Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He’s hanging on with just his fingertips, only one falter away from being lost in time forever. 

The sound of the battle above him is distant, clattering sounds of swords against metal that make the whole vessel shake, as Kai tries to ignore the void around him, desperately trying to hang on to the Iron Doom for his life.

His legs dangle precariously in empty space, and while he tries to find his footing, amongst the smooth, shiny metal, it’s of no use and Kai grits his teeth, trying to heave himself back up to the fight.

Nya and Wu need him– the Ninja need him– Hell, the entirety of Ninjago depends on him stopping the Masters of Time, and Kai is helplessly hanging over a void unable to do anything.

“You'll never interfere again, boy!” Krux spits out, sneering at him through the window. The man is mocking him, toying with a knife, and Kai desperately wishes that his sword wasn’t flung out of his hands, just so he could wipe the growing smirk on the older man.

Before Kai can give a snarky reply back, Krux kicks his hands off the ledge with a triumphant yell, and the ninja becomes weightless.

“Kai!” Nya screams, but his sister’s voice becomes fainter and fainter until Kai can’t hear her at all.

Instead of free-falling in a panic, Kai looks down with a gulp and sees the green ground not too far away. He takes a deep breath and focuses. He can do this.

He has fallen from great heights before and he can do it again.

He tucks his legs inwards and braces for impact, watching as the earth gets closer and closer.

And once he gets close enough, begins to roll– almost like sideways Spinjitzu. That way, once he touches the ground, he wouldn’t flatten like a pancake on impact. Oh the benefits of learning Airjitzu– he tends to find himself in the air much more than he would like.

He rolls until he lands on the solid earth, and then keeps rolling some more until he spreads his arms wide to stop the world from spinning. It hurts like hell, but at least nothing in his body is broken.

He lies on the ground, in a grassy field, panting at the bright blue sky. The sky where he had fallen from. Where he had been fighting not only minutes ago. 

Ok, now it’s time to panic.

His sister and master were fighting time-traveling twins and he was somewhere… lost in time, he realizes with a lurch. And with no way to get back home.

What was he going to do? He had to get back.

“Who the hell are you?” Someone asks on the right side of Kai, and he faintly realizes that he must have landed on someone’s property, and they had seen him fall quite literally out of the sky.

Not good.

Kai squeezes his eyes shut and takes a bet. Was he in the past or in the future? It didn’t seem like he was in the present since the entire world literally knew who he was. 

Or maybe he was in the present and just in a distant land that had no idea who he was.

Still, he’s going to have to make some sort of excuse, but Kai can’t really think of anything that could explain time travel and the space-time continuum.

A cough.

Oh right, there was a person waiting for his reply.

Kai forces himself to stand up, a broken explanation on his lips, until he looks at the person and almost sits back down in shock.

Fucking Morro is looking at him suspiciously, taking in Kai’s dark red, and slightly bloody Gi and spiky hair with a deep frown on his face.

Kai almost decks the guy in a panic because it’s Morro until he realizes that one: Morro is alive, and two: he’s a goddamn child. A scraggly-looking kid, who has chubby cheeks, a green streak in his hair, and a dark gray traveling robe that looks huge on the kid’s skeleton frame. 

The past, Kai thinks hysterically. He is most definitely in the past. 

And much farther in the past than he had been an hour ago. 

Wu was going to kill him.

“Uhh, what?” He asks stupidly, and Morro gives him an unimpressed look.

“Answer the question,” he demands, and Kai reconsiders his earlier thought. He was better than punching a kid… but not by much.

“I’m Kai, Master of Fire,” He introduces, bewildered when he sounds so much more calm than he feels, but before he can stop himself, he blurts out, “Why are you so tiny?”

Morro expectedly does not like that and also has no qualms shoving strangers.

“Hey!” Kai stumbles backwards, “What the hell?” He demands angrily, but Morro scoffs and rolls his eyes. It’s a familiar look– except that this is Morro’s body, not Lloyd’s, and that it looks wrong on a younger Morro’s solid face.

Yeah, Kai was still trying to get used to the fact that Morro had once been a human and wasn’t always a ghost (And the fact that Morro was a teenager and so much younger than Kai. This is so weird).

“Do you just go and fight people who fall out of the sky?”

“Don’t call me tiny then!” Morro crosses his arms. “Sky people are rude and I hate them,” He announces and Kai starts to nod sympathetically before realizing who he is agreeing with.

“I’m not– I’m not from Cloud Kingdom,” Kai coughs before he can say anything else that will get him hit by a kid.

Morro does not believe him. “Only people who are from Cloud Kingdom call it Cloud Kingdom.” He sneers, “And you literally came from the sky, where else would you come from?”

“Trust me, I’m not with the Sky people,” Kai reassures, wincing as it sounds unconvincing even to his own ears.

To no one’s surprise, Morro still looks at him suspiciously. “Okay, fine. You're not a Sky person.” He points to Kai’s Gi. “You said you were the Master of Fire. You’re still lying because I know the Master of Fire, and he is definitely not you.”

Kai splutters. “What?” He croaks out, staring at the kid who smirks at him. Morro knew Ray? The dad he has only known for a few hours? That was not something he needed to know at all. He doesn’t know what to do with this information, but Kai needs to tell someone.

Morro looks proud of himself, and Kai realizes after a few minutes of freaking out, that the kid thinks he caught Kai in a lie. Not because Morro knew his dad.

“Yeah,” Morro’s eyes narrow, his smile fading as he raises a brow at Kai. “So who are you really?”

Kai shrugs, collecting his thoughts, and holds out his palm. A small flame bursts from his fingers, and Kai looks smugly at Morro’s wide eyes.

“That’s not possible,” He breathes out, and the wind around them begins to pick up, causing the grass to sway hard, and leaves to whip around them violently. He looks like everything he’s ever known is a lie, and is not having a good time adjusting to reality.

“Very possible,” Kai decides to take pity on the guy, and blurts out, “I’m from the future.”

Kai realizes– as the teenager before him, loses the baffled look on his face and goes back to looking unimpressed– that he sounds like a Sky Person.

“Really,” Morro humors him, eyes narrowing deeply as the breeze whips stronger around them by the minute. “The future.”

“Yup,” Kai confirms, scratching the back of his neck with a shrug. Maybe admitting the truth was a bad idea, he considers, thinking back on every movie he’s watched on the topic. Maybe there was a reason time travelers weren’t supposed to tell the truth.

Oh well, a little to late for that , Kai thinks helplessly, as Morro scowls at him.

“You realize how stupid you sound, right? You definitely sound like a Sky Person.”

“I’m not.”

“Prove it.”

“Only if you stop the wind,” Kai snaps at him, as he tries to keep hair free of flying leaves and sticks. He spent so long this morning struggling to fix his hair to let a younger version of his enemy mess it up.

“How did you know that?” Morro demands, ignoring Kai and letting the wind whip harder around them. “You are a Sky Person!”

“I’m not, Morro!” He shouts because he can barely hear or see a thing in the small tornado forming around them. His hand reaches for his sword until he remembers losing it somewhere on the Iron Doom.

Great. He was weaponless and facing a past enemy. Today is the worst.

“Then how do you know my name? ” Morro screeches loudly, because again– windstorm .

“In the future, we meet. Duh.”

The wind calms down a little bit, the leaves floating back down gently, and Kai brushes out the stray pieces of nature out his hair. “It would make sense, if I believed you. Which I very much do not,” Morro scowls, and crosses his arms.

“I’m telling the truth!” Kai says, trying to think of a way to explain, “Do you know Krux and Acronix?”

He thinks it’s a long shot that Morro would also know Kai’s current enemy, but the teenager knew his dad so there is a possibility. A very slim possibility…

“The twins?” Morro asks, confused then after a few seconds, his eyes widen in realization. “Ohhh.”

Kai tries so hard not to scream. Of course, Morro knew the Masters of Time. Of course, he did. Did he know every enemy they had fought in the past decade and their relatives? Kai wouldn't put it past him.

He takes a deep breath, trying to calm down his hysteria. “Yeah, oh.”

Morro ponders that for a while, and the wind settles down to a nice breeze. 

“I need to get back to my time,” Kai tells him with a sigh, rubbing his head, “We were kinda in a life or death battle.”

Morro folds his arms, “We?” He sounds less annoying as the arrogance in his voice slightly slips away. A stark difference from before, and Kai supposes it’s a protective mechanism, much like his own. Then he berates himself for even caring.

“Not you, you’re um- kinda dead in my time,” Kai fibs. He’s not technically lying, Morro is dead, but better not to mention Kai only knew him as a ghost practically the same age as he was now.

“But others…The Ninja– like me…” Kai trails off when Morro processes that information. The wind hasn’t gotten worse, but that really isn’t a great way to measure someone’s mood. He does look like he’s swallowing a lemon, so it’s safe to assume that he isn’t taking it well.

Well, Kai did just say he died, so maybe he should cut him some slack.

“Did Wu…” Morro starts, before faltering and looks away.

Kai waits, but when there is no continuation, “Wu’s alive– he’s the one who brought us all together,” He says slowly, unsure of where the conversation is going, and Morro keeps his back to him, so he can’t tell what the kid’s thinking.

Kai doesn’t know how far back in time he is, or when Morro left Wu in the timeline, but it’s clear to see that Morro is hurting. Kai doesn’t really want to be the person to reassure him, but maybe his words can keep the teenager from possessing Lloyd in the future. Or something– Kai doesn’t really know much of the kid’s motives.

“I meant… Did he find the Green Ninja?” Morro asks hoarsely. “Since I’m… dead.”

Kai winces, and Morro seems to shrink in on himself.

“I’m not sure how much I’m supposed to say about the future,” He says warily and Morro’s face contorts into a familiar face of rage as he whirls around to face Kai.

“He did,” The teenager hisses, and Kai takes a step back, preparing for the onslaught of wind again. “Didn’t he?”

Kai nods cautiously, “Yeah… He did.”

The wind never comes, and Morro sinks to the ground. Kai desperately wants to know this guy’s thoughts, because privately he thinks Morro looks heartbroken, but if it’s because he isn’t the Green Ninja or something else, Kai can’t tell.

“So everything I’ve done for the past year has been for nothing,” Morro bites out, tearing out clumps of grass, and using the wind to fling iit down the hill. “I’ll never be able to go back,” he says so quietly, that Kai knows it’s not meant to be heard.

He stands there awkwardly, trying to give Morro space, until his patience runs out. It’s less than five minutes– but hey, Kai was never known for patience.

He clears his throat and walks closer to the not-a-ghost-yet guy. “Hey, so do you know anybody who could help me get back to my time?” He asks awkwardly. Maybe if he could get to Wu, there was hope that Kai could get back to his time. Back to his family.

Morro doesn’t respond, but honestly, what was Kai expecting? All he knows about the person in front of him is that he wanted to be the Green Ninja and possessed Lloyd and released the Preeminent to get it.

It’s times like these when Kai wishes he paid more attention to Wu when he would go on reminiscent talks of the past during meal times. Maybe if he had, Kai would have gleaned some information on Wu’s first student other than just: evil and annoying.

But the boy in front of Kai now is (was?) not evil. He’s sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees and looks very lost and sad and not threatening at all, despite the wind scare only moments ago.

Kai doesn’t know how to deal with this.  

He tries to put himself in Morro’s shoes, and even with his limited knowledge of the not-yet-ghost’s past, Kai kinda sort of sees where Morro is coming from. Kai knew from first-hand experience that the Green Ninja could become an obsession really quick, and if he hadn’t had the others to keep him in check….

Well, he probably would have turned out like Morro. 

And that was a thought he didn’t want to think, ever.

“You should probably go to Wu,” Morro breaks the silence, quiet and hesitant, Kai really wants to know what happened between them. “He would know what to do.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Kai nods, looking around the fields. There doesn’t seem to be much other than crops, but maybe he was closer to getting home than he thought.  “How far away are we?” 

“A few days away,” Morro tells him, still sitting hunched over, staring at the setting sun.

“You're not coming?” Kai wonders as the winds swirl around them gently, reminding him of an embrace.

Morro shakes his head, “He doesn’t want me. I haven't become good enough for him, and according to you, I never will,” His voice cracks and Kai can only look on in confusion as Morro buries his head in his arms.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Kai demands, crossing his arms. 

Morro lifts his head just to glare at him, “Why else did he take me in? He only took me in, because he thought I was the Green Ninja, but obviously I’m not, so I’m no longer welcome.”

Kai frowns, Wu doesn’t seem like the person who would do that and tells as much to Morro.

Morro scoffs, “Maybe he got softer in the future,” He offers, but Kai can’t really see that.

