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Chapter Text

Kai had just woken up, his body aching from last night's late mission. He intended to go get a drink of water as quickly as possible and then go back to his room to sleep some more before being dragged out by his sister.

As soon as he entered the kitchen, he tripped over something. The object made a chokied sound, startling him. Kai placed his hand on the door to steady himself, eyes narrowing in confusion when he saw a child curled up in a fetal position at his feet.

The child groaned and hiccuped. Kai quickly bent down and picked him up, moving his face to the crook of he neck and loosening the green gi that was tightly wrapped around him. Wait, green gi??

Another loud noise made him completely awake. Kai turned his eyes towards the source of the sound and discovered a round mass in black gi shaking next to the fallen chair. He instinctively rushed forward, knelt down, pushed the chair out, and pulled the black cloth away from the child's face. Kai could recognize who this child was.

"Cole?" The child's face was wet with tears, his big round eyes looked up at Kai, making him worried. There was a small bruise on the child's forehead. Kai used gi to wipe his tears. He wanted to pick the boy up with both hands, but because he was holding the child like LIoyd, he tried to be careful with his other hand. Slide he hand under the child's armpit and help him stand up.

"Okay, I got you, little guy." Kai put the child's face on his shoulder and brought him to his hand. The child sniffled into his shoulder, clinging securely to Kai's neck. The blonde baby on the other side had also stopped crying, he snorted leaning against Kai's chest.

Kai would have been lost in all this cuteness if he hadn't seen a confused little Nindroid standing on the kitchen counter, looking worriedly at the two kids in his arms.

He frowned, blinked and gently asked: "What are you doing up there, sweetheart?"

The little Nindroid looked up at him, its mechanical voice speaking hesitantly: "C-Cole said he wanted a drink of water."

Well. Now two questions have been answered.

Kai pretended like he wasn't panicking and spoke gently to the boy. "I can get it for him later, now please get down, it's very dangerous up there."

The child nodded hesitantly at him.

"Wait there." Kai reminded, using his foot to pull the chair next to the kitchen counter. “Okay, you can come down.”

The Nindroid looked at him confused but obeyed and climbed down from the chair. Kai praised the boy, "That's right, well done." he watched the child jump from the chair and then continued praising. "Very good."

The boy shyly bowed his head. Kai chuckled at the boy's reaction.

Another sound of breaking things broke his smile.

Kai picked up the two children and rushed out with Zane following. So bad, very bad. The furniture was broken and was being blown around the room by the wind. Morro laughed hysterically at the whirlwind, while Pixal panicked and angrily ran after the boy.

Nya sat on the floor, pressing the remote control haphazardly and laughing every time she saw the TV transition. Jay lay on the couch, in a pile of pillows, sleeping.

And Master Wu? He just calmly drank tea.

"What the hell is happening here????????" Kai with a face mixed between panic and confusion shouted over the noisy wind.

Pixal stopped, almost wanting to cry if she weren't a Nindroid. "Kai, help me!"

"How??"

"Stop Morro!!"

"But how?!"

"I don't know!!"

Screaming didn't work either, Kai groaned. "Oh FSM." He tried to calm down and said to Cole in his arms, "Cole, keep eyes on LIoyd for a bit, okay?"

Cole snorted, red eyes looking at him and nodded. Kai wanted to stroke this child's hair.

"Good." he said, lowering Cole down next to Zane.

Lifting LIoyd with both hands in front of him, Kai gently spoke to the still sniffling boy. "Wait me a minute, okay?" He smiled with those big, blinking green eyes and handed the boy into Cole's hands.

Alright, now let's get this out of the way.

Kai took a breath and looked up at the ceiling, where Morro flew up in a crazy whirlwind, all the furniture in the monastery wrapped around him. Oh my FSM, this child...

"Zane, come here." Zane looked up at him, following Kai with small feet.

"Nya." He called. Nya turned to him from the TV, a lovely smile appeared on her face when she saw her brother calling. Kai swore he almost had a heart attack with that innocent smile.

"Can you help your big brother a little bit?" Kai bent down in front of his sister. Nya nodded at him immediately. Kai smiled, great.

He picked her up from the mat, pointed at Morro and guidance, "Focus on him." Kai raised his sister's hand. "Imagine you could shoot water at him." The girl looked confused, she turned to her brother with a worried face.

Kai chuckled, "Don't worry." he closed his eyes and spoke softly. "Feel the water in your body, imagine it's a part of you." Nya blinked, she listened to her brother's words and hesitantly closed her eyes.

"Let it move through your body." Kai stopped for a moment to look at Zane. Zane blinked, confused, he bent down to imitate Nya. Kai smiled and continued to guide the two children. "And let it guide you..."

The wind blew in their ears, Kai breathed out, focusing completely on the sound of the wind.

"Nya!"

Nya shot water at Morro, causing the boy to stop in surprise, "Now, Zane!" he put Nya down.

Next Zane shot ice, Morro let out a panicked sound as he froze and fell. Kai ran to grab the child, quickly using his hot hands to melt the ice on the boy's body. "Got you, kid."

Morro trembled, glaring at him, his teeth chattering and his hair soaking wet.

"You broke quite a lot." Kai looked back provocatively, his hands increasing the temperature to dry the child's body, pondering later on the still damp green-black gi. Maybe these kids need new clothes.

First of all, what happened to his brothers and sister? Why are they all children now?

"Good job Kai."

"Master Wu!" Kai now remembered that this room still had Master Wu. He held Morro who was trembling and resisting and pointed at the remaining Ninja. "What's wrong with them?"

"They drank my tea by mistake." Master Wu answered calmly and took another sip of tea.

"Do you have that kind of tea??" Kai held back his surprised voice, he didn't want to wake Jay who was starting to stir on the couch.

"Yes, I just found that type of tea." Wu replied.

"How could they take it by mistake?"

"I don't know."

"Master Wu?"

Master Wu shrugged. Kai groaned again, almost wanting to bang his head against the wall or curse if he could.

"So-" he sat down on the couch, letting Morro sit on his lap and ran a warm hand through the child's hair to dry it. "When will they be normal again?"

Morro shook his body uncomfortably, but when his back was pressed against the red ninja, the boy stopped, letting Kai run his hands through his damp hair with an unwilling pout. Kai would laugh at it if he noticed.

Master Wu stroked his beard in thought and then turned his eyes towards the ninjas. "Seven days."

"Seven days?!"

"A week??"

Both Pixal and Kai shouted at the same time. This seemed to startle Jay, the boy who had slept soundly during Morro's storm, awake.

Kai turned to pat Jay as the boy began to whimper and hug his pillow tightly. The whimpering stopped after a few minutes, Jay went back to sleep and Kai was glad he didn't wake up.

He breathed a sigh of relief. Wincing back to what they were saying, "Do we really have to wait seven days?"

"That's right." Wu nodded.

"This... is so bad." Pixal groaned and buried her face in her hands. Kai didn't say anything but he agreed with her.

"What about Ninjago?" He raised his eyebrows

"Pixal and I will keep eyes on the city." Kai opened his mouth to speak, but Wu stopped him. "And you will take care of the ninjas."

"Wait Master Wu!-" Pixal disagreed with this, maybe she didn't know about children but leaving Kai alone to take care of six ninjas was impossible. She ran after Wu to talk, leaving Kai a mess.

Kai looked in the direction Pixal had just left, sighed and leaned back on the chair cushion. He's so tired, FSM, why did this strange thing happen??

A cry attracted Kai's attention. LIoyd was raising his hand towards him, his mouth moving, making choked sounds calling his name. "K...k-Kai..."

"Come here." Cole gave LIoyd to him. Kai sat the child on his stomach, ignoring Morro's frown. He used his hand to wipe the child's face. "Is Lloyd hungry yet?"

"I'm hungry!" Morro was the one who responded to him. LIoyd frowned and turned towards him. Morro rolled his eyes and smirked.

These two kids...

The ninjas turning into children completely transformed them into someone else. Especially Morro, Kai and he barely talked to each other after he joined the team. Although there is no hostility like before, Morro still avoids all ninjas. Who knows what he thinks.

Anyway, he looks cuter now. That's right, these six adorable demon kids will kill him.

Kai wished he had stayed in bed a little longer instead of leaving.

"I'm hungry too." Cole reached out to rub his small belly, Nya imitated the boy, rubbing as well, and then Zane clumsily followed suit. It's strange to see he teammates like this.

And also so adorable.

"Then we'll have breakfast." Kai smiled, his eyes quietly looking down at the monastery floor. "But before that..."

"Let's clean up this mess."

"It's Mo's fault, he has to clean it up himself." Nya grumbled and pouted, crossing her arms to show disapproval. The other children nodded in agreement with her.

"Hey, I'm not Mo! It's Morro, Morro!!" Morro is offended.

Nya stuck her tongue out at him.

Mo?

Kai could see out of the corner of his eye that Morro was wincing. Mo? That's cute, he'll remember this to tease him later. When they became close enough and stopped arguing?

"You all have to clean up." Kai said.

Lots of groans of disapproval came from the children.

"If you don't clean up, I won't cook breakfast."

"Brother Kai..."

"Nuh, uh. You heard me clearly, Zane."

The children groaned more, but there was no protest.

"First of all, you should go change your clothes. Especially you." Kai looked down at Morro.

Chapter Text

"I'm so sorry Kai." Pixel groaned guilty on the screen

Kai immediately reassured her with a shrug, "It's okay." He placed his phone on the shelf and lifted the smallest t-shirt, squinting at it. "It's not your fault, I'm sure I can handle it."

"Are you sure Kai?" Pixal asked worriedly.

"I think so." Kai shrugged again and tossed the shirt aside. He sighed, stood up and looked at the pile of clothes he had rummaged through.

There wasn't anything they could wear, Zane and Cole could wear Jay's old shirt but in terms of their bodies it was still a bit big for them. Kai was wondering where their old clothes when they first joined the ninja and LIoyd's clothes from before were gone.

Maybe it was thrown away or burned.

"I really don't want to say it again, but this is a total disaster."

"Worst?" Kai smiled, rolled his eyes and glanced back at the pile of clothes most of which were red or black.

"That's right, the worst disaster."

"Sure it is." He responded to her and glanced at the clock on the wall, it was already past eight o'clock. He should have slept more now instead of looking for new clothes. Kai deserved to sleep when he had to deal with a thief at three in the morning, but now he was here, with six kids who were his brothers and sister.

Kai ran his hand through his greasy hair. He really should wash his hair after this. “Pixal.” Pixal let out a response tone. "I think I need baby clothes."

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. Kai only heard the sound of Destiny's Bountry operating. He looked up to see Nindroid looking up something on the computer. She answered. "Alright, I'll buy them for you."

"You're the best." Kai answered immediately and Pixal burst out laughing.

"Of course." She speaks. "See you later, Kai."

"See you later Pix." Kai turned off the phone and put it away, returning to the room with the only T-shirt Morro could temporarily wear.

"Morro-!" He walked outside and was immediately scared by a group of children who appeared. Kai blinked, they blinked back after him.

Morro took the lead, the boy raised his eyebrows at Kai. Behind is Zane leading Nya and LIoyd, Cole holding Jay's hand. While Jay snorted and rubbed his red eyes with his hand that was still covered by his oversized blue gi, the boy looked up at him. Kai hesitantly bent down in front of him. Jay was afraid of him and stood behind Cole.

Jay has always been the most sensitive of them all. The boy felt nervous when someone older wanted to approach him.

He sent a gentle smile to him. Jay pursed his lips, hesitated a bit, then moved closer to Kai's lap.

He stroked the boy's back and asked the children again: "What are you guys doing here?"

If he's not mistaken, they shouldn't be here. There were so many pieces in that room. They will get hurt if they step over that.

