out through the room, challenged only by Lloyd's sudden scream for help, over and over.  

“SOMEONE!” He tried to keep his voice steady, tried not to crack, but that was no easy feat with the bloodthirsty sight before him. “THEY'RE FIGHTING AGAIN–! HELP!"

There was no point in trying to separate them alone, he knew. Lloyd crawled backwards atop the sofa cushions, following every movement with a jerk of his eyes. He'd only get himself more hurt.

Adrenaline roared in his ears as he grit his teeth in both frustration and terror.

Teenagers scared the living shit out of him.