“Okay, time out,” Kai crosses his arms. “So let me get this straight, Wu thought you were the Green Ninja?”

Morro nods.

“And what? Tossed you out because you're not?” Kai demands, and Morro winces, mumbling something under his breath.

“What was that?” Kai scowls, crossing his arms. The more and more he stays in the past and in the presence of Morro, the more he’s hating it. He could be fighting bad guys right now, not helping Lloyd’s cause of trauma through a crisis.

“I left,” Morro says louder, scowling at him, as if it was Kai’s fault that Morro wasn’t the Green Ninja.

Kai stares at him, before sighing and rubbing his head. “Okay, so Wu didn't kick you out,” He clarifies, and suddenly has the urge to scream.

“He told me I was going to be the Green Ninja,” Morro spits out, venomously. “He promised… and then the weapons… it didn’t happen. So I left to prove that I can be the Green Ninja.”

Kai stands there, a weird sense of Deja Vu overwhelming him. He wants to yell at Morro and say he’s being stupid, but…

“Wu literally did the exact same thing for us,” He realizes, and feeling dazed, he sits down to stare at the horizon.

“We found the prophecy, and thought it would be one of us, so we made it into a competition. When Wu found out, he was pissed but didn’t tell us to stop. I became obsessed– a lot more than my teammates,” He explains, and Morro nods in understanding because, of course, he understands. 

And while Kai knows now, after Morro had been stopped and the Preeminent had drowned, that Wu probably didn’t tell them about the Green Ninja in fear of them turning out to be like Morro, there is still a small grudge against his mentor for refusing to do anything about their stupid competition– especially since he knew what the repercussions could become.

“I wanted to be great,” Kai continues, thinking about his past, hating it for its nostalgia and for the cringe of a person he used to be. “I wanted to have power and have a purpose that made everything that I suffered for worth it. And so that I could protect the ones that I loved from the pain that I went through. Becoming the Green Ninja was an obsession that only stopped–” Kai pauses.

Once he figured out that he was destined to protect the Green Ninja– a ten-year-old boy who was abandoned by adults who were meant to protect him, turning his obsession into a resolve to keep his little brother safe, starting from the volcano the serpentine had left him in.

He was supposed to protect the protector, a role that he had despised especially when it turned into jealousy– but Kai had overcome it–he had to– after Chen and the tournament of Elements. 

Kai had a taste of too much power and realized he was trading it for his family, and that wasn’t a deal he was willing to ever make.

“Only stopped…” Morro prompts, after a few minutes of silence, and Kai bites his tongue. The irrational part of him, wants to keep Lloyd’s name far away from the teenager next to him, even though Kai knows there is nothing Morro can do about it now. But what happens if Morro still becomes a ghost? He would know exactly who Lloyd was, and that wasn’t a risk Kai was willing to take.

“Once I found my true potential.” Kai finishes, and Morro’s eyes widen. 

“You found your true potential?” Morro breathes out, awe dancing across his face. Just that expression, makes Kai understand Morro, the teenager in front of him, and the power-hungry ghost he would become.

Whereas Kai had discovered himself as a protector and guide, Morro had not, meaning the determination to find himself through the Green Ninja never faded, not even in death.

“Yeah,” Kai confirms and gives a small smile to the wonderment in Morro’s eyes. How could this child in front of him cause so much grievance later? The part of him that has raised his two siblings, desperately wants to know, but the other part of him that has seen what Morro has done to his siblings wants to turn his back on this kid. He doesn’t know which part wins, but he sighs and nods his head reluctantly at Morro.

“Listen, I know how badly you want to be the Green Ninja,” Kai tells him, and the air around them turns somber, “Trust me I’ve been there. But you can’t let it become your entire personality. You’ll lose the people who care about you, and you’ll go down a path you can’t ever escape from.”

Kai has seen it in a ghost not much older than the teenager in front of him, and he has seen it in himself. If he hadn’t had his teammates and only had this obsession to cling to, he would end up being the one to hurt Lloyd– and that terrifies him just thinking about it.

“And you think that’s all Wu cares about,” Kai continues before Morro interjects.

“It is. I won't ever be good enough for him if I’m not,” he insists, but Kai isn’t taking that answer.

“Then let’s go ask him,” Kai tells him, watching Morro’s face turn into shock. “If I’m right, I want you to let go of the Green Ninja, and find your own true potential, okay?”

“Fine, but if I’m right, you tell me who becomes the Green Ninja,” Morro snaps back, and Kai can feel his heart sink.

“To do what?” He asks coldly, desperate to keep the threatening tone out of his voice.

Morro gives him a hard look, and Kai knows he failed at that. 

“Why do you care so much about him? He took something you wanted desperately, doesn’t that make you angry?” Morro demands, and Kai’s blood roars through his ears. 

If there was some evil intent behind those words, instead of Morro sounding hurt and confused, pleading desperately for Kai to understand how he was feeling now, Kai thinks he probably would do something he would regret later on. Maybe.

But Morro is just hurting and lost, not yet vengeful. Why isn’t he vengeful? Kai wonders, What is the cause of it? But he pushes that thought to the side and takes a deep breath.

“He’s my brother,” Kai tells him stiffly, “and was only ten when he found out about his destiny.”

Morro’s jaw drops open.

“Yeah,” Kai tells him grimly, trying to not laugh hysterically at the absurdity of it all. What is his life?

“To find out you have to fulfill a prophecy by killing your dad so you could save Ninjago at ten years old is one of the worst things that happened to him,” Kai tells a horrified Morro. Until you possessed him, is what he doesn’t say.

But hopefully, that isn’t going to happen, because Morro seems to get over the shock, and looks at him determinedly. “Tell me so I can stop his father. Maybe I can help.”

“I can’t do that,” Kai tells him, not when there was even a slight chance that Morro could hurt Lloyd.

“Why not?”

Kai shrugs, I don’t trust you. I don’t want you to hurt Lloyd. It’s not safe.

“Maybe if you can prove that your obsession is truly gone, maybe I’ll tell you,” Kai humors him. Hopefully, I’ll be gone by then . “Right now, it just sounds like you're going to fulfill his destiny for him.”

Morro scowls, “Why shouldn’t I? If he’s ten, he shouldn’t be fighting anyone, let alone his father!”

Kai knows. The five of them, Cole, Jay, Zane, Nya, and Kai had all tried to give Lloyd the childhood he’d deserved, but with the Tomorrow’s Tea, and Garmadon’s impatience to start the final countdown, there had been no time. All they could do was keep him safe and happy while they trained him, and even then it wasn’t good enough.

“Some things are unavoidable,” Kai says softly, “Even when we try so hard to prevent it.”

Just like now. Kai could try his hardest to convince Morro that the Green Ninja was not his destiny, but there was no way of knowing until he ended back in his time. Some things were unavoidable.

Morro takes his words in with a grim nod. “Fine, then I’ll help him when he reveals himself,” he says determinedly, and Kai can’t help but laugh slightly in disbelief.

“You do that.”

“I will.”

They shake hands, even though there isn’t really a consequence for what happens if Wu really only cares about the Green Ninja. But according to Wu during the Day of the Departed, when old enemies came back to haunt them, he was proud of his past student, so Kai is hopeful Wu is still like that and not what Morro thinks.

“Okay,” Kai breathes out, and takes a minute to figure out his thoughts. “Okay. Now we have to get to Wu and hopefully, he can help me get back to my time.”

Morro gives him an uncertain nod, but they both stand, and that's when Kai notices the bag that Morro picks up. It looks well worn and tattered in certain places, and he wonders how long ago Morro left, but figures it’s not his place to ask.

Not when he has more important things to worry about– like getting home.

Chapter Text

“I don’t trust you,” Morro tells him, as they make their way through the farmyard. The night is falling quickly and Morro suggests an inn in a nearby village. Kai doesn’t have money but a bed sounds heavenly right now, and Morro is offering, although very reluctantly, so Kai agrees and promises to make it up to him.

His adrenaline is still working over time, and he knows that he’s going to feel exhausted sooner rather than later, and would rather do it with pillows and a blanket, than tough it out in the middle of nowhere. 

From finding out that his parents were alive, traveling to the Boiling Sea, traveling through time to fight with the younger versions of his teammate’s parents to falling off the Iron Doom and meeting Morro, the last two days have been a nonstop blur to Kai, and with minimal food and sleep, he knows that he’s going to crash hard. But that’s for a later Kai to worry about.

Now, he’s dealing with being ready for a fight in any direction, all of his senses dialed up to ten as he subconsciously prepares for a battle. Not necessarily bad, but it makes convincing his companion that he is at ease a lot harder than he would like.

“I don’t expect you to,” Kai responds, aiming for casualness. He doesn’t trust Morro either and pretending otherwise is stupid. “But I’m telling you the truth.”

“I believe you,” Morro says, shaking his head like he can’t believe he’s saying it. “About the whole time thing. You were being really detailed about it all for you to be faking it.” He hesitates, and Kai waits for the ‘but’ that’s coming.

“But…”

There it is.

“How do I know you’re not…bad?” Morro finishes, speaking more to himself than to Kai– the words sounding almost naive if he wasn’t frowning at the last word like it’s not what he means to say. “Or that you don’t have some ulterior motive for being in the past?” He nods satisfied at his words, turning to scowl at Kai. 

Kai looks at the teenager bemused, the words, ‘you’re one to talk,’ on the tip of the tongue, but he uses all of his self-control to bite it back. Instead, he shrugs, “You don’t. But Wu trained me, so that should give you enough credibility, right?”

When Morro averts his eyes and nods reluctantly Kai winces. He hadn’t meant to say that, not when the kid in front of him was going to become, ‘bad,’ using the same credentials. He sighs quietly. He doesn’t have a clue what to do here, and stumbling around like a fool isn’t going to get him anywhere.

“You're not here to change the future, are you? To stop that battle you were in?” Morro asks, eying Kai like he is reconsidering taking him to Wu.

Kai snorts at the kid’s question. “No way, I’d take fighting any day of the week than to go to the past. Honestly, kid, what makes you think I want to be here?”

Morro huffs, but thankfully asks no more questions about the future. Kai doesn’t think he’d be able to handle it.

As they near the village, Morro directs them to the inn. “Are you hungry?” He asks, and Kai shrugs. He had eaten this morning… or maybe it was two days ago? and with all the excitement from fighting the twins and falling into the timestream, food was the last thing on his mind.

“Sure,” he says, and Morro leads them into a busy-looking inn. 

“You get the rooms, I’ll get the food,” The kid orders, his distrust hidden with fake confidence, and Kai simply nods in agreement. “And just say you're passing through, okay? No matter what anyone says,” Morro tells him as an afterthought. “People here don’t really like the Ninja, so just ignore them.”

Kai frowns, but before he can ask why no one likes them, Morro walks away towards the barmaid, making Kai feel suddenly like an open target in his bright red Gi.

He has just gotten two rooms, the innkeeper shooting him a dirty look, and is scanning the tables for a green streak of hair, when he spots Morro sitting at a table full of food, scowling at two men, who look like they’ve had one too many drinks.

“--come on. There’s no way a kid like you could pay that much without stealing it,” One of the men announces, his words all slurring together. Kai frowns, walking quicker to his traveling companion, his eyes narrowing deeper as he overhears the conversation in front of him.

Morro frowns at the man, as wind that shouldn’t be indoors starts swirling around the dining area. “I told you, I didn’t steal it!”

“And we don’t believe you,” The second man interjects. “Just give us the rest of the money and we’ll let you keep the food.”

It’s definitely getting windy in here, Kai notes, as hats begin to fly off and people begin to look around for the source of the wind. “Is there a problem?” He coldly intervenes, before Morro can cause an indoor tornado, as he reaches the table, frowning as the two men swirl around.

After a silent sizing up, one that Kai wins, with his slightly bloody Gi, the knives hanging from his belt, a scabbard with no sword, and his dark glare on his face, “No,” The first man says, backing down. “No problem, Ninja, ” he spits out, tugging his friend out of the inn. 

“I had it under control,” Morro scowls defiantly at Kai, as he settles into his seat, staring at the fleeing men, satisfied.

“Sure you did,” Kai acknowledges, picking up a spoon.  “But then you’d have to explain the massive tornado that appeared out of nowhere.”

Morro glowers at him, “I had it covered,” he bites out, and Kai rolls his eyes, taking a sip of the stew.

“Okay,” he says, dropping whatever argument Morro seems to want to start. He probably would have fought with the kid, just for the sake of it, had he not been dead on his feet, hungry for a meal he could properly enjoy, and completely done with the events of the past 48 hours.

He wants to eat and sleep, and ignore all of his problems for at least an hour, was that really too much to ask for?