Morro shrugged, "Cole said he wanted to take him to find you." The boy glanced at Jay with slightly annoyed eyes. "But Zane wouldn't let them go alone and now we all have to go together."

"Very good Zane." Kai praised. Zane shyly looked down again, he looked adorable.

"But are you guys okay?" The children raised their eyebrows. "I mean those broken things, they'll hurt you guys if you step on them."

"Morro blew them away." Nya answered him.

"What??" Kai asked again confused.

"You heard this, I blew them away." Morro puffed out his chest and held out his hand that had a small tornado inside. Just before Kai could stop the boy, the tornado fell out of Morro's hand and moved to a nearby vase.

The vase fell off the shelf, fell to the ground with a loud noise, and then shattered. The tornado continued to move, breaking a plate and blowing away the carpet, then slammed into Nya's door and disappeared.

"Opps-" Morro scratched his head, smiled nervously and quickly hid the hand that just caused trouble behind his back, pretending like he didn't do anything.

Kai smiled at the boy, a twisted annoyed smile, "For SFM, no, for me. If anyone uses elemental powers without my permission," the white-faced children looked up at him. "There will be no TV or food allowed."

Children's psychology is that they love food and TV programs when they are at home, so it would be extremely bad if they were grounded for either of those two things.

They all groaned and then fell silent together as Kai moved.

The kids swore they saw the red ninja hiss smoke when he got up to clean up. Jay automatically pulled away to let him go.

"But Zane also used ice to freeze the broken faucet." Morro pouted, accusing Zane. The Nindroid opened its eyes wide, its offended face turning to glare at him.

"What's wrong with the faucet?!" For FSM, he only left for a few minutes! Kai quickly rushed into the kitchen.

"Cole was the one who pulled it out." Zane pointed to the main culprit.

"Hey, I was just trying to get some water!" Cole grumpily raised his hands to express his annoyance.

"I told you you could climb on the chair."

"No, I won't make that mistake again." Cole had an aversion to chairs. Probably because after the kid fell.

"And I'm just trying to help!"

"Yeah, it would be if you didn't freeze most of the kitchen." Jay unconsciously snorted in derision.

"Jay!!"

"Kai will find out soon Zane." Lloyd commented.

Kai was now standing in front of the kitchen door with a mixture of anger and confusion. He pointed to the half-frozen kitchen. "What the hell Zane??"

"It's Cole's fault! Not mine!!" Zane panicked again and pointed at Cole. Cole was angry and argued with him. The other children also joined in with sarcasm and quarrels, making the whole monastery extremely noisy.

Okay, that's enough. Kai will take back his previous words, this is the worst and Zane is no longer adorable. At least for now.

His head was aching, this was the first time Kai dared to think about taking headache medicine.

"Everyone will not be allowed to touch the TV today." He said, then gathered the fire in his hand and walked into the kitchen with the spirit of preparing to clean up. This will take a lot of time.

The children opened their mouths and turned to the door where the red ninja had just disappeared. They grimaced, cried out in unison and continued to blame each other.

Later, Kai stuck his head out and called: "Morro."

Morro who was locked in an argument with Nya stopped. Kai threw an old red T-shirt at the boy. ""Wear it temporarily before you get sick."

The child's eyebrows relaxed, he blinked and held the shirt out in front of him.

"You can change in my room," Kai added. "And please don't touch anything in there."

Not really caring if the kid listened to him, Kai turned around and moved the fire around the table. Making sure it wasn't strong enough to burn things made of wood, the layer of ice following his fire gradually turned into a large puddle.

"Done." Now all that remains is to fix that faucet and clean this place. Suddenly a small noise next to him attracted Kai's attention. He turned and saw Nya trying to reach the towel on the table.

He squinted his eyes, seemingly understanding her intention. Kai picked up the towel and put it on the sink, ignoring his sister's surprised eyes and gave her a drier towel. "Wipe carefully."

Nya nodded at him.

Because the child wants to help, he will first focus on the tap. Looks like Cole pulled a little too hard and the faucet shot out, needing a new faucet for this.

There must be a few new faucet somewhere just in case. It could be somewhere, it could be near or far and he doesn't know, maybe he can ask Piaxal. Kai was completely lost in thought when the other kids walked into the kitchen.

When he came back with another faucet, the kitchen was finished cleaning. He was surprised, walked into the shiny kitchen and looked at the children.

They didn't look at him, put the towels on the table and walked together through the playroom. If Kai wasn't paying attention, he wouldn't know the children were glancing at him. Nya too.

"Well, " He sighed, knowing that this went against what he said before, but whatever, Kai couldn't blame them anyway. "You can touch the TV remote because you know where you went wrong, while I fix the faucet and cook lunch.”

Cleaning up took a lot of time.

The children were delighted and rushed to fight over the remote, trying to convince each other to watch this.

"Brother Kai."

LIoyd appeared in the kitchen door as soon as Kai returned, pliers in his hand. Oh, maybe he dropped it. "Thanks kid." LIoyd nodded at him and quickly returned to the fight for the remote.

When Pixal returned to the monastery, the children had chosen what they all wanted to watch, each holding a bowl of noodles and intently watching the movie. Pixal ignored them, going into the kitchen, where she guessed the master of fire would be.

"Oh, Kai." She whispered. Kai was indeed there, he just looked especially... tired. Nindroid placed the bags on the table and walked next to the red ninja. She ran her mechanical fingers through his hair, and Kai snorted.

Let's see, is he sleeping? Pixel chuckled.

She turned her head towards the children. "Guys, can anyone get me a blanket and pillow?"

Pixal and the kids then took Kai to the couch, trying not to wake him. Jay pulled the blanket over him and stepped back, hesitantly sitting down on the rug with Zane.

Pixal only returned to the monastery to give things and check, then had to quickly leave because Ninjago was having some robberies.

The children were left with Kai. They got bored watching TV and started walking around the monastery looking for things to play with.

They didn't think Kai could sleep that long.

"Kai."

Kai groaned and pulled the blanket over his head. The small hand grabbed his blanket and shook him, "Kai." The child's voice was somewhat urgent, but the red ninja didn't seem to notice. He really wanted to sleep more.

"Kai, J-Jay bite Morro." Every sentence that entered Kai's ears pushed his alertness to the highest level. Kai sat up from the couch, the child was startled by his sudden action.

"Nya?" The girl sniffled, her red eyes filled with tears, her trembling fingers holding a piece of blanket. A vague memory appeared, when Nya had a nightmare, she also sought Kai, the only relative she had to comfort her. To Nya, he was both a brother and a father to her. The tears falling from those beautiful blue eyes were like glass sticking straight into Kai's chest. He would never like seeing his sister get hurt.

"Nya, what's wrong?" Kai kept his voice calm, he gently pulled her closer to him. Nya leaned against him, as she did then, holding her brother tightly with her small arms.

"J-Jay and Morro had an argument...Morro said Jay was a coward for not daring to play hide and seek." Nya stopped to snort, Kai silently stroked her head. "Jay said Morro was weird, M-morro was very angry...he pushed Jay, Jay cried and rushed to bite Morro's hand. I and Cole, Zane tried to stop them but then they all shouted at each other and ran away. I-I tried to run after Jay but he was too fast, at that time-"

Nya tightened her grip on his shirt. Kai moved his hand to the back of her neck and interrupted her right when she was about to fall into panic. "It's not your fault."

The child's small fingers stiffened, she sniffled into his red T-shirt. Kai wouldn't mind if she wet his shirt.

"L-LIoyd ran off somewhere without my knowledge," Nya continued hesitantly as if waiting for her brother to interrupt her again. "I don't dare look for him, Cole and Zane are also hiding somewhere. Sorry for calling you, but- but I don't know what to do either."

"Hey, I'm glad you woke me up. We can find the others together now, okay?" Her brother gently carried her, his soft and warm orange eyes curved into a semicircle.

Nya nodded, her instincts told her she could completely trust her big brother, who was always by her side no matter what. Nya hugged his neck, Kai carried her and left the room.

"First, we have to find LIoyd."

Kai seemed to understand them very well, he easily found LIoyd curled up in a narrow tube in a short time. Kai let her down, Nya immediately crawled into it.

"LIoyd..." She whispered, LIoyd didn't move, his knees pressed close to his chest and his face buried in his hands. The boy looked ominously lonely, Nya pursed her lips and glanced at her brother. Kai just smiled at her.

Taking that as support, Nya slowly sat down next to LIoyd. The child's shoulders trembled when he realized there was someone next to him. He forced himself further away, trying to make himself as small as possible.

No, LIoyd was small enough, the child actually looked the smallest of the six ninja, he had always been the smallest. Always their youngest brother.

Nya didn't know why she was so worried about this boy, it was her heart that controlled her to believe that the big red ninja was her big brother, it was also the one that told Nya the names of the team members and the Her special concern for the youngest child.

It was Kai's eyes that made Nya believe LIoyd was their younger brother.

The child's body was too small, but just enough for Nya to hold him in her arms. LIoyd did not move at first, his body as sturdy as a statue with pale skin. It took a while for the boy to relax, leaning limply against her.

"LIoyd... why are you hiding?"

Lloyd pursed his lips, his face buried deep in his hands. Kai and Nya patiently waited for the boy to be ready to share.

"You guys had an argument..." The child's words were so soft, the Kai outside had to strain his ears to hear.

"I'm just... confused? I don't know." He shook his head, burying his face deeper in his hands. "When Morro pushed Jay I immediately thought about running away, but I didn't dare move. Then when Jay bite Morro I actually ran away. I shouldn't have done that." The boy spoke more clearly.

"I should have stayed like you to stop them, I shouldn't have run away, I-"

"You don't have to do anything." Kai interrupted before the child rambled. LIoyd looked up from his hands, his green eyes trembling, as fragile as thin glass. Kai's chest would hurt if he kept looking.

"You can run away, just run away if you want. No one can blame you if you do." Kai leaned his back on the car next to him, the two children couldn't see his expressions, nor could he see their emotions.

Only Kai's voice rang out, "Don't pay attention to what you think. Maybe you don't remember why you think that way," he hummed. "But for this one week, let it go and do whatever you want. If anyone tells you not to, tell me."

"The greatest brother Kai here will turn them into bacon!"

There were two giggles coming from the tube.

"You can't turn people into bacon, Kai." Nya said, carefully climbing out of the tube with her hand leading LIoyd.

"Oh, Really." Kai smirked, creating a large flame in his hand. He snorted. "Why can't I?"

Nya and LIoyd giggled, the warmth from the fire and the red ninja's presence warmed them, protecting them from the scary things as he walked in to greet them with a bright smile.

"Please don't do that, brother."

He shouldn't have fought with Morro, he should have just sat in his room, he should have agreed to play hide and seek with them.

Jay never liked hide and seek, it made him feel lonely, scared and suffocated in his own place. He is also afraid of tight and dark places, but why, why is he hiding all in such a place now?

The musty smell of wood permeated the air, Jay bit his lip. The boy didn't want anyone to hear him cry.

Morro is right, he's just a coward!

The sound of the wind sucking into the wooden box created a strange noise that worried Jay, the boy trembled in the corner. His white knuckles clutched his scraped knee, Jay imagined scratching at the scar himself, his nails covered in his own flesh and blood.

Jay felt nauseous, the boy covered his mouth tightly to suppress the shivers that covered his whole body.

He should leave here, he should leave here. But his legs couldn't move, as if there was some force holding Jay's legs, preventing him from leaving this weird enclosed space.

No, no way. He need to move, move no matter what. Come on, Jay, you can do it.

You can't do it.

Jay, you can't do this.

No, no, no.