And thankfully, before he knows it, the two Elemental users are digging into a warm beef stew, surrounded by a quiet atmosphere of strangers that eye them curiously– a ninja still weary of a battle that has yet to happen and already taken place, and a boy with tattered clothes fated to die and bring the (Second? Third?) doomsday to Ninjago. 

“So how far in the past are you?” Morro breaks the silence, an olive branch from his earlier anger, and Kai considers the question.

“I dunno,” he frowns, trying to think. Morro was still alive, and as a ghost, he had looked pretty much the same. But Kai didn’t know how long Morro was dead for.

“You know Ray right?” Kai asks, and when Morro confirms, “How old is he?”

Morro shrugs, “Like nineteen? Why?”

“Is he married?” He asks, ignoring the fact that his dad is younger than him right now. It’s weird to think about, and he is eating a meal in the far past with a child version of the ghost who possessed his brother. See? Too weird.

Morro snickers, “Ray gets married? First Master, who would get married to that guy?”

Kai should be offended, and maybe he is, but he doesn’t really know his dad, and he kind of wants to learn more about him. 

“My mom,” Kai says dryly, grinning when Morro chokes in surprise.

“Wait, he's your dad?” Morro snickers, when Kai nods. “Tell me who she is! Oh wait let me guess. It’s for sure not Libby, she’s been flirting with the actor guy for so long, and Jacob has a bet to see if they actually start dating or not. Uhmmm, I don’t think it’s Lilly because she and Lou have been together forever, it’s not Maya is it?”

Morro doesn’t seem to take a breath in between guesses, and Kai’s head is spinning because Morro knew not only his parents but Cole’s too.

“Yeah it’s Maya,” Kai clears his throat, and Morro laughs in disbelief.

Kai wants to ask more about the parents he’s only recently met, see what they are like, and want to know everything about them. But then he thinks of his own family, the one he’s known for the past decade, the people he could trust to rely on. He misses them, his team, his family, even if he hasn’t seen them in a few hours that span across decades. 

“So I think I’m at least forty years in the past,” Kai says when they're wrapping up the meal. 

Morro whistles quietly, “So I'm like what? Fifty? Do you know how I die?”

Kai shakes his head, “Nope, but even if I did, I probably wouldn’t tell you.”

Morro nods reluctantly, “Yeah, you’re probably right. I bet it was cool, like fighting off a horde of skeletons or something.”

Kai snorts, refusing to admit how much Morro reminds him of Lloyd. “You’re taking the news of your death pretty well.”

The kid shrugs, “Well I wasn’t expecting to make it to next year, so knowing I get a few more decades sounds like a great thing to hear.”

“Right,” Kai bites his tongue and hates to think that Morro, in Kai’s timeline, probably did die this year.

They wrap up their meals, but before they stand to head back to the rooms Kai got, Morro looks at him sheepishly.  “You didn’t have to stand up for me earlier.” It’s quieter than Kai was expecting, almost as if Morro still can’t believe that it happened, but Kai shrugs.

“It’s no big deal,” He brushes it aside with a laugh, wondering exactly how he managed to have a cordial meal with an enemy.

“It is,” Morro insists, and Kai looks at him, taken aback by how earnest Morro looks. “Thank you.”

Kai feels uncomfortable when he says, his throat dry, “You’re welcome,” and a voice in the back of his head that sounds like Nya starts demanding him what the hell he is doing. He doesn’t know, doesn’t want to care, and Kai is quick to brush away all of his thoughts. Now wasn’t the time to think– it was time to go to sleep.

Thankfully that's the last conversation of the night, but after they have both retreated to their rooms, it is hardly a fitful night for Kai, much to his dismay.

It usually wasn’t– not when they were fighting the latest big bad, but he was expecting his exhaustion to overtake the nightmares, so this night was even worse, when every time he managed to sleep, his body forced him to wake up, his mind fully prepared to expect a ghost flinging his door open and killing him or possessing him in his sleep.

To make things worse, he can’t just simply wander the halls of the bounty or the monastery in search of someone else awake, because he’s in a time where nobody he knows and cares about is alive, stuck with a kid who he knows is going to die and cause him so many problems later on. And much to his horror, Kai realizes, after he’s woken up from the third nightmare, that had he not had his family, he probably would have ended up like Morro.

It’s sick to think about and it makes him unable to look at Morro the next morning, as they make their way through the small town, although the teenager disappears not long after, a quiet promise to be right back.

He’s not right back, but Kai doesn’t care, not when his nightmares are becoming a little too unbearable.

His eyes are shutting without permission, as he wanders the market, and Kai briefly wonders if he should get some caffeine in his system. Did the past have coffee? Instead of finding a place that has energy in a bottle, he finds a stall that sells threads. Maybe he could patch up his Gi– it was cheaper to get thread than to buy cloth, and Kai doesn’t know how much money Morro has, so he won’t risk getting new clothes to get out of his blood-stained uniform.

“Hey, you!”

Kai turns around warily, trying to stifle a yawn that has been threatening to escape for the past couple of minutes. “Hmm?” A woman who looks eerily similar to Skylor, with red hair and the same brown eyes, runs up to him, looking annoyed. It’s just enough jarring to wake Kai up before the woman reaches him.

“Are you one of those ninjas?”

Kai unconsciously looks down at his clothes, before looking up and giving her a slight smile, “What gave it away?”

The Skylor look-alike gives him a frown, suddenly looking at him angrily, “Aren’t you supposed to be helping Ninjago? ” She demands, and Kai looks at her confused. 

“What do you mean?” He asks, as his eyes scour the crowd passing by them. The marketplace is still bustling around them, although everyone seems to be pointedly ignoring the confrontation.

“The blasted snakes have been raiding our village for months, and no one has come to help. Have you even heard of our pleas for aid?”

The question catches Kai off guard. Serpentine raids? He had totally forgotten about the Serpentine War and the uprisings that had come before it. “Uhh, about that…”

Suddenly, Morro’s warning about ignoring the villagers makes a lot more sense. “I’m just passing through,” he tells the woman, almost sheepishly. “I didn’t know about any of the raids,” he says honestly. 

The woman, understandably, does not believe him. “Of course not,” she scoffs, crossing her arms, “You ninja never do. All high and mighty on your mountain to do anything but help our lands.”

Kai should feel offended. He has almost spent his entire life sacrificing himself for Ninjago and is positive that the Ninja before him did the same. But then again, just like the serpentine were myths when he was growing up, so were the Ninja.

He doesn’t know much about this time period, something he should have taken the time to learn about before he found himself in this predicament, (although to be fair he thought the past would stay in the past), and for all he knows, this woman is telling the truth.

“Well I didn’t,” Kai argues back, “But maybe I can help.” As soon as he says it, he wants to regret it. He doesn’t have time to deal with snakes, not when he has so many other things to worry about. But Ninja are meant to protect Ninjago, and Kai would feel worse if he didn’t help out.

“What?” The woman looks taken aback.

“Yeah, what?” Morro demands from behind him, causing Kai to jump.

“Where the hell have you been?” Kai whirls around, looking at Morro angrily before he takes in the black eye and busted lip the kid is sporting. “What the fuck happened to you?”

“Doesn’t matter, I’m fine,” Morro rolls his eyes, and turns to glare at the woman. “Who the hell are you?”

Kai frowns, “This isn’t over,” he warns Morro, but he turns back around too, facing the woman who bristles, her eyes narrowing at the two of them. 

“You Ninja are trouble, you know that?”

“But we can help,” Kai interjects, pulling Morro back, who looks like he’s about to create another fight. “Where have the raids been coming from?”

“You… actually mean it,” The woman looks at him carefully, her eyes seeming to look inside of him as if to see if he was telling the truth.

“I do,” Kai nods, just as Morro hisses, “Kai!”

Kai ignores him, and the woman gives him an odd look.

“Why?”

Kai shrugs, “I don’t know about the other Ninja, but I try to make an effort to protect Ninjago,” he says, the understatement of the century. He shrugs again, “And I’ve dealt with the snakes before, so it’s not really a big deal for me.”

Both the woman and Morro look at him in barely concealed incredulity.

“Fighting off the Fangpyre isn’t a big deal for you?” The woman asks in disbelief, just as Morro shakes his head, looking upset.

“I thought you were desperate to get home, we don’t have time for side quests!”

Kai looks at his companion pointedly, “Morro, we have the ability to help them, so we’re going to do it. That’s literally what our job is.”

Morro crosses his arms and mutters something under his breath that sounds like, “It’s not mine anymore,” but Kai lets it go for now, turning to look at the woman with an apologetic smile.

“Have the Fangpyre been turning the villagers into snakes?” He asks, and the woman shakes her head.

“Very rarely. They mostly just take our crops and whatever we leave out. The men have tried to hunt them down, but we lose them in the Birchwood Forest.”

“Is that nearby?” He asks curiously, but Morro nods before the woman can say anything.

“Yeah, and it’s the same direction that we’re going in,” he admits reluctantly, and Kai beams.

“Alright! We should get going before we lose daylight.”

The woman blinks, “Just like that?”

“Just like that,” Kai nods.

“...Alright. Don’t expect any compensation afterward. And if the snakes come back, I’ll know who's at fault.”

“Of course,” Kai reassures her and the woman nods, still looking at him distrustfully before disappearing back into the crowd without any farewell.

Kai slumps his shoulders and finally lets out his yawn. “First Master, I’m exhausted.”

Morro whirls on him, “Then why would you agree to help out?” He demands, and Kai shrugs, rolling his arms and stretching.

“I would think for someone who wants to be the Green Ninja so badly, you would be jumping at the opportunity to help out,” Kai points out, as they begin to walk out of the marketplace and onto the road that should take them to the Birchwood Forest.

Morro shoots him an ugly look, “That’s not fair at all.”

“Come on kid, don’t tell me you can’t take care of a few snakes?”

Morro splutters, “I can! I just thought you were desperate to get to Wu!”

Kai shoots him a bemused look, “And I thought you didn’t want to see Wu at all.”

“Fuck you,” Morro hisses angrily, clenching his fists, staring at him with unbridled fury. “I don’t have to help you, remember?”

“You’re right,” Kai says, his hands up in surrender. “Too far, sorry. But honestly kid, despite Wu saying you were going to be the Green Ninja, you don’t seem like the person to sacrifice everything you have for Ninjago.”

Morro gives him a dismayed look, “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why do you want to be the Green Ninja?” Kai attempts a conversational voice, trying to leave out the insinuation that Morro doesn’t exactly help Ninjago out of the kindness of his heart, but he can’t tell if he’s managed to avoid it when Moro glares at him forcefully. Actually, that should probably be a telling sign, but Kai’s going to ignore it anyway. 

“You don’t know?” Morro spits out, “Shouldn’t you know, being from the future and all?”

Kai raises his eyebrow, “Low blow going for the time travel. It’s just that I sort of know what you’re going through and thought maybeeee I could help you figure out what you actually want to be?” He offers weakly, but if there was a chance that he could change things now so that Lloyd wouldn’t be possessed later on– well then Kai was all for it.

Morro scoffs, “What do you know about me?” It’s a vague question, possibly rhetorical, so Kai isn’t really sure how to respond to that, and he gets the feeling Morro doesn’t know what he’s asking either.

Kai shrugs, “Not much,” he confesses, and refuses to acknowledge the way Morro turns to focus on his words. He would have to be careful in what he said, otherwise, who knew what could happen?

“You had already passed when Wu took me and my sister in, and he didn’t really talk much about his past– like he didn’t even tell us about the Great Devourer until like a few days before it got released!” Kai grumbles at the secrets Wu kept from the Ninja. Honestly so much could be avoided if Wu was upfront with them in the beginning. Maybe then, Kai wouldn’t be stuck in the past literally talking to his brother’s trauma.

“The Great Devourer got released?” Morro asks, his eyes wide in shock, and Kai looks at him with a sheepish grin. 

“Yeah,” He shrugs again, “Honestly, I kinda forgot about that, it was so long ago.” He says, chuckling when Morro gapes even more.

“How do you even forget about that?” Morro demands and Kai shrugs at him, giving him a small smirk. 

“We’ve had so many fights over the years, that it sort of blurs together.”

Morro doesn’t know how to respond to that, and if Kai thinks back on it for more than five seconds, the weariness of fighting ancient beings since he was fifteen seeps into his bones and forces him to sit down and contemplate his life.

He can’t do that now, because he has to get back, to save his sister, his mentor and teammates, and the rest of Ninjago. 

“There’s that ‘we’ again,” Morro says, looking at him with curiosity. “And yesterday, you said that we’ll meet in the future? But right now, you just said I was gone before you knew Wu?”

Kai winces and bites his lip. To explain or to not explain ghosts?

“I don’t know how to explain,” he finally settles on, patting himself on the back for keeping it vague. “Like– it’s really confusing, and you’ll probably think I’m a Sky person again.”

“So start from the beginning,” Morro suggests. “Trust me, anything you say will sound like you're a sky person.”

Kai laughs but goes silent anyway. He’s not going to say anything– he shouldn't, being in the past and all, but more importantly he’s not willing to slip up and let Morro know anything that could make Kai’s past worse.

“I think I don’t just want to be great and powerful,” Morro says suddenly, just as Kai’s trying to figure out how to say no. “I want him to accept me.”

Kai doesn’t ask who ‘he’ is. 

“What makes you think he hasn’t already?”

Morro gives him a bitter look. “Why else has he kept telling me that I would be the Green Ninja? Why would he promise me something that I could never achieve?”

Kai shrugs, “What if he genuinely thought you were? I mean there isn’t really a way to find out unless the golden weapons react.”

Morro frowns, kicking a rock on the path. “The weapons didn’t react. That’s when I left– I… I was so angry that I didn’t realize I mistook a different sword for the Sword of Fire until a few months ago. But it’s pointless now, right? Your brother is the Green Ninja, so it’s not like it’ll work for me,” he says bitter and sad, as he kicks another rock, using his wind to make it fly down the path.

“Now I am nothing,” Morro bites out, “I have no point– Just a poor homeless orphan that Wu took pity on.”

Kai winces, hating how close those words hit home. “Funny, because that was the same thing I told myself after I saved my sister, and Wu welcomed us into the monastery.”

Morro gives him a quick glance, “How did you overcome it?” In this moment, Morro sounds so much like a child, curious and lost, and needing someone to help him. Kai hates that it’s him, but he wonders if it had been anybody else, would they have understood Morro enough to guide him?

In the back of his mind, a quiet voice tells him no, so Kai takes a deep breath and tries to answer.

“I haven’t. It still haunts me from time to time, but I honestly just push it away to deal with whatever is threatening Ninjago. It helped after I found my full potential, but I don’t know if it will ever really go away.”

Morro goes silent after that, and Kai finally looks at the teenager. Tired is the first thing that comes to mind when Kai looks at the Master of Wind, and then nervous. 

But Kai can’t find it in himself to feel guilty if Morro confronting Wu now will protect Lloyd later on.

“Focus on the future. Create a legacy for yourself, you don’t need the Green Ninja for that,” Kai advises, wishing that someone would have told him that, back when they were still trying to figure out who Samurai X was. That stupid competition had taken over all his thoughts, and at the time he hadn’t seen how impressive Nya had done just that.

She had welded (literally) her own legacy, years before she became the water ninja, and Kai can’t help the spike of pride when he thinks about his sister’s accomplishments.

“Yeah?” Morro’s humoring him now, but eventually, he’ll see. Kai just doesn’t know if it will be before or after his deathly demise. “What’s your legacy?”

“Protecting my family,” Kai tells him promptly, and he doesn’t miss the flicker of jealousy in the teenager’s eyes. “From all the harm that befalls them.” Protecting them from people like Morro, Chen, Pythor, and Garmadon. It’s true most of the time he does a shitty job at it, but if he doesn’t have that, then Kai won’t have anything to get himself out of bed, and that really won’t benefit anybody, would it?

“They’re lucky to have you,” Morro tells him quietly.

“I’m grateful to have them, ” Kai corrects, before gesturing to Morro’s lightly swollen face. “But don’t think I’ve forgotten about your fight. What happened?”

“I ran into the guys from last night. They didn’t like that you were protecting me,” Morro shrugs, not meeting Kai’s eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah right,” Kai snorts, gently grabbing the kid’s face to look at it closer. “You need ice,” he says as Morro hisses in pain and bats his hand away.

“Good thing we’re going to the forest,” Morro shrugs, as he gestures to the snowy trees in front of them.  “And if you think you this is bad, you should see the other guys. And besides,” Morro snickers, pulling open his traveling bag and reaching for another smaller bag.

“They were so generous when they gave me their money purse,” He grins up at Kai, the sound of coins clinking together, as he rattles the bag.

“You robbed them?” Kai shakes his head in disbelief with a sigh, when Morro shrugs with a laugh. “At least it’s enough for a good quality sword.”

“That’s what I said,” Morro smirks, and as they make their way toward the Birchwood Forest, it is much more lighthearted than Kai would have ever thought it could be.

Chapter Text

“You’re an idiot,” Morro says matter-of-factly when Kai hisses in pain. “What exactly did you think would happen if you went into a snake den with no plan?”

Kai glowers at his companion, clutching his shoulder with his blood-soaked hand. “If I remember correctly, you did the exact same thing.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t get stabbed,” Morro defends, as he rips up his extremely tattered robe into strips and shoves it into the snow to cool the cloth.

“Because I pushed you out of the way!” Kai’s breathing becomes strangled as Morro wraps the strips around his torso and shoulder. He thought arguing with the teenager would help keep his mind off of the stab wound, but in all honesty, it was just making things worse.

Locating the Fangpire den had been easy, but Kai had been more preoccupied with yelling at Wu in his head for stunningly missing the way Morro had tried to prove himself so he wouldn’t be abandoned, only to reaffirm Morro’s fears by convincing them both that Morro was the Green Ninja, that Kai hadn’t realized the two of them had been walking into an ambush.

It was a battle that Kai and Morro had won pretty easily, (despite the– y’know… stab wound) and had managed to get solemn promises from the Fangpyre leader that they would stop raiding villages because that would only speed up the Golden Master’s return.

Yes, Kai had lied. Yes, he didn’t feel bad. No, Morro, he wasn’t going to explain who the Golden Master was.

“Yeah,” Morro admits softly, “Which is so annoying by the way. Seriously, what is your problem?” It’s a lot louder than Kai wants it to be, and he winces at the sound.

“What do you mean ‘what’s my problem?’” Kai stares indignantly at Morro, ignoring the way the world spins for a few seconds. “I just saved your ass!”

“Exactly! You’re going to get yourself killed!”

“Ugh, you could just say thank you. Like a normal person,” Kai rolls his eyes, as Morro helps pull him up into a standing position.

“I’ll say thank you when you’re not dying,” Morro mutters, as they start making their way through the Birchwood Forest, their footsteps crunching loudly in the snow.

“I’m not dying!” Kai defends half-heartedly, even though he’s using Morro for support as they walk. “Pretty sure I won’t bleed out from a shoulder wound. It barely even hurts anymore!”

“I don’t think that’s a good thing, because that's pretty deep. You should keep talking, just in case,” Morro suggests, almost sounding nervous, “Because if you die–”

“I’m not going to die,” Kai repeats, or rather, he tries to, but the words get stuck in his mouth.

“Talk,” Morro nudges him slightly, and Kai belatedly realizes that Morro is scared. Not scared of him, which Kai should ideally prefer, but scared for him, which makes literally everything a hundred times worse.

Why? Kai wants to demand, but instead, he wheezily asks, “About what?”

“You fought the Great Devourer and obviously won since you're here and alive– plus you're oddly enough not scared of snakes. Wanna tell me how that happened?”

Kai looks at him sideways, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards, even though his throat feels like lead. “Nice try, buddy.”

“What?” Morro looks at him defensively, and was that a pout Kai saw? “I’m just curious!”

“I shouldn’t have even said anything about the Great Devourer!” Kai grumbles, shaking his head as he mentally scolds himself for letting that information slip out. To be fair to him, because it happened so long ago, the Great Devourer being defeated by Lord Garmadon was pretty much common knowledge across the realm. “You’d think with all the movies about time travel, that it would be easy to remember that I shouldn’t say anything.”

Morro frowns, “Movies?”

“Ugh, see? I did it again!” Kai groans weakly. “Okay, no more talking,” he says, zipping his lips, and fights off a wince when his shoulder screams in agony.

“You have to keep talking,” Morro reminds him with a frown, before adding, “The future is weird.”

“You’re telling me,” Kai mutters, pushing Morro slightly when they pass a familiar tree. Or rather the entrance to a certain workshop, but it takes a moment for Kai to remember the significance.

As soon as he does, however, his blood freezes. “Shit,” he hisses to himself and stumbles away from Morro to duck behind a tree.

Morro looks at him confused, still standing in front of the workshop. “Kai? What are you doing?” He asks, furrowing his brows and walking towards Kai.

Kai is so stupid. How could he forget that Zane was literally built before the Serpentine War? His teammate, his friend, his brother, was right there, and what should Kai do?

Go and introduce yourself? No, that was fucking stupid! They should just keep walking and he’ll reminisce later with a Zane who would actually know him. Yeah, that’s what he’ll do. If he’s even still alive to get back home.

Morro eyes him, as if staring at Kai hard enough will make him understand what’s going on. “Are you okay?” He asks, reaching out, and Kai flinches backward. He takes a deep breath, and straightens himself out, “Sorry, It’s just my friend lives here, and I don’t know–”

“Hello!” Dr. Julien’s voice comes out of the blue, and Kai has to suppress the urge not to yelp and cower behind a really confused Morro. Zane’s father walks towards them, carrying a few logs, a bright smile on his much younger face.

“What are you doing so deep in the forest?” He asks, setting down the logs next to his workshop. Kai takes a breath and straightens, deciding to ignore the consequences of the whole past and future thing. Besides, Dr. Julien was an old guy– he’d probably forget about this whole encounter before Kai would ever meet him in the original timeline. It was much better than freaking about how much he was messing up the past– even if it was for the better– and Kai hopes that Zane doesn’t show up.

It’s one thing to deny ever meeting when the person you're trying to fool is old, it’s another to pretend to be a person who has the memory of a computer.

“We’re going to the Monastery of Spinjitzu,” Morro says slowly, still looking at Kai weirdly.

“That’s quite far,” Dr. Julien tells them, pressing the button to open his workshop. “Why don’t you come inside? It’s cold out here!”

Kai watches as Morro’s mouth drops open in awe, as the tree literally opens up, and nudges him gently. He doesn’t bother to explain that Kai can keep himself warm with his naturally high body heat, and Morro can regulate his temperature enough that he wouldn’t freeze, especially with Kai’s help. The lesser attention they brought on themselves, the better. 

“Thank you,” he says, turning to Dr. Julien, “We appreciate it, but we really have to keep going.”

“Nonsense,” Dr. Julien gestures to them closer, eyeing Kai’s shoulder with a frown. “It looks like you’re hurt–”

“Father?” A painstakingly familiar voice calls out, and Kai decides they have to get the fuck out of there. 

“Okaythanksbye!” Kai says, slinging Morro on his shoulder, and running away as fast he can, despite his wound opening up again, and leaving a trail of blood behind him.

“Kai!” Morro yelps, arms flailing as he tries to squirm out of Kai’s hold, “You’re bleeding again. Put me down!”

“Not until we are very very far away,” Kai says, not slowing down, and pushing through a wind that he isn’t sure whether Morro is controlling or not.

“Why?” Morro demands, still trying to force his way out of Kai’s grasp. All of his attempts are futile, because Morro is light and pretty much just skin and bones, and Kai promises to himself that he’ll deal with it after they get out of this cursed forest.

“A… friend of mine lives here. What do you think would happen if they somehow remembered me way before I was supposed to be alive?” 

He waits for a reply, but Morro doesn’t say anything.

“What?”

“I’m pretty sure I’m not suffering from blood loss, but please tell me that the trees aren’t moving, and are not coming right at us,” Morro tells him, sounding nervous, and Kai lets out a long string of curses, before dropping Morro in the snow who yelps out indignantly.

 “I hate this so much,” He groans, tenderly rolling his arm and adamantly ignoring the blood, as a Treehorn walks towards them.

“Also, are trees supposed to have faces?” Morro’s eyes narrow as he backs up, surveying the woods around them. 

“It’s not trees,” Kai snaps, drawing a fistful of flames to keep the animal at bay. “It’s a Treehorn, and honestly I should have remembered this.”

“Okay, animals that look like trees” Morro floats up in the air, “Anything I can do to help?”

Kai really didn’t feel like choosing between fighting an animal or seeing a Zane who wouldn’t remember him. What else could he do? “Aim for the legs,” He pushes away the fatigue and uses his Spinjitzu to create enough distance between the two of them and the animals. “We can hold them off until the Juggernaut shows up.”

“Juggernaut?” Morro demands, creating enough wind to force the Treehorns away from them. The two of them work in tandem to keep the creatures at bay– it turns out fire fueled by violent gusts of wind was very effective at showing the Treehorns that they weren’t food.

Kai points to a gleaming bronze robot that lumbers towards them. “Intruder! Intruder! Prepare to be terminated!"