"Jay!!" The lid of the box popped off with a hasty action. Jay could make out the figure, Kai's strange hair with brown, the scar under his eye and above his eyebrow, past the red ninja's orange eyes. The red color on the familiar T-shirt is often seen on the master of fire.

Kai, Kai Smith.

Kai's eyebrows furrowed, he must have seen the pathetic appearance on his body. Jay looked down, not wanting to see any sympathetic eyes from him.

"Jay." Jay could hear the worry in his voice. Kai's hand hovered above his head, carefully running his fingers through sweaty reddish-brown hair. His hands are warm, rough but gentle.

"Let's get out here, buddy."

Kai bent down to pick him up, Jay let him do so. The child's limp body pressed against Kai's, his trembling eyes dilated. Gradually, Jay leaned into him, his body trembling as he breathed out.

"Are you okay, sweetheart?" Kai's warm whisper seemed to touch Jay's patience, the boy hiccuped, clung to Kai and cried. Kai slowed down, he did not enter the room in a hurry but walked around the monastery corridor.

"I-I didn't mean to call Morro i-w... weird."

"I know."

“I-I'm a coward, r-right?”

"Nope."

"I'm weak!"

"You are one of the strongest people I know."

"But I ran away!"

"And it was a fight no one wanted."

Jay opened his mouth to argue further but didn't know what to say. Kai answered all his words perfectly as if he firmly believed in his words, in Jay.

It was very dark outside the monastery, Jay didn't like the dark. But the boy now does not need to be afraid of them because right next to him there is Kai, who can light up the darkness with his fire.

Because Kai is a red ninja, a master of fire and also Jay's brother

Chapter Text

Anger and hurt engulfed his body. Cole grimaced and angrily kicked the rock in front of him.

The rock from the force of his foot shot into the wall and stayed there with a small crack. Great, now Kai will scold him for this.

Cole slumped down the stairs, his legs pulled up to his chest with his hands resting on them. It was actually darker and colder out here than the boy had realized before. Cole thought about going back to the monastery many times but then didn't do it and wandered around outside.

He heard Jay crying from inside the monastery. Cole was about to get up to run in but suddenly hesitated when he heard Kai's voice.

He seemed to be comforting Jay, and Cole vaguely heard Kai scream when Jay talked about Nya and LIoyd tearing those strange scrolls. Cole would laugh if the boy could.

The wind whistled strongly, and in this dangerous place, the night temperature was especially colder than usual. The pale boy's body trembled.

Cole tried to wrap his arms around his body to block out the cold, but it wasn't very good.

Maybe he should go back.

Maybe Cole should stop being upset and sad and go back inside.

Brother Kai will definitely be very worried.

Or not...

It's okay if he's like that. Cole couldn't blame him.

Anyway, he just wanted a little quiet after glaring at Zane one last time. That's right, Zane was just trying to help him, why did he have to act so upset?

Why did he let Morro and Jay argue?

Cole stared down at the stairs below, it was dark and...scary? He doesn't know anymore.

He should apologize to Zane...and Nya too, she looked scared when both he and Zane were sulking at each other. But Zane has also disappeared, where should Cole find him?

Maybe Kai can help, he's a gentle person. But he really seems busy with the rest of the kids...

"Oh my FSM, that crazy guy really threw everything out here." Cole heard Kai mumbling from behind him. The boy turned around awkwardly and saw the red ninja continuing to mutter into the few pieces of debris that hadn't fallen to the foot of the mountain with frowning eyebrows. “After this, Master Wu will definitely beat him with that stick.”

His frown turned into a strange smile. Cole couldn't understand, and didn't think he wanted to.

And did Kai just call Morro crazy??

Kai looked up from the pile of debris, his eyes softening, "Oh, there you are." He approached the child with a coat. "It's quite dangerous and scary out here, and it's also very cold, you know?"

He placed the jacket on Cole's shoulders. Cole blinked. "How did you know I was here?"

"Maybe you guys don't remember, but I pretty much know all the places your guys hide." Kai shrugged.

"Do I still hide when I'm an adult??" He opened his eyes in surprise. Cole had seen a picture of them in their adult versions. That Cole was a big and strong person so he never imagined that 'me' would run away too.

"Any of us have done that many times, even me." Kai responded to him.

"Even you?" The surprises continued. Although it was impossible to know exactly what kind of person Kai was due to the strange ambiguity of his memories, Cole could clearly see that he was a very strong person.

"Yes, I am a mean and irritable person." He sat down next to Cole, his eyes looking into the darkness ahead. “Because of that problem, I have made mistakes many times. Instead of accepting it, I chose to be stubborn and avoid them."

"Usually I'll hide on the roof or in my room, sometimes I'll be angry in the kitchen." He said happily, not paying attention to Cole's surprised expression.

"S-so how did you solve it?" The element master of fire affectionate gaze made the boy feel confused, Kai giggled and the child blushed. He just laughed when he saw how adorable his teammates were again.

Kai replied, "Usually you guys have to find me to talk."

"We?"

He made a sound like yes. The red ninja didn't look at him, his orange eyes only looked forward, his strange hair flowing in the direction of the wind with a relaxed body. Cole pursed his lips, sinking into his red jacket.

Both of them sat there. The wind is getting stronger, the temperature has dropped to the point where even a jacket won't work. Cole trembled, pulling the jacket on so it covered his body as much as possible.

"You alright?" Kai placed his hand on the child's shoulder, concern evident in his voice.

Cole shivered slightly, Kai's hand was very warm.

"You're so cold." He gently pulled Cole closer to his body.

Kai's body is very warm, his body temperature is strangely warm. Was that part of the effect of him using fire? They saw Kai use the fire from his hand to melt Zane's ice.

That might also be the reason why Morro's hair dries so quickly when Kai pats his head-

"Put what's on your mind out there, buddy." Kai interrupted his thoughts. "Just sit there and let me warm you up, okay?" His eyes curled with a sincere smile.

Cole blinked.

That...maybe it doesn't really matter now.

Kai's warm body made him feel so comfortable, Cole immediately had to sink into it. The boy's body was unconsciously longing for the warmth of the red ninja.

"And hey..."

Kai looked down at him. Cole whispered in his heart. "you're not a mean person."

In his arms, Cole felt Kai holding his breath. The boy didn't know the expression on his face but knew that he was very surprised. A moment later, Kai let out a short laugh and hugged him tighter. Cole smiled too, ignoring the snort that followed from him.

Kai stroked the child's back, occasionally tapping his finger on it as if saying he was right here. This was a strange action he formed from many conversations with his brothers and sister, anyway it seemed to work as their bodies relaxed so Kai continued to do it.

"Kai."

Kai raised his voice in response, "Huh?"

"I want to apologize Zane."

"When you're ready, kid."

Cole could see a smile from his brother. The boy leaned his cheek against Kai's chest, silently feeling it for a while longer.

When he was ready Kai led him back to the monastery, the took a different route to the kitchen instead of going through the playroom. Cole wouldn't question this, the boy knew he was doing it so they could have some space with Zane.

But he wondered why they went into the kitchen? Zane is here?

Kai stopped in front of the refrigerator, his eyes narrowed while Cole was extremely confused. Aren't they looking for Zane?

"Zane, I can't open the refrigerator when you freeze it." He say.

There was a strange noise coming from the refrigerator. A few minutes later some strange pieces of ice on the cabinet door broke off. Zane walked out before the boy's surprised eyes. Like him before, only a little less so, Zane also looked confused that Kai knew he was there.

His Nindroid's body was still covered in some snow. Wait, why is there snow in the refrigerator??

Zane's eyes widened when he saw Cole was also here. The boy opened his mouth and then stiffly closed it.

"Zane, Cole wants to tell you something." Kai said.

"Want to talk to me?..." The Nindroid blinked, tilting its head.

Cole nodded, being as careful with his words as possible. "I'm sorry for being angry with you before..."

Zane looked at him, the boy's cold iron hands clasped together unconsciously, "I..." he hesitated. "I'm also sorry for blaming it all on you."

"It's really my fault, it's okay."

"No, no, you just broke the faucet. I'm the one who froze the kitchen."

"Anyway, I'm sorry."

"Me too."

The two children looked at each other, smiled gently and moved forward to prepare to hug each other.

"What- you're so cold!!" Cole screamed and backed away immediately as soon as he touched the boy's fingers.

"Oh," Zane chuckled. "I guess I was in the fridge a little too long."

"Your gears will break, Zane." Kai glanced at the refrigerator, which had all its contents frozen. Luckily the food Pixal had just bought hadn't been put away yet, otherwise they wouldn't have anything to eat tonight.

"I-Is that why I have trouble moving?" The Nindroid looked up at him worriedly.

Kai looked down at him.

"I'll try to warm you up." He raised his hands, and immediately both of his hands turned orange, surprising them. Kai walked over and lifted Zane off the floor.

A wave of warmth appeared where the red ninja placed his hand. Zane looked a bit scared by the strangeness but still tried to stay calm.The feeling of fear gradually disappeared when the boy felt the gears becoming less cold.

"You're like a block of stone." Kai teased.

"And you're like a heater." Zane replied to him.

"I wouldn't mind the meaning of that statement." His brother snorted and pulled the boy aside as Nindroid's body grew warmer. Both Zane and Cole laughed.

The joint in his jaw felt less heavy, Zane opened and closed. The boy thought about something then looked up and said to Kai: "I'm sorry."

Kai raised his eyebrows, "For what?"

"For freezing the kitchen..." The boy lowered his eyes, his voice somewhat hesitant. Cole also wanted to say something. As soon as the boy opened his mouth to apologize, Kai spoke up.

"Apology accepted." He smiled at both Cole and Zane. "Anyway, that's been resolved." Kai held out his hand, Cole tilted his head, it took a few minutes for the boy to understand his intention and extend his hand in response.

He led them out of the kitchen, glancing at the clock. Nya and LIoyd immediately jumped out of their chairs and hugged his legs. Kai couldn't help but smile even more brightly. Jay sat on the chair, awkwardly climbing down.

"Zane, do you remember how to bandage a wound?" Kai carried him to the couch, dropping him right next to Jay. The Nindroid nodded, "Great, take care of Jay, okay?" He bent down to lift Jay back onto the chair, some of the kids noticed that his actions were a bit hasty.

Jay clung to Kai's arm as he was about to release the boy. "I- I heard a noise on the roof just now."

Kai looked at him, blinked, then patted the child's head.

The wind became stronger, it roared like a big storm. Morro snorted, growling. "I know you're there, Kai."

Kai stopped at the edge of the roof, squinting suspiciously. Oh, that's right, master of wind, Morro can sense other creatures based on the wind. Let's see, he guessed this unusual wind was from him, right?

"Go away Kai." The child hissed harshly through the sound of the wind. Kai frowned.

"I won't go unless you go down to Morro." He said and the boy muttered in annoyance.

Kai and Morro were not close at all, Kai knew nothing about him except that he was an angry person and a master of wind. 

They also never had a serious conversation, and while other ninjas had sparred with him, Kai refused to do so. Morro didn't want to fight him either, after all they faced each other when Morro used LIoyd's body.

But...

Morro died when he was a few years younger than them, Kai was reminded of this as he watched Morro being shorter than Cole trembling against his body. The discomfort about the wind elemental master fell from his breath, replaced by a strange concern.

"Why are you still there?"

Kai looked up, Morro was frowning at him. The child's shoulders stiffly curled up, his throat let out a growl of caution, but his fingers clutching the corner of his roof turned white and trembled.

"Like I said..." Kai rolled his eyes, pretending he wasn't staring at the child's glowing moss green eyes. "I won't leave unless you come down."

"I told you, I'm not going down!!" The boy shouted angrily.

The wind hit Kai's face hard, from above he could even see large tornadoes surrounding the entire monastery. If the wind just had a little more force, Kai would immediately fall off the roof. Who knows if he could have broken his leg or dislocated his shoulder?

But whatever, it doesn't matter now. "Morro!" Kai bent down, clung to the roof and shouted to the boy lying in the center of the wind.

The child's eyes flashed an weird green, Morro threw his hands away and roared. "Leave me alone, Kai!!"

The wind hit him hard, Kai fell off the monastery roof and luckily grabbed the roof rim. A shiver swept over him. The surrounding echoes whispered into his ear, carrying strange notes that wrapped around Kai's arm.

He heard the child's panicked sound, the wind subsided and Kai took the opportunity to jump back onto the roof. He rushed forward and pushed the child down onto the dark brown roof tiles.

Morro let out a frightened sound then struggled, growled and opened his eyes wide in bewilderment when he saw the bright red color in Kai's eyes.

It was the wind that just brought back the memories of his younger brother having his body taken over by Morro, of him hurting the ninjas and his sister.

"L-let me go!" Morro weakly pushed him, the child's eyes showing panic and confusion.

Kai blinked, the bright red in his eyes fading and returning to orange. He looked at the child confused as if he didn't remember what he just did. "M-morro, I'm sorry."

Morro looked even more confused than he was, the boy didn't even move when Kai stood up and helped him up. "I didn't hurt you, right??" He worriedly touched him cold body.

"Wha-" Morro frowned, The boy's face wrinkled as he looked at the red ninja. Kai's eyes are no longer that red. What the hell just happened??

"Did you just almost kill me..."

"What- no! I mean- I didn't mean to do that!!" Kai looked down at him in panic, his hands pressed to Morro's face, "Are you okay? Wait, what's with this new scar?? How did you get it?"

Now, he looked like an overprotective panicked mother who had just picked her child up from school. And this... is really weird, very weird...

"W-what happened just now?" The child stuttered and looked at him.

Kai stopped, his opened lips suddenly pursed. He looked scared to talk about it.

"Is that…losing control?" Morro continued speaking. Kai didn't look at him and that made him uncomfortable. "Kai, answer me." Morro urged.

Kai was silent for a moment longer, he breathed in and out. "I have some anger control problems, sorry, Morro."

Morro frowned again, he didn't need an apology. Morro didn't know why, but he felt like he didn't need that apology. He just felt... unworthy.

A strange feeling of guilt filled his chest, Morro bit his lip. The boy hesitantly pushed his body into Kai's chest, who was not looking at him with his hand still on him shoulder. The red ninja was startled and looked down at him.

He was confused, and for a long time shyly reached out to hug Morro. Kai never thought that one day he and the master of wind could rely on each other like this, his body was a bit tense in front of the new person. If it was the real Morro, he would never do that.

"Your body is like a fireplace..."

"Everyone says that to me." Kai gave a shy smile, he was trying to get used to it.

It was really late, Kai didn't think it would take him that long to find the five children. He glanced down at the red T-shirt on the child's body. "...Morro, the others were very worried about you."

Morro did not respond. Kai continued: "Jay showed me, you're here-"

"I'm a bad kid."

"I... don't know what to say, little guy." He let out a short laugh, sounding relieved and more at ease. "You know what?"

Morro shifted against his chest, "I think we're quite similar."

"Nah, you're better-tempered than me."

"Don't lower yourself like that, kid."

Morro shrugged. Kai sighed, "I just better luck with it..."

The child sat silently in his lap, her fingers intertwined. For the first time, the boy felt like someone could truly understand him, even though his strangeness was repelling him.

When they returned it was nine o'clock in the evening. Kai took LIoyd and Jay to the bathroom first. Zane stayed in the kitchen, staring at the pot of soup because Kai told him to keep eyes on it.

Nya said she would be able to bathe herself, Kai teasingly said: "Come on, when you was little, I bathed you all the time, Nya."

His sister immediately frowned and he laughed a lot. Cole and Morro could shower on their own, it took Kai fifteen minutes to convince Morro to shower with Cole to save time.

They leave the bathhouse after a water fight.

Cole said that at first Morro did not participate, he kept grumpily avoiding, but after Cole accidentally threw a bucket of water at his head, Morro immediately returned to take revenge. Kai didn't know how Cole could do that, but seeing Morro's angry and uncomfortable look was enough to make him guess what was going on there.

Nya came out of the bathroom last, she ran to hug Kai's leg. "Kai, dry my hair."

Kai washed his hands and smiled in agreement with his sister, the other children eating also asked him to do the same. Morro sat at the table, squinting at him.

"You just had to ask, Morro."

"I-I don't need it!" Morro immediately blushed, jumped off the table and ran away with the food.

"Don't take your dinner out there kiddo."

"I don't care!!"

Kai giggled while the other children looked at them in bewilderment.

Chapter Text

"Jay, it's one in the morning, you know?"

Kai, the red ninja was just scared by a child when he turned around. Swear to FSM, why didn't he realize there were footsteps following him?

Because the boy is also a ninja? No, he's just a kid now. But whatever, as long as the boy doesn't stab him with that sword.

Wait, the sword?!

"Where did you get this sword?!" Startled, Kai put the cup aside, bent down and reached out, carefully trying to retrieve the sword he often used for practice that should have been in the room instead of in the hands of a four-year-old child.

Wait, Jay is four years old now, right? he must confirm again

"Jay, do you know how old you are now?"

Jay clumsily held the sword against his chest, Kai was glad that the sheath hadn't been pulled out yet. The boy blinked, awkwardly answering: "I think six..."

Why are you so small? That thought unconsciously flashed through his mind.

"Alright, six. What makes a six year old like you go out with a sword at one in the morning?" Kai sighed softly, he really should have a relaxing cup of tea instead of coffee right now.

Before that, after the children fell asleep on the couch after a boring movie, he carried them back to their room, grabbed a cup of coffee and went back to Master Wu's room to check the scrolls that Nya and LIoyd had touched. Luckily they're okay, at least they look that way.

Kai tried to pretend not to see Pixal's note to fix that spot on the table and decided to go see a movie. He wasn't sleepy right now so he figured a movie could make Kai less bored.

But now, Jay has woken up. The child's nose was pink, his thin body in a loose T-shirt trembling pitifully. Kai squinted his eyes, he could see tears still forming around the boy's eyes.

Throw that damn movie he were going to watch away, now Jay needs his help and Kai will beat himself up if he doesn't.

Jay stammered, looking very confused when he realized the boy was holding Kai's sword. "I-I didn't mean to bring it out here."

"Don't worry, you just need to tell me why you followed me at one in the morning." Kai tried to comfort the boy.

"I-" Jay hesitated, his face starting to turn red as he forced himself to speak. "C-can I sleep with you?"

"Sure, why not?" Kai chuckled teasingly. "Is that request enough to make you shy, little guy?"

"I'm not ashamed-" Jay blushed and weakly groaned in Kai's laughter.

"What's wrong, little blueberry has a nightmare but doesn't dare admit it to his brother Kai?" The master of fire continued to tease the boy and Jay almost wanted to curl up and sulk at him.

"I'm not a blueberry."

"Then it's tomatoes, because now you're as red as them."

"No..."

Kai laughed and picked up Jay, who was glaring at him with wet, angry eyes, "Okay, okay, no more teasing little blueberry."

The child grumbled his name into his shoulder. Kai ignored it, picked up the boy and hummed. "Brother Kai will help blueberry to sleep right now."

"Kai!"

Kai laughed louder, and tried to stop as quickly as possible after that so as not to wake any of the children.

"I will hide your sword." Jay pouted, irritated and wanted revenge.

"Just try it, kiddo."

"I'll definitely hide it."

"Oh, where will you hide it? A basket of blueberries?"

"Kai!!"

Kai coughed and snorted to stop laughing. "Keep your voice down, you'll wake up the others."

"If they wake up, it's your fault!" Jay whispered and hissed, he was trying to speak as quietly as possible.

“Yeah, yeah, it's my fault.”

The child squirmed uncomfortably in his arms. "You're a mean person."

"I know." Kai was not shy and answered him frankly. He heard Jay grumbling all the way back to the room afterwards.

Kai went into his room, closed the door with his hand and laid Jay down on the bed. His bed was a bit messy from his bad sleep in the morning, he should clean it up at some point, but guess not this week.

"Alright, do you want me to sing you a lullaby or read you a story, little blueberry?" Kai picked up the blanket from the floor. Ignoring the frustration in the boy's eyes, he sat down on the bed and smiled. "Or if you want, we can talk."

"I don't need it." The boy pouted and Kai let out a short laugh.

"If you want that." He lay down on the bed, put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.

The quiet dark room made Jay nervous, this was just like when he woke up a few minutes ago. Dark and cold, Jay pursed his lips, turned around and crawled closer to the red ninja. Kai turned around.

That small movement was enough to scare the boy, Jay unconsciously stepped back, hesitating whether to come closer or jump off the bed.

"Come here." Kai's gentle voice rang out, and without thinking, the child immediately crawled into his open arms. Jay curled up in his arms like a kitten, red ninja reached out and pulled the blanket over him. Looking at the small head in front of his chest, Kai softly said: "Don't worry."

"Rest assured and go to sleep, little blueberry."

Jay didn't like that nickname, but this time he would forgive Kai.

The silence was replaced by the gentle breathing of the master of fire, fear was temporarily forgotten and sleepiness was replaced. Jay closed his eyes, hoping the nightmare wouldn't be able to do anything to him anymore.

When Jay woke up Kai was no longer there, but he was still in the room. Jay could feel him fingers on his head along with him voice, Kai seemed to be talking to someone.

"I didn't realize until now that you can cook, Kai."

Is the robot sister, Pixal.

"I can do more than that simple thing, Pixal." Kai smugly snorted and Pixal laughed.

"yeah, of course no one can defeat the legendary hothead." Pixal deliberately lowered her voice to emphasize the ridicule.

"Of course!" He pulled his hand out of Jay's hair and placed two fingers perpendicularly under his chin to show his complacency. Jay stared at it. Then Kai seemed to realize, he frowned at the phone. "Hey, I'm not a hothead!"

Pixal laughed in his face, Jay also tried to stifle a small smile under his blanket. "Okay, see you later hothead."

"Pixal!-" Pixal immediately hung up, leaving Kai with an unhappy look on his face. "That fucking nickname." He grumbled into his coffee.

"Fucking?" LIoyd appeared in the doorway with innocent eyes, not at all like what the boy had repeated. Kai choked on his coffee, he put the cup on the table, Coughing and shaking his hands in fear

"It's a fox!-" He tried to speak then continued coughing, LIoyd blinked in confusion. "You heard wrong, I meant fox."

"But it's obviously F-" The boy's face scrunched up and Kai immediately cut him off as Zane stepped forward.

"Come on, let's go cook breakfast Zane." He quickly retrieved his coffee cup and took the confused Zane with him, leaving them behind. LIoyd glanced at Jay, his eyebrows furrowed as if he was planning something, then followed Kai and Zane.

Jay raised his eyebrows, why did he feel like something bad was about to happen?

Kai asks LIoyd to go wake up the others. He and Zane can prepare breakfast.

Maybe this little LIoyd is different from the little LIoyd he used to know, but it can be said that it's not too different. Kai sipped his coffee and glanced at LIoyd who was carrying a speaker. Where did the speaker come from??

Different from the adorable smile he showed, LIoyd now looks... cruel with that speaker and smile. Kai saw the boy pull the speaker into the middle of the hallway, he ran out to the room to pick up the TV remote, then came back, smiled cutely at Kai, then giggled and ran to the speaker again.

LIoyd pressed the remote, Kai quickly entered the kitchen. Zane was standing in the kitchen confused when he suddenly closed the door, Kai signaled him to quickly cover his ears.