“What the fuck,” Morro breathes out, as the robot starts blasting the Treehorns until finally, the animals retreat.

“Guess you’ve never seen a robot before, huh?” Kai asks, shoving the kid gently, frowning as Morro sways gently with a shiver.

“Is it made out of metal?” Morro inches forward to examine the Juggernaut, until Kai pulls him back. 

“Yeah, but don’t go near it, because it’ll start blasting you. ”

Morro recoils back, eyeing the robot warily. “Noted,” he mutters, shivering a lot harder than he should be if he was using his powers.

“Are you okay?” Kai asks, pulling Morro around to face him. “Please tell me you didn’t get stabbed earlier either, and I just missed it.”

During the fight, it had started to snow, and now, Morro’s lips and nose are turning red, as he shivers up a storm. “Were you not regulating your temperature?” Kai demands, and Morro shakes his head, looking at Kai defiantly. Kai sighs, drawing in some of his fire, he can warm the two of them up as they rest for a few minutes. 

“Your friend lives here?” Morro asks, once his teeth stop clattering together. He’s still slumped against Kai, but the Fire Ninja doesn’t really have the heart to push him off.

“Yeah,” Kai says reluctantly as he rewraps his shoulder. It’s a lot harder to do with one hand, and a kid practically laying on him, but he makes it work.

“How old is he?”

“No clue, but I know he was built before the Serpentine War.”

“Serpentine War? Built?” Morro turns to face him, and Kai is pleased to note, that his face no longer looks blue, even though it looks much redder than before. What’s really concerning Kai though, is how unfocused Morro’s eyes are. “What is the future?”

Before Kai can respond, Dr. Julien shows up, riding a snowmobile. Those existed during this time?

“Oh good! I’m glad I found you before the snowstorm. You wouldn’t have made it, with what you’re wearing,” He chirps, hopping off his vehicle, and coming closer. Kai groans. Really? A snowstorm? They didn’t have time for this!

“Oh dear,” he says peering at Morro, and Kai really doesn’t like the sound of that. “Can I take your pulse?” He gestures for Morro to give him a hand, and when Morro does, the doctor frowns.

“What's wrong?” Kai asks, and Dr. Julien gives him a tight smile. “His pulse is weak, and although his symptoms don’t look too bad, you need to get out of this weather so it doesn’t get worse.”

“Symptoms?” Morro asks, his words slurring together, and Kai looks at Dr. Julien in alarm.

Dr. Julien nods, and gestures to the snowmobile, “Yes, please get on. I’ve had my son prepare some tea, but I fear we must be quick if we don’t want to make things worse.”

Kai doesn’t like any of this, Morro getting hypothermia, meeting Zane way before it’s time or the fact that he is being used as a pillow. But he can’t argue, not now, as he helps Morro to his feet.

“Thank you so much,” He says to Dr. Julien, with a sheepish grin, “Sorry I just ran out like that.”

“Just because I’m focused on your friend, doesn’t mean I’m not going to check up on you either. That wound needs to be looked at,” Dr. Julien looks at Kai pointedly, just as Morro stumbles, not even managing to take one step before Kai catches him. 

“You think you can walk?” He asks, and Morro nods determinedly. 

“I’m fine,” he says and stumbles on the next step.

Dr. Julien looks amused and concerned at the same time. “Could you carry him? Without using your arm?”

Kai grimaces, but nods, and scoops the kid up with the arm that isn’t screaming in pain. Unlike before, Morro doesn’t demand to be put down, instead shutting his eyes and curling up like a cat.

“Why are you so light? Are you actually made of air?” Kai asks, trying to tease to fight off his unease, but Morro doesn’t seem to hear him.

“You’resowarm,” He says drowsily, and Kai looks to Dr. Julien in panic.

“He’s not usually like this, and he was fine just a few minutes ago,” he says frantically, and the doctor frowns.

“Better be quick then,” Dr. Julien starts the snowmobile.

Kai refuses to panic, but all he can think about is how Morro was exerting his powers to fight off the Longhorns, and probably wasn’t able to focus on his own temperature. Not to mention that the Fangpyre had ruined Morro’s traveling robe to tattered pieces, which had removed a layer that Morro had definitely needed. Kai doesn’t like the guilty feeling he has, the kid in his arms is going to be evil, one part of him yells at him, but the rest of him just wants Morro to be okay.

Honestly, after only knowing this guy for less than a day, Kai has already unintentionally become attached to this kid…

Fuck.

Lloyd was going to kill him. Not that Kai would blame him, he’s trying to figure out how to reverse it with no luck.

Before long, they make it back to the workshop, and Dr. Julien leads them down the spiraling steps of the fake tree.

“Set him here,” Dr. Julien gestures to a small cot next to the fireplace, and Kai puts Morro down.

Morro grumbles and tries to sit up, but Kai pushes him back down. “No way dude, you need to lay down.”

“Here,” Zane comes towards them, and Kai doesn’t flinch– Nope, no way, no siree!

Kai takes the tea from his future friend with a nervous grin, and Zane returns the smile almost identically. 

Thanks,” he says, and takes the time to examine the Nindroid, is it weird to say that Zane looks…empty? Probably.

Ignoring the fact that Zane is only wearing white clothes, which does nothing to help the unnerving medical feeling Kai has, it’s the emptiness behind Zane’s eyes that makes him super uncomfortable. And yes, while Zane has the characteristics of being human, like skin and hair, which is a stark contrast from how he was now in Kai's present, he still looks... inhuman. 

Even when Kai had first met the Nindroid, Zane had looked– had been alive. Yeah, he didn’t understand most social cues and had been weird after first glance, but he had been, for the most part, a human.

Kai's Zane, the one with a titanium body and a metallic voice, had feelings, doubts, and all the little things that made Zane, well, Zane. Here in the past, though, he really looks just like a robot, and it does nothing to help the dread that Kai has for being here.

Zane looks at him thoughtfully. It makes Kai shrink in on himself– he had forgotten how Zane could sometimes be, especially since the Ninjdroid hadn’t been around humans enough to take in their mannerisms.

“Of course,” Zane says, as Dr. Julien places a blanket on Morro and force-feeds him something that Kai can only assume is medicine.

“Kai,” He introduces with a bare smile, and gives Zane a hand, though the Ninjdroid looks at it curiously, before shaking it.

“Zane.”

Kai wonders when he ends up back in his time, if Zane will remember this. Maybe the Master of Ice will lecture him on time travel etiquette again like he had when they had time traveled for the first time.

He finds himself oddly hopeful for it.

“So you live in a tree, huh?” He asks casually, as Morro grumbles under his breath as Dr. Julien urges him to drink some tea. Kai takes a sip himself too, and it reminds him of the Bounty, swaying in the ocean, sharing cake and tea, as his team relaxed after a day of saving the realm.

He really needs to get back.

“It’s a nice place,” He compliments, and Zane cracks an unhuman smile.

“Thank you.”

They sit in silence after that, listening to the fire crackle and the violent wind on top of them. Kai doesn’t know what to say. Funny story, I’m actually from the future, and we’re best friends. Kai considers it– it isn’t the weirdest thing to happen in Ninjago.

If he said, ‘I’m here because I fell into the time stream because of two power-hungry, time-traveling twins who locked my parents up for my entire life,’ well, that would be a different conversation.

Dr. Julien turns to Kai, a frown on his face, as Morro sleeps beside them. “He has mild hypothermia, but not to worry, he’ll be good as new in a few days!” he tells Kai, and guilt swells up in his gut. His fault.

“If he had been wearing more layers it wouldn’t have been as bad, but he’s already very underweight, and prolonged exposure to the cold isn't good for his health.”

“I didn’t think it would get this bad,” Kai confesses, as Dr. Jullien walks over, holding proper bandages and a suture kit. “I have a naturally high body heat, and he can use the wind to regulate his temperature, so I thought we would be able to get out before the storm.”

Dr. Julien looks fascinated, as he gestures for Kai to unwrap the hastily done wrappings. “You both have elemental powers?”

Kai nods, wincing as the doctor cleans out his wound. “Yeah, that's why we are heading to the Monastery of Spinjitzu. Morro has been gone… for a while.”

Zane looks at the sleeping teenager. “Is that why he appears to be so… small?”

Kai can’t help but laugh, “I said the same thing– just don’t ask him when he’s awake. He has a mean right hook.”

Zane looks like he has no idea what to do with that information, but his father stifles a laugh behind his hand, and Morro stirs in his sleep, probably unconsciously getting ready to fight. Kai looks fondly at the scene, and he thinks he can relax when a few machines start to beep, and both of the residents frown.

“It seems like the storm will be going through the night,” Dr. Julien says apologetically, picking up a needle and Kai can’t help the scowl creeping on his face. He doesn’t have time– okay, technically untrue– but he needs to get back.

Zane catches his look and tries to reassure him. “You should be able to leave at dawn. This storm is not as bad as the last one,” He says, and Kai forces himself to take a deep breath and nods.

“Thanks,” He says, forcing himself to smile at his future friend. “I just wanted to get Morro home before he does something stupid.” Like, die.

Dr. Julien finishes patching up Kai, and presses a button, making a wall panel slide open. “Your friend will be fit for traveling short distances if his body warms up by tonight, which it should. I’m sure we can find some more cots. Zane! Come help me,” He calls out, tossing and moving furniture that Kai assumes has been put into storage.

As the two residents look for more bedding, Kai turns to the flames and makes it burn a little more hotter. It’s the least he can do since Dr. Julien has told him that he shouldn't do any physical labor for a few weeks, and it makes him feel slightly better about the predicament he’s found himself in.

After he helps Zane set up cots that surround the fireplace, Dr. Julien starts making dinner, when Kai is rejected from helping out, he sits next to Morro, keeping an eye on his breathing as he waits for the kid to stir awake.

“Whasgoingon,” Morro mumbles an hour later, and Kai puts his hand on the teenager’s head.

“He’s warm– is that good?” He asks, unsure if hypothermia was treated differently than a fever.

Dr. Julien nods, “Very good, it means it’s not getting worse. I’m almost done with the soup, Zane, would you hand me some bowls?”

“Kai?” Morro slurs, trying to sit up, “You’re still here?”

Kai nods, pushing him back down gently, “Unfortunately. How are you feeling?”

Morro frowns, “I’m fine,” he says, forcing himself to sit up again, only to fall backward towards the fireplace. Kai catches him and looks at him with a frown.

“Uh-huh.”

“I am!” Morro tries to look at him convincingly and fails when his stomach growls.

Zane hands the two of them bowls of soup. “When was the last time you ate?” He asks, and Kai and Morro exchange a look.

“Uh, maybe midmorning?” Kai says sheepishly, and Morro nods. Traveling with a person who wasn’t used to eating every day, when you yourself barely remembered to eat, was probably not a good idea, Kai is forced to admit.

Zane stares at them, and Kai thinks he looks a little unimpressed, but maybe he was seeing the nonexistent years of admitting to forgetting to eat at a Zane who was in charge of making sure none of them were dying. 

“Seeing as though it is almost the next day, I would advise you to eat double the amount,” he says, and Kai nods, used to his friend’s mother henning, but Morro looks a little skeptical staring at the bowl.

“Why?”

Zane looks at the teenager, and if his unblinking eyes are making Kai uncomfortable— Kai wonders what Morro is thinking. “Why, what?”

“Why are you being…” He doesn’t finish his sentence, but Kai can guess what he’s thinking.

“There are good people in Ninjago,” He says softly, and Morro glares at him.

“I know that. I just…”

Dr. Julien gives him a small smile, “It’s hard to remember the good when the world can be so cruel,” he says knowingly, and Morro nods, reluctantly.

“My father built me to protect those who cannot protect themselves,” Zane explains, and although Kai has heard that mantra for almost a decade, he feels comforted by those words. Even if Kai managed to change the past so much that he wouldn’t be able to go back, at least he could be reassured that Zane wasn’t going to change his morals and still be the same.

The Nindroid would probably be the only one who wouldn’t change, and wasn’t that a comforting thought? That even if Kai couldn’t get home– He would though, he has to– that Zane wouldn’t change despite everything else. That at least Kai would have someone who resembled his family even if it was just an imitation. Kai shakes himself, he wasn’t staying here. He’s going to get back home.

“You could not protect yourself from the cold, and so we helped protect you,” Zane continues, and Kai smiles, being the only one who could understand the multiple layers that sentence contained.

“Drink your soup,” he nudges Morro softly, who slumped onto Kai’s side, staring at his bowl like it contained the secrets of the world. The kid is still shivering slightly, but Kai supposes begrudgingly, that he’s a better warmth than the actual fireplace behind them.

It’s just that the gesture reminds him of Nya or Lloyd when they’re tired and cold and can’t find any other thing to use as a pillow.

Fuck, He shouldn't be comparing this kid to his siblings.

“So,” Kai clears his throat, as Morro picks up the spoon. “How long have you been here? Living in this really cool fake tree?”

Dr. Julien breaks into a wide grin, “It’s a beauty, isn’t it? I built it oh, about twenty years ago. It’s a remarkable feat of machinery to withstand the elements,” Zane’s father rambles and the four of them fall into easy conversation.

“Kai.”

Lloyd stands before him in the vermillion forest that Kai had seen his brother last in. Kai grins, and jogs over, wrapping Lloyd in a hug.

“Thank the First Master,” he says, pulling back to scan his brother’s face. No injuries, no permanent disfiguration, Kai sighs in relief. “You okay? Did we win? Where is everybody?”

He scans the nearby trees. No sign of the vermilion warriors. Or the other Ninja. 

Lloyd pulls himself out of Kai’s embrace, his face filled with anger. “I can’t believe you,” he says, his voice filled with venom. “I can’t believe that you could do this to me!”

Kai recoils back, “What are you talking about?” He demands.

“You’re with him now! Don’t you know what he did to me?” Lloyd demands, his face slowly turning gaunt and hollow. Kai steps backward. Lloyd looks like he did after… After the possession. They’d had to take him to a hospital, Lloyd was so dehydrated and malnourished that he’d needed an IV for nutrients, but also to make sure the water in his lungs wouldn’t cause Lloyd to drown.

“How could you replace me with him? ” Lloyd screams, tears streaking down his bony cheekbones. “You’re no better than him!” His baby brother screams at him, as his body starts deteriorating, and Kai wants to run to him and reassure Lloyd that is not what he’s doing, but all Kai can do is float and float, until he realizes he’s a ghost.

“I’m supposed to be the Green Ninja,” his mouth says, and Kai realizes in horror that he’s standing in front of Steep Wisdom, facing against the other Ninja.

“It’s supposed to be me,” he snarls, and Kai wants to stop. Wants to stop looking at Lloyd’s haunted face, wants to stop looking at the Ninja’s horror, wants to stop because Nya has fury in her eyes, and all he ever wanted to do was protect them. To keep them all safe. And now they cannot protect themselves from himself.

He hates this. He hates this so much.

“Kai,” Nya says, eyes filled with hate.

“Kai,” Lloyd stares in disgust.

“Kai,” Morro says, quiet and terrified.

That’s when Kai jolts awake, Morro poking Kai nervously. “Are you awake?” Morro whispers so quietly, that Kai has to strain to hear his voice over the howl of wind above them.

Go away, he wants to scream. I am nothing like you. K ai almost does snap at him, but then he remembers where he is, and swallows it back.

His heart is thumping through his chest, and honestly can’t believe Morro can’t hear how loud it is.

“You need to sleep,” He whispers back when he’s awake enough to remember he’s in the past, that Morro hadn’t committed the atrocities that he would one day,  and that Kai would never end up being like him and hurt his family. “You need to be fully rested and ready for tomorrow.”

“Yeah, but the fire’s almost dead, and I’m freezing again.”

“Can’t you restart the fire?” He asks, taking a deep breath. A nightmare, that’s all it was.

In the dark, Kai can see the outline of Morro shaking his head. “I don’t want to wake the others up.”

Kai frowns, “So what do you want me to do about it?”

“Never mind,” Morro mutters, already retreating. “It’s stupid,” he says, and Kai can hear his teeth clicking together, as he shivers in the dark.

Kai thinks, his heart racing as his mind flashes to the nightmare about his brother. As much as he hates to admit it, he’s beginning to realize that he cares about this kid. Even with that admission to himself, he still can’t believe he’s about to do this, when he sits up, and says, “Wait.”

Why me? he bemoans to himself, when he says, “Lay here, it’s easier to relight the fire, I’m tired, and you need to sleep.” He starts mentally yelling at himself when Morro tentatively agrees and curls up next to Kai.

If Morro doesn’t kill him, Lloyd surely will.

Fuck.

Chapter Text

Morning comes quickly enough, and despite the chill in the air, and Kai’s throbbing shoulder, the two of them are ready to leave the forest and get to the monastery as quickly as possible. Zane hands them some food, as Dr. Julien bundles a protesting Morro into something more accurate for the harsh winter weather. Kai watches Morro, amused as the kid eyes him for help, but stays where he is, next to Zane– his arm resting in a sling the doctor had demanded he wear, much to his chagrin.

“Take care. I have a feeling that we will meet again one day,” Kai’s future friend says, smiling at him, and Kai forces himself to grin back.

“We will,” He promises, silently wondering how soon it would be, and hopes to anyone watching over him, that Zane will forget him before the two of them meet again. He would hate to destroy the timeline… Oh, what is he saying? It’s already broken and destroyed, crumbling into pieces with every step he takes. He’s got to stay optimistic, however, so he nods his head in agreement, and his smile becomes a little bit more genuine.

He will come back, Kai quietly promises himself, if he can’t get back to his time. Zane was family and was much more a home than the Monastery could ever be, even if Zane was still…Unhuman. It’s fine, he tries to convince himself, because Kai is going to get back home and Zane will be back to normal.

Morro joins Kai as they say their goodbyes and the two residents wave them off, wishing them luck, and soon they are trekking through the Birchwood Forest once more.

Kai snorts as he looks at Morro, who looks like a puffy marshmallow in the white jacket he’s wearing. “What?” Morro demands, scowling at him, when he notices Kai looking at him.

“You look like a marshmallow,” Kai snickers, “So fluffy and warm, bundled into your coat,” he coos mockingly, and Morro’s face turns murderous. 

“I’m going to kill you,” he threatens, and Kai laughs even more, even if his dreams quietly resurface, twisting his thoughts into something that feels ugly. He does his best to push them away, but still, he can’t help but feel the guilt bubble through him.

“How? You gonna smother me in my sleep?” Kai brushes a loose tear from his face, as he cackles even harder. Something cold hits his face, and he looks up preparing for an attacker, hand clenching for a sword that is still not there.

Morro is clumping another ball of snow together, and aiming directly at his face, smirking dangerously, “Keep talking,” he warns dangerously, and launches another snowball.

Kai dodges it, quickly losing his battle-readiness, and hurries to grab a fistful of snow, “Oh, it is so on, fluffy boy,” he declares, as he hits his target square in the nose.

The next few minutes are full of snow and laughter, and Kai only halts the fight to make sure Morro isn’t going to freeze again after being pelted with so many snowballs– because Kai totally won.

Morro’s fine, finally listening to Kai and regulating his temperature, but Kai probably shouldn’t be making it worse, if they are already so delayed in their journey to get to the monastery. That thought sobers Kai up, and the two eat their lunch, jerky sandwiches, in comfortable silence.

Now that he was bringing Morro back to the monastery, would his present be the same? Well besides Zane knowing he was before they ever met– Kai remembers that his memory switch had been turned off when they had originally met. Maybe things wouldn’t be too catastrophic– and Morro hopefully would not be dying any time soon. He thinks so.

Well, except Morro wouldn’t possess Lloyd, (again, hopefully) but most of his experiences of being a ninja should stay the same. It’s not like he killed Lord Garmadon, Kai thinks, trying to see the bright side. As long as he didn’t tell anyone who he was, and then swore Morro to absolute secrecy about his arrival to the past, then maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to get back to his timeline.

But if not, would he be stuck here? Stuck in a time when his parents were younger than him and everything was completely different?

A place where he would never try Cole’s nasty cooking, hear Jay’s blabbering, sit through Lloyd’s extremely long rants about different comic books, force himself to stay awake to keep Nya company after she ignored his demands for her to sleep?

He has to go back. He doesn’t think he could live without his family, alone in the past where they weren’t even born.

“Who's Lloyd?” Morro asks suddenly, a few minutes after wrapping up their meal, and Kai stiffens, his blood running cold and his mind flooding with panic.

“What?” He says slowly, spinning around to scowl at the Master of Wind. “Where did you hear that name?” He demands with a hiss, his fist, the one not in the sling, bursts into flames, his heart suddenly running erratically and frantic. Morro throws his hands up in defense, his eyes wide in innocence. It means nothing to Kai, not when he’s on the verge of something dangerous. Morro doesn’t deserve to even say Lloyd’s name, let alone ask who he is.

“You were mumbling that name in your sleep,” He says nervously, taking a few steps back despite Kai not moving an inch. 

That confession allows Kai to force air back into his lungs, and the flames in his hands die out, as he looks carefully at the teenager in front of him. “Yeah?”

Morro nods back, looking at him with a myriad of emotions on his face. The biggest one is confusion, followed by uncertainty. “You kept saying ‘I’m not like him, Lloyd.’” Morro repeats, and Kai’s heart comes to a stuttering halt.

It was one thing to dream about becoming like Morro, it was another to have Morro parrot Kai’s promise to not become like Morro, back to Kai. Especially one that isn’t done in mocking tones, but in one that sounds quiet and confused.

Kai shrugs, forcing himself to loosen up his shoulders and to take another breath, as he turns back around, “Just a bad nightmare, I guess.”

“So who is he?” Morro asks, catching up with Kai’s purposefully long strides. “One of your friends?”

Kai bites his tongue, he does not like where this conversation is going– not at all. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“He’s a Ninja?” Morro asks curiously.

“Why are you so curious?” Kai snaps, but Morro doesn’t back down.

“It’s the future, duh. And you can tell me because I’m dead. So it won’t matter, right?”

Kai hums his agreement but focuses more on the path than the teenager next to him. He doesn’t think that he can meet Morro’s eyes without anger consuming him. All notions of sympathy for this kid are slowly evaporating into indifference and Kai is relieved. The past few days have been a momentary lapse of weakness. He doesn’t want to think fondly of someone who has hurt his brother so badly.

“So…”

“So, what?” Kai huffs out, irritated.

“Are you going to tell me about what you were doing before you came here? I wanted to ask yesterday, but you were bleeding out and didn’t think it was the best time,” Morro explains, looking at him sheepishly, seemingly recovering pretty quickly from what just happened.

“You’re doing a great job,” Kai drawls out, and Morro shoves him lightly.

“Shut up.” 

Kai forces his fists to remain unclenched.

They walk out of the forest and find themselves in a bustling village. At least this one doesn’t seem to be anti-Ninja, a few pedestrians even smile towards them in greeting as they pass. “You’re also avoiding the question,” Morro says, shrugging off the puffy jacket, and shoving it inside of the bag.

“No, I’m not,” Kai says back automatically, before biting his lip and forcing himself into the crowd of people. It’s not as dense as the last village, but it’s still a decent amount of people milling around, buying things from the stalls, or stumbling out of taverns, despite it only being the afternoon.

“Yes, you are,” Morro catches up to him and responds just as easily.

“You know what?” Kai says turning to Morro, desperate to change the subject completely. “I need a sword. Hand me the money you stole from those people you beat up,” He says, impatiently holding out his hand.

“Oh come on!” Morro throws his hands in the air, before digging his arm into his bag to get the money purse, as Kai pushes through the crowd, looking for a weapons shop. “You can’t just ignore me like that!”

“Watch me, Marshmallow boy,” He calls back and chuckles despite himself when Morro splutters in disbelief behind him.

“I took it off!”

Morro pouts the whole way to the local blacksmith shop, and Kai buys a decent katana, while Morro purchases a few knives with some of the money Dr. Julien had given him. That man was too nice– it was a shame to know what would happen in the future, and not be able to warn them in advance.

Morro and Kai split up for supplies after Kai made sure that Morro wasn’t going to start another fight, only for Morro to roll his eyes and stalk away with a grumble. Kai reminds himself that Morro is still a kid, and as much as Kai can hate who he will become, he can’t exactly hate the kid for stuff he hasn’t done yet. So he takes a deep breath, reorientates himself, and lets out his anger. 

A few hours later, they walk out of the village, Kai feeling a lot safer with his new sword, and Morro trailing behind him holding a grape lollipop. Did Kai give Morro an apology treat so he would stop sulking? 

Yes. Yes, he did.

Did it help? Also yes. 

Morro is such a kid sometimes, and Kai idly wonders how he’ll ever become a terrifying ghost general who terrorized and almost destroyed Ninjago.

“So we have a day’s worth of travel left,” Kai says, recognizing the mountain range in front of them. “Maybe two, if we stop in Jumanakai village for the night.”

“Okay, then what?” Morro asks, and Kai can’t tell if he’s being serious or not.

“...Then we talk to Wu and he gets me home,” Kai says slowly, and Morro rolls his eyes.

“What if he can’t?”