What followed immediately made Nindroid even more frightened, so he covered both sides of his head with his hands like red ninja, although in reality it didn't have much effect.

A loud noise that combines everything like bells, drums, clapping hands or whatever is the loudest can echo throughout the monastery. Zane can also determine that it resonates thousands of kilometers away.

It stopped just as the violent sounds of doors opening rang out at the same time.

"LIoyd!?"

"It's you?!"

"I knew it!!" Jay shouted angrily.

"The fuck-"

"Morro language!!"

The last person to open the door was Kai, and he had just come out of the kitchen to warn Morro.

Morro groaned, annoyed, and returned to the room. Kai will talk about controlling that kid's mouth later.

"Is that the word you said before?-" LIoyd said.

"LIoyd." Kai reminded the boy and turned around to glare again when Morro opened his eyes with sarcasm.

"Look who's talking." The boy scoffed.

"You won't be able to eat any snacks after this." Kai waved his hand and returned to the kitchen.

"Hey, That's not fair!" Morro shouted with all his displeasure. Cole groaned in annoyance at him scream.

"I'm the oldest now, I have the right." Kai laughed sarcastically, the other children didn't hide it, they looked at Morro with pitying eyes.

The elemental master of wind is about to blow this monastery down. Kai doesn't care, because that can't happen.

Except for Morro pouting all morning, nothing happened until noon. He had left the kids in the playroom while he went to take care of something else.

Kai looked down at the scroll, holding it on the table and squinting at the torn corner. Maybe Pixal should still be the one to handle this, or Zane. Kai thought he could push this to Zane after this babysitting thing was over.

It's a good idea.

He smiled to himself into his coffee. Now that he think about it, this incident is really strange, based on what he noticed, the tea the ninjas drank not only made them smaller but also had a more childish perception and personality.

Although they still retain a part of their memories and personalities in their adult bodies, but in the end, They're still children.

"Brother Kai, I'm thirsty."

Kai looked down at his sister. When did he no longer see that shoulder-length hair?

He wouldn't admit how much he missed his old little sister. It's not that he hates his current sister, Even Kai feels proud of it. But it's just... he just remembers it.

"Okay, let's get you some water, sweetheart."

After getting water for Nya, he also got more coffee and stayed in the kitchen. Kai drank coffee, eyes glued to the floor, no one knew what he was thinking to stay there for so long.

Zane occasionally glanced into the kitchen to check on him. The boy felt that Kai was immersing himself too deeply in something.

After the fifth time in an hour, Zane returned to the couch. Cole looked up from the TV and asked him, "Are you hungry, Zane?"

Zane shook his head. "Brother Kai is still in the kitchen."

"Is he cooking lunch?" LIoyd jumped up excitedly from behind the couch. Zane shook his head again.

"He's still there since he got Nya water." 

Nya looked at her brother's figure emerging from the kitchen. The girl had noticed, noticed since her brother was in that strange room.

Morro, who hadn't noticed any of them, tilted his head slightly, looking up at the kitchen with furrowed eyebrows.

Just as Kai left the kitchen, he looked at his phone as if checking again and then looked up. "Guys, we'll order lunch from outside, okay?"

He smiled, not looking like someone who had been silent in the kitchen for over an hour.

"They can bring things up here?" Cole asked, his eyes filled with curiosity and surprise.

"Yeah, last time they actually climbed hundreds of these crazy stairs to deliver ramen." Kai chuckled and the kids looked like they couldn't believe it. Cole was the one who saw that staircase the most clearly. Even though it was quite dark, the boy was sure that it must have thousands of steps.

"Let's choose what you want to eat while I change, okay?" Kai threw the phone at them, Zane caught it.

"Wait, where are you going?" LIoyd asked, eyebrows raised.

"Pixal needs help, I'll be gone for a moment." Kai's voice echoed from the hallway. "There's another phone on the kitchen table, you guys can probably call me if anything happens."

That was Zane's phone, all the other ninja's phones Kai took when he brought them back to the room. He think it's best to keep it and pay them back after this.

Kai quickly returned to the strange outfit they were wearing in the beginning, mostly red.

Seeing the kids blinking and staring at him, the phone still silent, he reminded them. "Are you done choosing yet?"

They were startled and looked down at their phones, occasionally glancing openly at the red ninja adjusting his gi. Kai tried not to laugh, if he laughed they would know he was very smug right now.

That will definitely turn into a joke later if they remember.

"Hey, I said I wanted ramen." Morro suddenly spoke up.

"But before that you said you would choose-" Zane frowned and turned around, Morro shook his head.

"No. I changed my mind." He defiantly snorted. The other children glanced sarcastically.

"No wonder Kai forbade you from eating snacks." Nya rolled her eyes, deliberately ignoring Morro's wide eyes.

"Look who's there, does the person who broke things feel proud?" Nya and LIoyd simultaneously glared at him.

"Shut up Mo." The girl hissed.

"Mo?! I told you I'm not Mo!!" Morro jumped up, waving his hands to show his discomfort.

Kai looked at them and sighed. He wonder if it's okay for him to leave for a while, or if he refuses to help Pixal? Master Wu said that if they had he help, it would be solved faster.

Just for a moment, it'll be okay...

That's right, just for a moment.

"Jay, quickly help Zane stop Cole from eating the cake."

Jay listened to him, the boy nodded from beside LIoyd then ran behind him, and help Zane pulled Cole away from the refrigerator.

"Wait, just this one more!" Cole struggled, trying to finish the half-eaten piece of cake. Morro walked past the screen, holding the water and looking contemptuously at the three of them.

"Cole." Cole stiffly looked at the phone, his hand raised to cover his mouth that still had cake on it. "You can finish that cake," Cole smiled brightly. "And won't be eating any tomorrow."

The boy's lovely hope was cruelly trampled by Kai. Cole went limp like a thin sheet of paper, and Jay and Zane were confused and caught him.

LIoyd chuckled, the boy was the one who accused Kai of what the other kids did while he was away. On the contrary, other children also found fault with him a lot.

They bully each other by using him. Why aren't they as adorable as yesterday?

It was the kids who caused the mission to almost fail. The surveillance work is secret but he is deliberately doing the worst thing, which is opening his phone at the highest volume.

His side really hurt when he fell on the roof just because of LIoyd's unexpected call. As well as almost being discovered by the pursuers.

The call ended, Kai put the phone aside. He stretched his arms out to his sides and decided to lie still on the concrete floor for a while. No one has the right to blame him for this.

There was a noise next to him. Pixal bowed low to the red ninja's sight, using his hand to push the hood off his head. "Another call?" she asked.

"This time it's Cole."

"Cake?"

Kai nodded.

"I knew this was the worst."

"Yeah... I think I'm going to die when this is over." He groaned and put his hands on his face.

"You can't die that quickly." Pixal said. "Anyway, sorry for calling you in this state."

"It's okay, I'm good with that."

Pixal smiled pityingly at him. "You don't look that good, Kai."

"I'm fine."

Nindroid giggled. Kai raised his hand and pushed his hair over his forehead, his eyes squinted against the sun. He remembered his own purpose here. "That's right, how are they?"

"I checked, they left this area a few minutes ago." Pixel used his eyes to scan again. "I guess they're not a normal bandit group."

"I saw them focusing on the children, it seemed like they had something in mind for those kids." Kai turned to avoid the blinding light. His eyes are very uncomfortable with the sun.

Pixal nodded at him. "I'll look into it. It's also quite strange that other than taking out a few items and clothes, they really didn't take anything else."

The group of bandits they followed was a large group, they were divided into many different branches, all of them carried weapons and had quite good fighting experience. They often take advantage of their numbers to fight them.

Recently robberies are increasing. It seems that Pixal has the feeling that they are all related to this group. This gang is starting to act more strongly, and the ninjas are not here now.

If they were here, this gang would be kicked out very quickly. Kai likes to do his own thing but this, he wishes his brothers and sister were here.

"If they actually do it, I'll burn them into bacon." Kai snorted, his expression both annoyed and arrogant making Pixal laugh.

"Please don't do anything stupid Kai."

Chapter Text

"I don't have as much medical information as Zane but you should still listen to me Kai, be careful of your broken ribs." Pixal grumbled tightening the bandages around the red ninja's hips.

"Ah! ow-ow!!" Kai screamed in pain, he swore Pixal had just deliberately pulled hard to warn him. It felt like he had broken another rib. "Because of FSM, you just broke another one of my ribs, Pix."

Pixal rolled her eyes.

"Pixal is right, you have to be more careful with yourself, Kai." Their Master sat on one side, slowly sipping a cup of white tea. "You can't fall on the roof just because of a phone call."

"But!-" Kai hissed then lowered his voice in annoyance when Wu glared at him. "It's not my fault." he said dryly.

"So it's Nya's fault?"

"No." Kai quickly responded, in a way, it was the ninjas' fault for constantly disturbing his mission. But whatever, Kai never really wanted to blame others, the only person he dared to blame was himself.

Not to mention they are all kids in need of support now, and he himself said to call him if they need it.

Wu took another sip of tea, reaching out to pick up the pot to pour more. Oh, the tea is out. "Pixal, I need more tea."

"We can buy it at the tea shop nearby." Pixal glanced at the map, there was a famous tea shop nearby, they could stop by to buy some. Next to the tea shop there is also a water shop.

She looked over at Kai, her eyes narrowed before asking, "Do you want something to drink, Kai?"

It also rarely happens that they buy water from the other side. Kai sat back in his chair, he was silent for a few minutes before responding. "A cold coffee."

Instead of hot coffee, cold coffee might help him improve his mood. Furthermore, the fire element master's body is hotter than a human's normal temperature, drinking hot will help him stay more focused on the fire and spirit, while cold can make him comfortable and relaxed.

Kai relied on each type of drink he had drunk to request a cup of cold coffee. Is it strange that he's just now realizing that? Not really.

"Coffee?"

Pixal looked suspicious about his request, "I've heard that you're not the first person to touch a cup of coffee, Kai" she said. "You also drank it this morning while we were talking. Did you just discover your new hobby?"

"I guess so." Kai responded with a shrug.

"Alright, just rest. We'll be right back with a cold cup of coffee for you." Nindroid disappeared from behind the exit, Master Wu also stood up.

He put the teapot aside. "In my room at the monastery there is some tea. They can help you stay awake instead of that coffee."

"You really don't like coffee, right?" Kai let out a short laugh. Wu doesn't like coffee at all, and even has an aversion to it. They didn't know why but sometimes some ninjas tried to be sarcastic about it, Kai also joined in a few times.

Pixal was right, he wasn't the number one fan of coffee among ninjas, that position had to go to LIoyd, who drank a minimum of three to four cups a day. In the past, that boy drank too much caffeine to the point that Nya even had to hide the coffee machine.

Kai once wondered why people who like sweets, for example candy like the green ninja, drink so much coffee. But now that I think about it, that question doesn't need an answer anymore.

LIoyd is a green ninja, and that burden of fatigue has made him addicted to coffee, which is enough to help him stay awake.

Maybe after this, Kai will turn into a second LIoyd, standing at the coffee machine every morning. That sounds fun. Then Nya will continue to hide the coffee machine. Yeah, this will be fun.

Nah, actually that kid better not drink so much of them.

"This place really does it amazingly fast." Pixal quickly returned with a cup of coffee as mentioned. She gave it to him. "Here you go Kai."

"Thanks Pix."

The coffee was served in a paper cup, its cold air wrapping around his fingertips. Kai skipped the straw and directly opened the lid and drank it. The cool feeling stimulated his brain and then disappeared immediately as comfort was replaced. Why did he never know coffee would be so good?

Unbeknownst to him, Pixal was looking at him. She smiled and turned back to the control panel.

They stayed in Destiny's Bountry for a while when Master Wu returned, and Pixal piloted the ship back to the monastery. She let Kai down from the stairs, "Good night Kai!"

"I haven't even had dinner yet." Kai waved, Destiny's Bountry flew away. The hot wind left from the ship's engines blew into his face. He exhaled, turned and walked the remaining steps to the monastery.

The sun had begun to set, from a high place like the monastery one could easily see the darkness covering the sky. Kai looked towards where the light remained behind the mountains.

When the only remaining light disappeared, he pushed the door open and entered.

A chicken greeted him, jumping on Kai's head to avoid the pursuit of a group of ninja children. All six children rushed at him at high speed and crashed into the red ninja. The chicken flew out and jumped down next to the seven of them.

Kai held back his scream of pain, he was being crushed by six children. Cole's arm pressed against his ribs, and Kai almost froze as the boy pushed hard against it to get up.

"Kai?!" They were startled and stared at the adult on the ground.

“You guys look so bad…” He laughed, if anyone paid close attention they would see that the sound sounded painful but he pushed it down.

The six children all had burn marks on their clothes, their shirts had black stains, their hair was messy and they were drenched in sweat. Nya had chicken feathers in her hair and Zane still held a handful of them in his hand.

"You look just as bad". Morro frowned, being the first to stand up.

Really? Kai didn't think his gi was torn or there were any scars on his face. Except for his pitiful ribs, his body is fine.

The children pushed each other away to leave his body, except for one kid who continued to return to hug Kai.

"LIoyd?" LIoyd hugged him tightly then turned to face the chicken, glaring. The chicken narrowed its eyes and flew onto Kai's shoulder as a form of provocation, making LIoyd grimace. Kai looked for a moment before realizing what they were doing, he burst out laughing. "Take away those eyes, green bean."

LIoyd groaned and buried his face in the red ninja's chest. Kai really wanted to carry him inside but his broken ribs wouldn't allow it.

Zane narrowed his eyes, nindroid scanned his body, for a second those eyes widened. He opened its mouth and then closed it again. Adjusting his voice a bit,  "LIoyd, brother Kai is still lying on the ground." the boy said.

LIoyd didn't get up at first, he clung to Kai like an octopus. It wasn't until Kai convinced him that he would give him candy that LIoyd stood up.

They turned back into the monastery, Zane noticed a temperature above his head, he looked up and received a grateful smile from Kai. Kai patted him on the head and then went up to pick up Jay who tripped while going up the steps. The Nindroid blinked, unconsciously touching the place where Kai had just patted it, a lovely smile appeared on the boy's lips.

After dinner Kai drank coffee again, he sat outside while the little ninjas chased the Master's pets, watching out for the chicken not to use its strange powers to hurt the children.

Looking back, it was thanks to that chicken that Kai was able to relax more with his cup of coffee. Should he thank his teacher for leaving that chicken at the monastery?

Cole jumped from the wall and grabbed the chicken's tail, it made an unpleasant sound and then slipped out of the boy's hand. Cole floated in the air and fell onto Zane. Jay and Morro are work together, wow, This is new, especially after their argument yesterday.

Kai enjoys his cup of coffee.

Morro appeared in front of the chicken, the chicken flew past the boy and Jay suddenly appeared behind to grab it.

They succeeded, in two seconds. The animal struggled out of Jay's hand, then passed Nya as she jumped in, and stomped on LIoyd's head to fly up to the roof.

Zane pushed Cole away to jump onto the roof of the monastery, the chicken immediately flew down as the nindroid jumped next to it. They groaned, grumbled and used all kinds of plans to catch the chicken.

Kai had finished his coffee, now he understood why Master Wu liked to look at them from this position.

He went back in to get another cup, glanced through the playroom and noticed the pile of drawing paper thrown on the floor. If he remember correctly, Pixal bought them a box of colors. It seems that her system still knows what children need, so it's no wonder there are so many drawings here.

There are a few paintings with him in them, Impressive. Kai snorted looking at the cute doodles.

There was also a piece of paper and chicken feathers on the bench. Kai brushed the feathers away to see the only small drawing on that piece of paper.

A simple face with two eye dots, a smiling mouth, a scar across the eye and spiky hair with the word 'Dumb' written next to it. Okay, that's cute, but he's not dumb.

What child drew him like that?

Kai stayed a few more minutes to look at the ninjas' drawings. Most of it was quite cute, which made him look forward to showing the ninjas what they drew themselves when everything returned to normal. Then ninjas will never be able to deny that Kai is the best.

Such a great plan.

Jay sneezed at the chicken feathers, snorted in annoyance then looked up at Kai, who was smiling smugly again. What's he laughing at??

"Jay, Grabs it!" Jay turned around and the chicken flew between the boy's legs.

His grunting sounds like he was about to cry attracted Kai, he looked up and smiled, continuing to sit there and watch them.

The children were scratched quite a lot but they did not cry or complain because they were overwhelmed by joy when they successfully caught that chicken.

"We've got chicken!!" Morro raised the chicken, the other ninjas happily shouted with all the excitement and pride of victory, all the tiredness had turned into great achievements.

The ninjas gasped and fell exhausted to the ground, including Zane, the chicken escaped again but they didn't care.

"My feet hurt so much..."

"Kaiii"

"I'm hungry."

"You stink Cole."

"Oh, shut up Jay."

"I can't move anymore."

"Ughh..."

"Go take a shower, guys." Kai arrived in front of them, that damn chicken was on his shoulder and making a relaxing cooing sound as it lay there, the red ninja's body had a warmer temperature than a normal person's, "It's getting late, Don't be too long." he said with a smile.

The ninja automatically grimaced for nothing.

They were too tired to splash water on each other, Zane nodded and rubbed his eyes as Kai examined his overloaded robot parts. Kai was skeptical, but since this was Zane, maybe the nindroid being sleepy was... normal?

Yeah, when he remembered the old days, this was normal.

Zane's leg suddenly started smoking a few minutes ago, causing Kai to panic. He is not a person who knows about technology but luckily he can still manage in some way.

"I don't really understand..." Zane suddenly muttered. Kai raised his eyebrows but the child did not continue.

In fact, it is quite easy to recognize the boy's nervous state by the way he bends down and starts rubbing his hands on his arms or thighs. The most obvious is probably the rustling of his clothes when he keeps doing that.

Kai smiled, "You don't need to understand, Zane." his voice was gentle. The little nindroid didn't look at him, his knuckles clutching his sleeve tightly.

He was startled slightly when Kai pulled his hand from his shirt, then placed his hand in him big scarred hand. Zane blinked, Kai's warm fingers wrapping around his strangely cold iron joints. He didn't look at Zane and continued to check the wires in his legs.

Zane could feel the temperature of the master of fire, it was true, familiar and warm. The boy tucked his knuckles into Kai's palm, smiling gratefully back when he saw him smiling. Even after he finished checking, their hands keep still like that.

Kai sat on the floor, holding the phone in his free hand. Eyebrows raised every time he saw something strange. Zane laughed softly and Kai looked up at him with a confused blink.

The others turned around to see their strange actions and were somewhat confusing. Nya pushed the chicken sitting next to her brother away. The chicken avoided her and flew into Kai's lap. Even if the girl is sleepy, she has to glare at it.

"Go to sleep, kids." Kai stroked her hair and then reached out to pat LIoyd's head, who was staring at the chicken with eyes full of annoyance.

"I want to sleep with you." LIoyd pushed his hand away, pouting. "I want to sleep with you just like Jay."

"Did you sleep with Kai last night?' Cole raised his eyebrows and glanced at Jay.

"Yeah?" Jay replied, rubbing his eyes from the uncomfortable sleepiness.

"Then I want too." Jay frowning and looking back at Cole, who just looked excited about the idea of ​​sleeping in Kai's room.

"And so am I." Zane interjected, smiling so widely that Jay had to squint his eyes. Nya didn't say anything but she secretly thought about it.

"Sorry guys, but my bed isn't enough for everyone." Kai said giggling and they looked at him with disappointment.

The ninjas were already very sleepy. After arguing back and forth, they still had to go back to their rooms to sleep. But, Jay did not dare to sleep alone, he still insisted on clinging to Kai, then LIoyd.

Arrived at Nya, and Cole and Zane continued to follow.

Alright, Kai decided to use his quickest method, he decided to let them sleep together in the playroom.

But before that, he needed to do one more thing.

Kai went to Morro's room and put his things on the floor, knocked on the door and walked away. Morro opened the door with an annoyed face. He looked around and saw no one, then began to grumble and stopped at a package of cakes and a bottle of milk in front of the door.

On the milk bottle was a piece of paper that said 'Reward!'

Morro blinked, he turned the paper around and read more: 'There's still a place waiting for you, kid.'

Although the name was not recorded, but he knew who did this. Morro pursed his lips, picked up the bottle of milk and cake, and muttered quietly into the distance before closing the door.

"Idiot"

They were all asleep, LIoyd curled up on his side with Nya lying next to the boy, her arm around LIoyd's waist and reaching her brother's shirt. Jay leaned against his thigh, the boy's freckled cheeks pressed against his pants, Cole's arm draped over Zane's chest with both of the boy's legs on top of Jay. The chicken lay in his lap, nodding.

The TV screen switched to a horror movie, Kai sat back in his chair, still alert, drinking his almost empty cup of cold coffee.

There were footsteps from the hallway, Kai looked up and smiled. The hand left Nya's hair and patted the empty spot next to him.

"The movie just started, kid."

Morro snorted, rolling his eyes.

Chapter Text

Jay sniffled and snuggled into the adult's lap. Kai was awakened by the boy's sudden movement. He didn't open his eyes, patted Jay's back until the child's only snorts remained. Next there was a soft object pressed against the back of his hand, Kai tried to open his eyes to see. It was Cole, the boy curled up with his head on Jay's back and Kai's hand.

The child rolled closer and tried to get under Jay's small blanket. Kai ran his hand through the boy's hair and closed his eyes again.

This was the third time in his sleep tonight that the red ninja had been awakened, but he didn't have the strength to complain, nor did he know if it was morning yet. The last time Kai woke up was by the sound of a rooster crowing. He blinked and frowned at the bright light outside.

His body and head were becoming uncomfortable with this. Previously, Kai was always the most active nocturnal person, so usually he or Zane would take on the nighttime tasks, in exchange for him having more time to sleep in the morning or afternoon. LIoyd also participated a few times and mostly got Kai or other ninjas grumbling about how it wasn't good for him at all.

His body was asking for more sleep, and Kai was trying to fight it. Never has breaking a few ribs been so uncomfortable, it used to be, but not anymore, except now.

The sound of the rooster stopped, the children were still sleeping, they slept so deeply that even the sound of the rooster's crow could not wake them up. Zane rolled off the carpet, Nya and LIoyd rolled up Morro's blanket, making him cold and uncomfortable as he lay curled up, Jay and Cole pressed close together in Kai's lap.

The chicken jumped onto the couch above their heads and jumped down on him, Kai frowned at it. He didn't want the chicken to continue crowing to wake up the little ninjas.

Strangely, that chicken just looked at him and did nothing. He blinked, that was new. Well, not really because this weird creature also followed him many times yesterday.

Master Wu's pets and the red ninja have never gotten along, for the most part. It likes to chase or peck Kai every time he oversleeps or uses controller to play games. Kai rolled his eyes, the chicken glanced in the direction he was looking and then turned back.

"Uh... hello?" He smiled awkwardly, the chicken tilted its head. Kai glanced down at its claws. "Can you get off me?..."

It jumped down as he wanted. Kai carefully pulled his hands away from Cole and Jay and sat up, grumbling about how sleeping on his side for so long had caused his wound to hurt. Actually, his whole body felt uncomfortable, feeling just like the first day of this babysitting incident.