Kai frowns, “Then I guess I’ll go to Ninjago city and see if Mystaké has some sort of tea or something,” He says, putting that plan as a last resort. He really doesn’t like interacting with that lady– she’s unnerving as heck, and always seems to look super annoyed with the people who enter her shop.

What about the realm crystal? Kai wonders, but almost immediately dismisses it. He doesn’t want that thing anywhere near Morro for obvious reasons, and besides, it would create a portal to another dimension, not take him into the future. 

“If nothing else works, I guess…” Oh hell no. Kai can’t even believe he’s thinking about it, but says it anyway, “Maybe here in this time, Krux and Acronix could help?” Yeah no, as soon as it comes out of his mouth, he knows it will never work. Bad, bad, very bad idea.

Morro frowns, “Didn’t you say that they put you here?”

Kai nods, “Yeah, sorry, it’s a bad idea, I don’t need them to throw me into a random place in time, so I really am out of the way, now and in my present time.”

“Why exactly do they want you out of the way?”

Kai casts a look at the teenager, who looks at him with furrowed eyes. He shrugs, “Without giving too much away, the twins wanted to take over Ninjago, something that happens right after the war I think, but they failed and then came back to enact revenge and try again. We were about to win when Krux dropped me here,” He finishes, pretty sure he did a decent job of keeping everything simple and understandable. He’s not going to talk about pretending to be his dad or fighting the twins in the past– or the future considering where he was right now.

Morro shakes his head, “I just can’t believe they’d do that. I’m guessing the war that’s threatening Ninjago right now is over for you, so who else have you fought?  Or is it just the Great Devourer and Krux and Acronix?”

Kai, despite his best efforts, laughs hard at that. “First Master, you’d better ask who we haven’t fought,” He dissolves into snickers, as Morro’s eyes widen.

“Huh? Are there a lot of people who are evil in the future? What do they even want?” Morro looks genuinely baffled, and Kai can only laugh harder, using his good arm to clutch his chest as he doubles over. “Kai!” Morro exclaims, a few minutes later, looking understandably annoyed. 

“Sorry, sorry, it’s just… your question is a lot more funnier than you probably think it is,” Kai says, his hysteria slowly coming down. It’s better than showing his complete disbelief that Morro was asking why people were evil, even if Morro at this point in time didn’t understand how his question was so funny.

“I gathered as much,” The kid says dryly, and Kai shakes himself to answer the question Morro had asked, so innocently .

“Most villains just want to, y’know, take over Ninjago, or maybe bring a doomsday and cause havoc,” Kai says a little pointedly to Morro, even if it is undeserving. “Usually it’s so they can be the most powerful being in the realm, or if not it’s… so that they can turn themselves and their cult into a snake, yeah that was a weird time,” Kai pauses, before looking at his companion with a shrug. “The list goes on,” He thinks, tapping his finger on his chin– he doesn’t think he forgot anyone.

“But it’s our job as Ninja to stop them and keep Ninjago safe,” Kai finishes and watches in amusement as Morro picks up his slacked jaw. 

“And just how long have you been doing this?” He asks, looking a little over his head, and Kai lets out a loose laugh. “Dunno kid, I might have lost count a while back.”

“How does Ninjago get this bad?” Morro asks in wonder, and Kai bites his mouth to keep him from responding. How to say that it only took for the serpentine to get released from their tombs to start a domino effect of every bad thing to happen in the last decade?

“Let’s just say that I really need to get back so that we at least have a Ninjago to look back on,” Kai says, his mind flashing to the practically indestructible Vermillion warriors, and Morro looks like he doesn’t know if he should laugh or not. They walk a few moments in silence, but Kai can just tell the kid wants to ask the question looming over both of their heads.

Will he ever get back?

He sighs and gives up pretending. “Listen, I don’t know for sure if I can get back home, but as long as I think it’s possible, then it’s possible. If I lose hope, then it’s already too late.”

Morro rolls his eyes, “Wu teach you that?” He asks bitterly, and Kai flicks his eyes towards the kid.

“So what if he did?” 

The kid shrugs, eyes downcast, arms wrapped around his thin frame, nervously. “You okay?” Kai asks, hating himself for getting worried if he misspoke or something. He shouldn’t care. But he does, and there really isn’t anything Kai can do about it.

Morro clears his throat, and shakes his head, seemingly getting out of his head. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“… But?” Kai prompts.

“It’s just— I get that you have a family to get back to,” Morro bursts out, “And that you need to protect Ninjago, I get that, I do. But… You're the one person I know who doesn’t expect me to be anything. I can just be me,” Morro admits, and Kai winces.

It’s a lie. Kai does expect Morro to be something. A villain who hurt his little brother without remorse. And even if that’s not who Morro is now, it’s what he will be.

“Is it such a bad thing if you didn’t leave?” Morro asks quietly, oblivious to Kai’s thoughts before he flinches and looks at Kai apologetically “Sorry I didn’t mean it like that.”

Kai huffs, turning back around, forcing the two of them to continue to walk once more. “Yes, you did.” He doesn’t look back at Morro, his thoughts are too heavy for that, but the kid’s silence says it for him. “Listen, I’m going to be real with you, there is a lot that I could change if I stayed here,” Kai says carefully.

He’s right before the Serpentine War, and if the serpents were never entombed, then they wouldn’t want to enact revenge on Ninjago. Meaning no Great Devourer, none of the Stone Warriors waking up, and no Overlord rising.

Meaning no Golden Ninja. Lloyd could have had a normal childhood.

Kai could stop Krux now before the man took his parents. He and Nya could have a normal childhood.

Kai could change all of it. All he had to do was stay.

But, and he thinks he’s self-aware enough to know this about himself, Kai is selfish.

He didn’t want to be surrounded by younger versions of his family. He wanted his family to be how they were, with scars and all the traumatic memories included. What made his family cry, what made them happy. Things that made them, them .

But if he changed the past he would never get them back. Never go back to a time when they had gone through so much that they knew each other like the back of their hands. The loyal part of him is filled with self-loathing– he has the opportunity to fix things, and make everything better, all in the cusp of his hand. 

He shouldn’t– couldn’t – be selfish, not for this.

His family would be safe and happy and never know the horrors that Kai went through, but then Kai would be alone. Alone in a world where only he would know what it could have been.

He doesn’t want that. Nobody would.

“But I just don’t want to be alone,” he whispers to himself.

“Being alone isn’t that bad,” Morro dismisses, jolting Kai out of his thoughts.

“Yeah? How’s it been working out for you?” He smirks, in the kid’s direction, forcing himself to be lighthearted, and Morro rolls his eyes, still looking defiant.

“Oh come on, how great can these people be? You could change time itself and you won’t because of them?” He asks, and Kai bristles.

“They’re amazing people,” He snaps at Morro, who grins like he’s won something.

“Oh yeah? Prove it, and tell me how amazing they are,” He says obnoxious and annoying, and Kai realizes he’s been had.

“Nice try, kid,” he snorts, and Morro’s face falls.

“Oh, come on, Why won’t you say anything?” Morro scowls and Kai thinks that’s when his patience starts to run out.

“Maybe because I don’t want to?”

“Are you scared of something? Is that why you won’t say anything?”

Terrified, Kai corrects inside his mind, but out loud all he says is, “No, it’s just not any of your business.”

“I think that’s stupid.”

“Great. Keep thinking that then.”

“So you’re scared.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Uh-huh. Real convincing, scaredy cat.”

“I’m not going to tell you anything.”

“Fine.”

“Really?” Kai asks skeptically, raising an eyebrow.

“Nope. Tell me about Lloyd?”

He sees fire. That’s the final straw.

“What is your deal?” He explodes, whirling back around to face the kid.

Morro glares back, “You’re hiding something,” he accuses. “And it’s important, isn’t it?”’

“Why do you care so much about this? None of it is important right now!” Kai demands, and Morro crosses his arms.

“Every time I ask you anything about where you came from, or about anybody like Lloyd–” Morro falters, his eyes wide as he stares at Kai. Kai stares back, his heart thudding in his chest.

Don’t say it, don’t think it, he mentally pleads, but it seems no one seems to hear his prayers.

“He’s the Green Ninja isn’t he?” Morro breathes out, his eyes wide with realization. “That’s why you didn’t want to tell me. Because I’d try to help him with his destiny? I still think it’s stupid that I can’t by the way, I mean…” He falters, looking at Kai, who has stopped, feeling cold all over. 

No! He wants to deny, and frantically get Lloyd’s name out of Morro’s mind. But as he grips his sword, when did he grab his sword, Kai stares at Morro who seems to have stopped talking and now is just waiting.

Just waiting.

Waiting to see what Kai will do.

What will Kai do?

Say what Morro will do in the future? Spill out every ugly, horrible, painful truth? Tell Morro how much Kai has despised him because of what he has done to his family?

Morro doesn’t deserve that. Not yet. Probably not ever, if Kai stays stuck in the past.

But if Kai doesn’t say anything, then Lloyd will suffer. And then it truly will be Kai’s fault. Because he has the opportunity to say something. He has the opportunity to prevent it all.

All he has to do is say what happens. And nothing will happen.

At least he hopes.

So Kai lets go of his sword, lets go of the fear that Morro now knows exactly who the Green Ninja is, knows exactly where to find him in the future, and knows that he is Kai’s brother, and there would be no way for Kai to stop him if Morro stayed the same as the original timeline.

“Yes,” Kai says, a bitter thing to spit out, but maybe, just maybe, he thinks that everything will be okay. “He’s the Green Ninja, but that’s not why I didn’t say anything. It’s a lot to take in and you have to promise me that no matter what I tell you, we are still going to go to Wu.”

“Why?” Morro asks skeptically. “How bad could it be?”

“It’s bad,” Kai says grimly, “Very bad.”

“You'll tell me everything I want to know about the future?” Morro asks for confirmation, and Kai nods, taking a deep breath in, and exhaling slowly.

“I’m going to tell you everything, and you’ll only be able to blame yourself when you can’t handle it,” he warns the kid, even though Kai has made up his mind. Protecting Lloyd and the rest of his family was more important than all of this, he convinces himself. It has to be.

“I can do this!” Morro crosses his arms, looking at him defiantly, “Whatever it is, I can take it.”

No, Kai thinks sadly. No, you can’t.

“Fine,” He says instead, his heart simultaneously feeling heavy as a rock and light as a feather. “Let me tell you about Wu’s second retirement plan and a call to Ninjago City’s museum.”

Chapter Text

“You’re going to die looking for the tomb of the First Spinjitzu Master in the Caves of Despair.”

The more Kai talks, the more grief overwhelms him. 

Morro doesn’t really deserve this. He doesn’t deserve to know that he’s going to die soon, doesn’t need to know that Kai only knows him as a ghost.

But as Kai continues, his voice becomes more bitter, more angry. His anger isn't aimed at the kid who is hanging onto his every word with abject horror, but at what he will become. Morro can’t tell the difference though, but Kai doesn’t dare to stop his story to reassure him otherwise. If Kai stops, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to continue.

“You end up in the Cursed Realm for forty years before escaping as a ghost.”

He talks about Steep Wisdom, how Lloyd was mourning his father, how Kai was trying so hard to make Lloyd know that he still had someone he could lean on. Garmadon was gone, and Misako and Wu were drowning in their grief by starting the tea shop, which forced the task to drop onto Kai’s shoulders.

The other Ninja tried to help of course, but Lloyd was Kai’s responsibility. After all, he had been the one to realize that Lloyd was the Green Ninja in the first place. He’d kickstarted Lloyd’s descent into abrupt adulthood to fulfill a destiny that he had once been jealous of, until Kai had seen the horrifics behind it, and the jealousy had swiftly been replaced by lingering guilt and shame. Lloyd deserved to have a childhood, and because of Kai, he would never get one.

“You… possessed my little brother.”

It’s a very hard thing to choke the words out of his mouth. It can’t even be considered therapeutic, because it hurts both of them. Kai sees Morro mouthing, “Me?” Like he can’t believe that this is who he will become.

But Kai cannot stop, will not. Not until Morro knows what awaits him if he doesn’t change now. Because if he can’t now, there won’t be any time later on.

“You attacked Ninjago– innocent people.”

Painful memories that may not be fresh, but still technically recent, flow out of Kai’s mouth, and even though he is filled with ever-present remorse, he finds himself becoming calmer, unburdening himself from his past, despite the fact  Morro is turning the opposite, frozen into place as Kai’s words spill into the world around them. The more he talks, the more the heaviness in his body lessens– something he hadn’t realized was weighing him down. He guesses that talking out his feelings really does work– not that he’ll ever admit it to Jay.

Kai barely gets to the Cloud Kingdom part before Morro is looking at him, wild-eyed in a horrified stupor. He keeps talking.