He put his hands on the couch behind him and stood up, lifting Zane back to the carpet and glancing at his watch to check the time.

It was now after nine o'clock in the morning. Kai was a little suspicious that the clock was broken when the rooster crowed at this time instead of five o'clock every morning. But whatever, maybe because it saw them not waking up, it continued to crow, but wait, hens can crow too??

Ugh, why did he only notice now?

Kai took another blanket and covered Morro and went to the bathroom, doing familiar actions every time he woke up. Squeeze toothpaste onto the toothbrush and look down at the chicken standing at his feet, does it like to follow people like that?

He went out, it followed him. He entered the room, it followed him, he went to take a shower and closed the door, it suddenly flew onto his shoulder when he just got out of the bathroom. Why does it feel like Kai has just been given a new tail?

The chicken rubbed its head against his cheek, Kai stopped. The world paused for a few seconds before he continued walking, he never said this, but, the chick was actually quite adorable when it was like that.

He returned to the room, passed by the sleeping children and suddenly stopped, thinking about something before picking up his phone from near the TV and taking a photo.

Cole was staring, not sure if the others were like that but he stopped eating for a few minutes just to look at the red ninja, or to be more precise, the hateful creature on Kai head.

Kai didn't seem to notice, he groaned at the way Nya refused to eat broccoli. The red ninja rolled his eyes in annoyance and exhaled. "You'll be stuck in the bathroom all day if you don't eat a single vegetable Nya."

Nya widened her eyes and turned towards him, Zane stiffened from the other end as the boy also pushed the carrot out. Kai raised his eyebrows, are nindroid also picky eaters?

"But-!"

"you know what I mean, Nya." Kai shrugged, pretending not to see a few other kids just disgustedly eating his vegetables. Nya grimaced and stuck out her tongue in disgust before reluctantly stuffing a broccoli into her mouth.

LIoyd spit out the carrot quickly and grabbed the glass of water on the table, drinking it all in just five seconds. "It's disgusting!" The boy spoke angrily.

"Don't call the food disgusting, green beans."Kai glanced at the boy and stuffed a piece of carrot into his mouth. It wasn't that bad. They ate too much meat two meals ago, so today he increased the amount of vegetables a bit.

The food Pixal bought is almost gone, at most it's only enough for today. Eating meat and vegetables for too long will no longer be good and will give them a stomach ache.

Kai shuddered, recalling his childhood when he often had stomach aches because he had to eat leftovers to keep him and Nya alive. Remember how his sister fainted in his arms because she couldn't stand the pain, and how Kai promised to never let her touch any strange food.

How he had to run from house to house asking for food and trying to learn how to cook through old books.Sometimes they only get a little so he has to lie to his sister so she can eat it in peace.

He later returned to work in his father's smithy through memory and instructions from him old notebook.

"I'm full." LIoyd pushed the food away and ran from the table.

"LIoyd." Kai reminded, LIoyd did not listen to him and disappeared from the room. He heard the TV turn on outside. Kai calmly finished his food and gave the last broccoli to the chicken that had just jumped down.

"Morro."

Morro, who had been looking at him since LIoyd ran out of the kitchen, suddenly finished his food quickly. Kai smiled. "Take back half of LIoyd's candy."

Not fast, not slow, Morro rushed out of the kitchen with fiery energy.

Kai stood up to collect the dishes. 

"There's no need to force yourself like that." He smiled softly at the way Cole stuffed the vegetables into his cheeks.

Cole blinked, shyly chewing slowly. The boy looks quite adorable with his puffy red cheeks.

Kai narrowed his eyes and pulled out his phone. "Cole, look up here."

Cole looked up, a bit startled when the red ninja had just taken a photo of him.

"Okay, enjoy your meal, little bear." He put the phone in his pocket, picked up the plate and stood up, not forgetting to pat Cole on the head.

"L-little bear?" Cole looked confused about what Kai said before he left.

"Now it's your turn to have a nickname." Jay frowned at the onions, reaching into his pocket to find the strawberry candy Kai gave him yesterday. The boy snorted before using his hand to pick off the candy wrapper.

"Did he give you a nickname?" Cole blinked his big, innocent eyes. Nya leaned over from his side and was curious.

"He called me little blueberry..." Jay pouted, his face wrinkled as the candy inside melted and stuck to the wrapper. He tossed it to Zane, who had been silently staring.

"It suits you very well." Nya waved her fork then stuffed broccoli into her mouth.

"Oh stop it..." Jay blushed and groaned, curling up as if he wanted to hide his face in his knees.

"I..." Cole suddenly stopped and that attracted all three of them. "I think it's kind of... cute?" The boy blushed as he said that, then hastily explained again.

"I-it's like he's considering us special!" Three eyes narrowed, Cole's face turned tomato color as he couldn't stop talking. "F-for example, he called you l-little blueberry because you resembled them-o-or like when he also called LIoyd is green beans because they're small and green! "

"So he calls you little bear because you're big and soft?" Nya said and Cole stopped to look at her.

"He called me 'little'... so what do you mean big?" He tilted his head awkwardly.

"Bears have larger bodies than humans, so I think Nya is right." Zane explained to him and leaned over to return the hardened candy from his cold hand. Jay looked surprised.

"That... I don't know but I'm pretty sure Morro is older than me and I'm even a bit taller than him, so... I think you're right." Cole shyly scratched his cheek.

"Nah, what exactly does it mean is that you're cute and soft." Kai appeared behind them, startling all four children.

He ruffled Cole's hair, whose entire body turned red. "a-am I cute?" The boy stammered.

"Always." Kai said without hesitation. He could use this all his life to tease Cole if him felt shy about it.

"Where's all my candy?!" LIoyd shouted from the hallway. Kai was startled and turned around to see the boy with wet eyes and grimacing face standing there. Morro walked out just in time.

He frowned, the boy shrugged with a satisfied smile.

LIoyd glared, groaning and turning towards the red ninja. "Kai..."

Kai sighed and grumbled softly before walking over to the two children.

"I shouldn't have been surprised."

LIoyd jumped into Kai's arms immediately as he bent down, the boy didn't notice his slightly stiff movements as he lifted himself up, and pointed at Morro. "It's definitely Mo who took it!!"

Morro's smile was replaced by an annoyed look, the boy's face wrinkled at the name 'Mo' but instead of screaming like the previous two times, he glanced up at Kai.

And yes, he knew Morro took it, the one who told the boy to do it was also him, but Kai didn't tell him to take it all but he still did it, and now what do he say? That Kai was the one who told Morro to do that? Too frank.

His words at this time are really important. If he pretends that he is not involved, it will cause the gradually accepting relationship between him and Morro to return to the starting line. Kai wasn't sure because he knew very little about the master of wind, he just saw that they looked alike so he guessed so.

On the contrary, if he does not explain clearly to LIoyd, the boy will be hurt and no longer trust him. LIoyd is a sensitive child, in fact in Kai's eyes he has always been just a mischievous and small child.

How did this turn into such an awkward situation?? Is he thinking too much?

It's only morning, damn, it looks like he'll never get a proper rest.

Kai breathed out, "It's me who told him to do it, green bean." LIoyd was stunned for a moment before looking up at him, confusion and betrayal in the child's eyes.

He moved the boy up a bit, "It's a punishment for not being good, you can still get it back and have more candy if you're a good kid."

LIoyd was still wincing but it was a little better. A few minutes later the boy pouted, crossing his arms over his chest to show a small amount of anger. "But I'm a good kid!"

Haha, definitely.

Morro rolled his eyes in disdain, his annoyance softening into neutrality.

While Kai was there listening to LIoyd give himself all sorts of reasons to prove he was the best kid in the world, Pixal had been swearing for almost ten minutes on Destiny's Bountry.

Wu sat to the side, calmly pouring tea into a cup. "Calm down Pixal." His voice was soft and deep.

In contrast to Pixal's angry mechanical voice. The Nindroid growled and slammed her hand on the control panel, "Those damn bastards!" Ignoring Master Wu's raised eyebrows, she angrily glared at the places being robbed in ninjago. "They dare to ruin my plans."

Many alarm dots appeared on the screen, her robots were continuously transmitting danger signals. The red signal rang out shrilly throughout the ship, Pixal bent down to drop more robots.

“They’re aiming for something else.” Master Wu suddenly spoke, Pixal was stunned for a few seconds before frowning as he stared at the routes they were stealing.

The TV had reported, they were getting confused and worried as the robberies turned into raids and the only backup they had was a handful of robots, no ninjas, no elemental powers, where were they all now?

“Do you want a haircut?” Cole looked up from Jay’s drawing, they were drawing a strange picture together with no specific theme. The boy blinked, his curly black hair covering his eyelashes and brushing against his cheeks whenever he bent down.

Cole nodded, Kai smiled as he stood up and walked into the hallway, returning with a pair of scissors and a tall round stool. This chair had not been used for a long time, he remembered the last time it was brought out so that Lloyd could stand on the washstand. Kai took it out, the kids watched curiously as he went back into the bathroom and pulled out another comb, a spray bottle, and a towel.

He called out to the boy, Cole dropped his crayons and trotted out into the yard. Kai draped the towel over Cole's front, covering the entire body below the child's neck, and secured it with two rubber bands. He lifted Cole onto the chair, stuffed the scissors into his pocket, and began combing his hair.

The blade of the comb tugged at Cole's hair, touching his scalp. Cole let out a pained grunt as the comb pulled the tangles aside. Kai paused, moving his tongue more slowly, gently untangling the knots. "Your hair is messy, kid."

Zane walked over curiously, and Kai let him hold the spray bottle.

Starting at the nape of him neck, Cole's hair was long and curly. Kai could never forget how he would occasionally stare at the ninja's hair, Every time he did so he was compelled to cut or comb their hair. Like, you know, he was a hair-care freak, Nya's soft black hair was something he had taught his sister how to care for, despite her unwillingness.

Cole kicked his feet in boredom, "Stay still, Cole." Kai reminded.

The hair fell to the tiled floor, Kai trimmed the nape of the boy's neck a bit, leaving the soft curls to wrap around the child's neck. He moved up, squinting a bit before parting it to get the top section. Maybe he should buy some hair clips.

Cut, trim, brush. Zane stared at it without blinking. Kai moved up to Cole's face to brush the bangs and top of his hair, trimming the sparse hair. The boy sniffed, causing the hair to stick to his nose.

Cole sneezed and Kai almost pulled a chunk of the boy's hair, for FSM, he almost threw him. Kai flicked the child's hair from his face and groaned, "Didn't anyone tell you not to sniffle while they were cutting your hair?"

Cole shook his head, Kai frowned and brushed the hair under his cheek. He didn't say anything else and went back to cutting his hair, which made Cole a little nervous. "K-kai" 

His brother tilted his head and made a sound in response. Cole pursed his lips and shook his head, but stopped when he realized Kai was still cutting his hair. "Nothing."

Kai looked at the boy, raising an eyebrow. "Did I hurt you?"

“What-no!” Cole looked up at him, confused.

“Then what’s bothering you?” he asked, taking the spray bottle from Zane, the little nindroid confused. Kai sprayed water on him hair and combed it again, pulling the front of him hair back.

Cole looked away from him, hesitant. “…Are you mad?”

Kai paused, blinking in confusion. “Why would you think I’m mad?” he said, his voice softer, not looking at Cole as the boy’s face turned red. The scissors in Kai’s hand touched the child’s hair, cutting away a strand and the remaining sparse strands.

“Because you remind me of my dad.”

The scissors stiffened. The boy’s last words were caught in his throat, as if unsure.

“…You think so?” Kai lowered his eyes, continuing to move the scissors.