Wu’s anguish over his dead student, Cole becoming a ghost, Nya forced into becoming the Water Ninja– while it might fly over Morro’s head, it helps Kai realize just how badly everything had been only a few months ago. And it was all the cause of the person in front of him.

“Lloyd was barely alive when we got him back.”

He brushes over the location of the Realm Crystal, instead spilling the details of Lloyd’s injuries. It hadn’t been pretty, and Kai could remember pacing that hospital room, silently begging for Lloyd to live, while Morro had caused havoc in Stixx.

Then as soon as Lloyd had been cleared from the hospital, they raced to the other side of Ninjago to stop the Preeminent, not even allowing a moment of peaceful recovery before jumping into the midst of battle. Kai mourns for the people killed by the ghosts, for Sensei Garmadon still trapped by the Preeminent, and for all the people lost because of Morro’s hand.

“Then you died. Sensei Wu tried to save you, tried to give you another chance. You didn’t take it.”

While Kai could only feel relief that Morro hadn’t taken Wu’s hand (How could he? Lloyd could barely function on his own for weeks after), it had been hard for Wu. He’d shown a good front for the people of Stixx and for Lloyd, but Kai had seen the pain in Wu’s eyes.

Kai could only guess what was going through his teacher’s head. Guilt for letting Morro get this far, shame because he had filled a child’s head with false promises, sorrow because Morro was dead for the second time. Kai then could only guess, but now, staring at Morro before all of that, he thinks that if he were in Wu’s position he would be filled with anguish.

How could this kid, desperate for a home without strings, desperate to find a family, desperate to be validated, fall so far because of his own doing? Kai’s honestly surprised Wu managed to stay upright after everything.

“You came back as a ghost during the Day of the Departed and helped us save Cole. You redeemed yourself to Wu. I think you finally were at peace.”

By the time Kai finishes, Morro looks like a ghost– it would be funny if he didn’t already know what the kid looked like as one.

It’s silent for a while, Kai’s throat hurts from speaking, and he’s busy watching Morro’s face turn pale and fearful. “Why?” Morro chokes out, backing away from Kai, shaking like a leaf. “Why did you… You could have left me at any time. I hurt you. Your brother. Why do you even stay around me?”

Those words cut at Kai, and he can only give a small smile back, “You can change what you become Morro. If you accept that your destiny isn’t to be the Green Ninja, then none of it will ever happen.”

“But I did do it. And you’ll always remember that” Morro whispers, “And you still want to go back?” His voice hitches, and Kai frowns. “You want to go back to where all I did was hurt you and your family?”

“Morro…” Kai starts, unsure of why he sounds apologetic, but Morro’s shaking his head, unshed tears filling his eyes.

“So why did you stay with me when you hated me?” He shouts, air picking up around them, “Just so I wouldn’t hurt your family? Is that it?” He demands, his voice filled with betrayal as he harshly scrubs his face. “I don’t– I can’t…” Words cut off, as the kid starts hyperventilating.

“Morro, you gotta breathe,” Kai frantically suggests, unable to do anything more since Morro’s floating midair and shaking too violently to hear him.

He stands there helplessly waiting for the kid to gather his thoughts, but in a burst of wind, Morro runs away from him, going farther into the woods. Kai curses before sprinting after him. 

“Wait!”

“No!” Morro screams back. “Leave me alone!”

“I’m not!” Kai yells back. “I won’t!”

Morro whips around, full of fury despite the tear streaks on his face. “Why not? You were just using me this entire time. I thought you were my friend!”

That makes Kai pause for a slight second, letting Morro escape his sight. “I wouldn’t exactly say we were friends,” he mutters under his breath as he resumes his chase. First Master, Morro fast.

“I wasn’t using you,” Kai yells out into the trees, silently hoping the Morro is somewhere near. “I am trying to help you! You’re like how I used to be, and I know the feeling of wanting to be great and powerful. The path that you went on wasn’t going to help you in any way but I can help you, Morro. You can still change for the better, and be better. I promise,” He says, heaving for breath, wondering when he became genuine about helping Morro.

Yeah, he kept telling himself it was for Lloyd’s benefit, but if that had been the case, Kai should have taken one look at Morro when he first landed in the past and throttled him back to the Departed Realm (Which would be counterproductive, since Morro would probably be sent to the Cursed Realm again, but the point still stands).

He starts to slow down when he starts to hear sniffling and quiet gasps of air, and only a minute later, he finds Morro curled into a ball on a large branch, high up in the air.

Is Kai going to climb the tree? Ugh, yes he is.

“Kid,” He groans when he finally makes it up to Morro. “The things I do for you,” He sighs, slumping on the branch, his stabbed arm throbbing in distress. Kai ignores it, just happy he didn’t manage to pull out the stitches. Something tells him Dr. Julien wouldn’t be too happy about that.

“Why don’t you hate me?” Morro asks quietly, his voice watery and muffled from his head being buried in his knees, and Kai pauses from trying to balance himself on a branch that can hold his weight. “All that I did, or will do…I hate me right now.”

Kai looks at Morro, and considers reaching out, but just shakes his head. “I can’t hate you because you haven’t done anything yet. I hate what you could potentially become, but I think that by knowing what you know now… you’re not going to do any of that,” He says gently, and Morro lifts his head to look at him.

His cheeks are streaked and his nose is red– and for a second, Kai wants to pull out the marshmallow jacket and bundle it around Morro, because the air was cold up here in the tree and Morro wasn’t fully recovered from yesterday. Maybe the snowball fight wasn’t the best thing they should have done, Kai admits to himself, as he frowns at Morro.

“I mean it, in the past couple of days you’ve become something better– you helped save the village from the Fangpyre– I’m pretty sure that the version of you in my timeline would have never done that,” he says, biting his lip when Morro flinches.

“And I still wouldn’t have,” Morro protests, staring at the ground helplessly. “I was just following you. Just like if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be going back to Wu. Or giving up the Green Ninja,” he shrugs, looking defeated as he faces Kai. “That was all you.”

Kai snorts, “You could have left at any time if you really didn’t want to do any of that.”

“You said it yourself, I’m not the person who’s willing to sacrifice everything for Ninjago, not even my time to help a village. I’m not a good person, let alone a good Ninja,” Morro spits out, looking angry at himself. “I thought that if I knew who the Green Ninja was, that I could…I don’t know, redeem myself, maybe? But what you said about your brother…I get why you didn’t want to tell me. All I do is ruin things,” he whispers, looking smaller than possible.

Kai is silent, his mind is blank but his heart feels a mixture of emotions that he can’t exactly place.

He wants to open his mouth and impart a wise tidbit of knowledge that would make Wu proud, but all he has bouncing in his head is that they really need to see a fucking therapist. Kai isn’t qualified to unpack all of what he’s just heard and frankly doesn’t want to.

But instincts take over, thankfully, and Kai reaches across the branches, and tugs Morro into a tight embrace. It’s awkward and slightly uncomfortable (Side note: Never have emotional conversations on tree branches, it hurts like hell. (Or maybe that was just his shoulder)) and Kai doesn’t exactly know how it got to this point that hugging Morro feels alright enough that Nya isn’t screaming at him in his head for being an idiot.

The kid sinks into Kai’s arms, a choked sob coming out of him, and Kai hums soothingly, mentally apologizing to his entire family, friends, and co-workers. Yes, it was the same six people for each category, but he owes them this, at the very least, since he doesn’t regret hugging Morro enough to pull away. 

“You haven’t ruined things,” Kai reassures Morro quietly, after a few minutes have passed, and the kid’s gotten the most of it out of his system, “You just need someone to help guide you in the right direction, but I’m going to be honest, let’s not have it be Wu.”

“Who then?” Morro asks wetly, pulling away abruptly to wipe his tears with his sleeves. “You’re going back to your timeline, and I don’t exactly have a lot of people that don’t expect me to be perfect,” He frowns bitterly, and Kai sighs, ignoring his stab of guilt for leaving Morro on his own. He shouldn’t feel guilty about that, not when there were so many other things that he could be guilty about.

“You just proved my point. For now, let’s avoid Wu for expectations and self-goals,” Kai chuckles lightheartedly, before pausing to think. “I don’t know, I’ve always had the other Ninja to help point me in the right direction. Do you have anyone like that?” Kai tosses out, and Morro shakes his head.

“All the other Elemental Masters are older than me or they don’t like me. I- Uhm, was a little– okay, a lot– harsh on them because I thought that if I trained hard enough, I’d–”

“Become the Green Ninja,” Kai finishes, looking at him pointedly, and Morro turns his face away, looking red. “Yeah. So how about we fix those relationships first? Make friends, that helps a lot,” Kai advises, “You’ll feel less isolated and you can rely on them if you ever feel yourself going…evil. Which, again, I don’t think is going to happen, but it’s a just-in-case.”

Morro nods, “Okay,” he whispers. “Make friends. Then what?”

Kai shrugs, “Dunno. Maybe you could talk to Zane– he always has good ideas, and you could help him figure out his elemental powers! Maybe by then, I’ll be alive and crawling around to annoy you,” he smirks when Morro wrinkles his nose.

“I can’t see you as a baby,” Morro laughs quietly. “It’s so weird that I’m technically older than you.”

“You’re telling me,” Kai smiles back, stretching his legs into the air as he shakes his head. “When I go back to my timeline, do you think you would be an old man? Shouting cryptic advice at your students, like Wu does?”

Morro’s eyes widen, as he stares at Kai in horror. “Never,” he vows, and Kai bursts into laughter.

“Oh man, I wanna see your beard. I bet it’ll be longer than his by at least a few feet,” He laughs louder, when Morro, face no longer wet, looks at him indignantly, shouts something, and tackles him without warning. 

Out of the tree. 

Seriously?

Kai doesn’t have time to flail about before Morro catches them both in the wind and lands them on the ground, the kid sprouting apologies with reckless abandon.

“Woah, kid, it's okay,” Kai raises his arms to stop the stream of words and rubs his sore arm gently. “It’s fine, no harm done.”

“Are you sure?” Morro asks, not believing him. “Your shoulder isn’t bleeding again, is it?”

“Nope,” Kai says, shaking his head. But as he does so, he catches sight of something metal under a few leaves in the peripheral of his vision. He frowns, ignoring everything else, and walks forward to brush away the foliage, his breath hitches, and all thoughts flee him as he stares at the shiny chronosteel metal.

“Was that there a few minutes ago?” He points to the familiar claw-looking weapon, as Morro approaches, looking at it curiously.

The kid shakes his head, eyeing it with interest. “No. Why, what is it?”

“It’s a fucking timeblade,” Kai laughs, his voice shaky in hysteria, as he delicately scoops up the blade, and examines the weapon in his hands. It looks inactive, but he can see a green sheen over the larger claws. He’s pretty sure that the green blade was able to go into the future since his dad and Wu had been hit by the same blade and they had become super old.

But how did it get here? Shouldn’t it be on the Iron Doom? Kai brushes the thought away, now wasn’t the time, he’ll think about it later.

“It looks weird,” Morro comments, sounding unsure of himself, and Kai snorts with a nod, still staring at it, his chest filled with so much hope.  

“I can go back,” He realizes with glee. “I can go home.”

“With that?” Morro asks skeptically, and Kai turns towards him with a nod, catching Morro’s face fall for a brief second.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure this is the blade that can go into the future,” Kai says, “It turned Wu super old, so if this fails, prepare for me to turn into an old man,” He snickers when Morro whips his head to glare at him.

“You’re doing it now?” He demands, looking slightly hurt and panicked. “Are you actually saying goodbye, right now?” 

Kai shrugs, staring back at the Timeblade.

He could leave.

He should leave.

The power to get back home literally in his hands, and the desire to save his sister, his team, Ninjago from the Time Twins overwhelmed him. He needs to get back home, he has to. He is needed in his present, and once the twins are dealt with, he still has to figure out how to deal with his parents. The past is just that– the past. It doesn’t need Kai the way the present does.

Although… he’s promised Morro that they’d go back to the Monastery and talk to Wu. He wants to make sure that the kid doesn’t go crazy on power or turn into a ghost before his time. Maybe he could change a few more things for the better, even if it could be a potentially bad thing if he’s not careful. He could stop the Serpentine war, and their entrapment into the tombs. 

But that means he’ll never go home as he knows it. He’ll be surrounded by younger versions of his family and friends, always a distant older figure for them, rather than someone that they know like the back of their hands. He’ll be a mentor, a teacher, a guide, but he’ll never be a brother. Not to them.

Is making Ninjago a better place worth it, even if it’ll never be home for him again?

Kai makes a decision.

And Ninjago will be all the better for it.