"I don't remember exactly, but Dad looked angry when I did something wrong, he didn't do anything but his face was really... scary?" The next section of hair was lifted, the cut part falling softly.

"But then he would apologize and... pat my head? You remind me of him but, you're not like him."

The curls were straightened. "You held me to sleep, cooked for me, and cut my hair..." The bangs were lifted from Cole's eyes, the boy's amber eyes sparkling as he looked up at the red ninja, Kai.

"You-"

Kai let his bangs fall so that they hit the boy's eyes. Zane let out a panicked noise at the same time as Cole. "Because I'm the best big brother, I know." Kai laughed, snorting and putting his hands on his hips in a proud pose.

Zane looked worried as Cole rubbed his eyes, the kid's eyes slightly red. They looked at Kai, glancing at each other.

Yes, the best brother.

Chapter Text

“Just a haircut, kid, get your little ass down here.” Kai put his hands on his hips, looking unimpressed as Morro climbed up on the cabinet to avoid getting his haircut. Why would an master of elements be afraid of getting his hair cut??

The kid growled on top of the cabinet, looking like a stray cat ready to claw at Kai’s hand if he raised his hand. Kai sighed, shoving the comb into his pocket, the phone hitting the back of his hand. Kai paused, looking up at Morro, who was still growling in alarm.

Kai pulled out his phone and took a picture of the boy.

Morro looked confused as Kai put the phone down and put the photo in an album.

Kai didn’t usually keep photos organized, but since these were special, it would be nice if he put them in a more searchable folder. The photos would be the best thing on his phone, from now on.

“Get down here, kiddo, you can’t just stay up there.” Morro clutched the top of the cabinet to show his determination, Kai looked at the boy, rolling his eyes.

The rest of the little ninjas were sneaking glances at they from the couch, Morro seemed too stubborn to notice them. Kai narrowed his eyes, Morro was startled when Kai glanced up again.

"Well," he sighed, and Morro was stunned. He looked confused as Kai turned around with a disappointed look. "Looks like some greenbird doesn't want ice cream."

"I-?!" Morro awkwardly got up and hit his head on the ceiling, the boy ignored the pain and hurriedly asked Kai back. "I can eat?"

Kai raised an eyebrow, "Yes?" He tilted his head a bit to remember something, blinked and looked up. "Did I forget to tell you that the punishment is over?"

"You!-" Morro looked quite angry at that, the cabinet tilted as the boy got up again. Gripping back against the cabinet, Morro grumbled, "You said it was forbidden but didn't even say the time."

Oh? He didn't really remember. It was definitely Kai's fault for not speaking properly, but who knew the wind master was so obedient. The kid was quite good in a way, and looking at him, it took Kai a few minutes to find the last trace of the wind ninja he knew.

Master Wu said Morro wasn't exactly a bad kid, well, he was right.

Kai gave he a shy smile, raising his hands to show that he didn't mean it. "Sorry kid, I forgot."

The kid stared at him, snorting and rolling his eyes.

"Two."

Kai tilted his head, Morro speaking so softly and quickly that he couldn't even hear it. "What?" 

Morro glared at him, his face red. Did he do something wrong??

"I said!-" Morro stood up and shouted, sliding off the edge of the cabinet. The world froze as he fell, he heard Kai scream, heard the other children panic, there was a shiver in his chest.

What was it? Was it some weird elemental power that always urged Morro to release it, but- but how to release it?

Morro had completely forgotten how to use elemental power.

Kai was not the fastest of the ninjas, in fact his speed was sometimes the slowest of the group. As soon as the boy fell, Kai rushed straight for it, the cabinet tilted towards him and crushed both of them.

All the things on the shelves fell, luckily none of them broke. Nya and Zane were the fastest to react, they jumped up from the couch and ran towards Kai and Morro. Kai pushed the cabinet open easily, the cabinet was more rotten than he remembered.

Anyway, Kai never paid much attention to the things in the monastery.

Morro, who was protected by him, had no scar, but the child's spirit looked very panicked. The boy was trembling, his face buried deep into Kai's chest, his fingers clutching his shirt. His already pale skin was even paler, his body tensing and jerking as Kai wrapped his arms around the back of his neck.

This child was having a panic attack, Kai should have been surprised because he had never seen Morro like this. But he wasn't, Kai hugged the boy, patting the child in his arms. Morro had a lot of panic attacks, just like Lloyd and Jay, he just never sought help from anyone.

Kai looked up and saw the other children anxiously surrounding they, most of them looked like they were about to cry. Kai smiled reassuringly, he was completely fine, this little impact didn't affect him much.

The broken rib was still quite painful, but Kai was glad that it didn't break any more or affect any other internal organs in his body.

Kai really didn't want to remember the time he had a pneumothorax.

"Just call Kai."

Pixal looked up at Master Wu with wide eyes, she frowned. "What about the rest of the ninja?"

Wu didn't look at her, he stared at his teacup, when the water in it moved, Master Wu slowly answered. "Let's take care of this and we'll return to the monastery tomorrow."

Morro sniffed, the rims of his eyes and the tip of his nose were pink, no need to ask to know he had been crying. Lloyd occasionally glanced at him from across the chair, looking like he wanted to ask but didn't. Kai came in front of them, holding out two bowls of ice cream and a small smile.

He gave the bowl with one scoop to Lloyd and the bowl with two scoops to Morro. Morro reached out to take it, he placed it on his lap, feeling the cold air radiating from the bottom of the bowl. Kai left quietly, Lloyd looked at his bowl of ice cream then looked up at Morro. The boy stuck his spoon into the green ice cream, his eyebrows furrowed.

Morro's bowl of ice cream had a tiny ice cream ball added, Morro raised his eyebrows and glanced at Lloyd, the kid was pretending like he didn't do anything while his unwilling face betrayed him.

Morro returned the same thing, but brown.

"I don't like the nutty flavor." His words were still harsh but less hostile. Lloyd showed his displeasure at the small brown ice cream, and he scooped it back.

Morro glared, scooped a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth, and threw the nutty ice cream back. Lloyd threw it back, and Morro did the same. They didn't yell at each other, just glared and ate the ice cream.

From the kitchen, Kai wiped Zane's mouth, the nindroid also wanted to eat, raising his eyebrows at the two boys who were arguing silently outside. Cole squeezed past him.

"Cole, you can't eat ice cream with cake."

Cole pouted.

Morro was eventually dragged out by Kai to get his hair cut, his face grimacing, his arms crossed, and he occasionally grumbled. Kai ignored all of it, quickly finishing the job of cutting the hair of all six children. He snorted proudly when he finished.

"Say cheese!" Morro in the photo scowled, looking like he wanted to attack him. Kai chuckled and threw the photo into the album, there was no denying that Morro still looked cute with it.

After dinner, the kids went to take a bath, Zane wanted to join in but he didn't dare to say anything. Kai spent ten minutes trying to find the button so he could join in the splashing, Morro was extremely unhappy about that especially when LIoyd joined in. Nya was always the last one to take a bath, she played with the feather on her brother's thigh, her eyes looking up at the cartoon.

The image of the star on TV seemed to make her think of something, Nya glanced up at her brother, "Little star?"

Kai was stunned, he looked up from his phone and looked down at her. "Do you remember it?"

Nya shook her head in confusion, innocently asking Kai. "What is it?"

The older brother glanced away, his eyes nostalgic, remembering something, after a while he smiled back, "That's what I used to call you when we were little."

Kai lifted his hand away from the chicken's feathers beside him, his warm hand reached out to stroke the side of the little girl's head. "The only hope that keeps me standing."

The sparkling blue eyes looked at him, the little girl tilted her head, making Kai think of a little cat. "Hope?" his little sister wondered.

"Yes," His eyes curved into a crescent moon, "Do you know the story of wishing upon stars?"

Nya blinked, she pointed to the TV, where the image of cartoon characters were holding hands and lying together on the grass under the stars. It was a beautiful scene.

"That's right." Kai patted his little sister's head, praising her, Nya smiled brightly at him. This cute child.

"To me, you're just like them" Nya moved to sit sideways on Kai's lap, reaching up to adjust her skirt, patting her knee, then smiling obediently at her brother so he could continue.

Kai chuckled, lifting the curled corner of her skirt for her. he lowered his head to touch his forehead to her sister's hair and hummed softly.

"Shine wherever you are..."

" I guarantee you will always shine wherever you go."

Nya looked over to give a bright smile to the boy beside her, who was also her brother two years older than her. The two cousins ​​leaned close together on the grass, no matter how scary the darkness was, she still felt relaxed here.

Because there was a brother beside her, who would always make sure Nya was happy.

Her brother carried her up, Nya leaned on his back. She yawned slightly as they returned together, her brother tilted his head and gently said to her.

"Sleep well, my little star." 

"Yes..."

Nya smiled in her sleep, Kai stroked her hair, raising an eyebrow wondering what she had dreamed about. Maybe he would ask the kid in the morning.

"Go to sleep, kid." Jay and Cole groaned on the couch, Kai patting Jay's leg. "Don't make me say it again".

"Just this episode."

Kai raised an eyebrow suspiciously, finally sighing, he didn't have the energy for this. "Just this episode."

Jay and Cole nodded while their eyes were still on the TV. Kai covered Nya and LIoyd with blankets and stood up.

He caught sight of Morro and Zane in the hallway. Morro frowned and tapped his fingers on Zane's frozen hand. "What the hell is this?"

Zane shook his head, "I don't know."

"Then why are you asking me? Go ask Kai." Morro waved his hand, the annoyance always appearing no matter who he was talking to. Zane blinked, tilting his head as if he didn't understand what the other person was saying.

"What's wrong?" Kai appeared right on time, Morro turned around and jerked his thumb towards Zane's hand.

"Zane said his hand suddenly got like that." and the boy also handed him his phone. "Here's your phone."

"Thanks, kid." Kai smiled and patted Morro's head.

A while ago, while preparing to watch a movie, Kai asked Morro to charge his phone, when LIoyd and Nya were asleep, Morro was about to go to the bathroom so he asked him to bring his phone back.

Morro shook his hand away. "Don't touch my head." The boy frowned but his cheeks had a little pink.

"Aw, this greenbird knows shyness too?" Kai teased and Morro glared at him.

"Don't call me by that damn nickname!"

"Control your language, kid."

Looking at the direction the child stomped away, Kai thought to himself that he would continue to use that nickname to tease Morro when they became closer in the future. Kai would definitely receive a lot of hits and scolding but he didn't care, teasing was always Kai's favorite thing to do.

"Brother Kai."

"Oh, I forgot, sorry Zane." Kai crouched down in front of Zane, "Alright, tell me your problem."

The boy held out his hand, his small hand, cold hand neatly placed on his palm. Kai squinted, pressing his thumb into the child's palm to get a closer look.

The ice suddenly started to melt, Zane was flustered and wanted to pull his hand back.

"Hey, hey, it's okay." Kai comforted, supporting the child's hand with both of his. "I'm trying to melt it but it doesn't seem to be working." he explained, watching the ice freeze again.

Zane had been like this many times, he called it losing control or blending with the elemental powers, Kai didn't know which one it was but he figured he should stop it before the kid got scared.

What did Zane usually do to make it go away?

Kai rubbed his chin, rolling his eyes in thought. He remembered Zane staring at it, closing his hands and opening them, turning them into little snowflakes.

Snow?

"Zane." The boy looked up at him, Kai guided him to close his hands and then cover the boy's hands with his own. "Leave it like that for a while."

They stayed like that for a while, Zane felt his hands warm up a little. Kai watched carefully, trying to get the timing right. "Try using your elemental powers a little."

Zane followed, confused.

"Okay, then."

When Kai pulled his hands back, Zane saw them, snow. The boy's eyes lit up as he held up a small amount of snow in front of them. Zane loved snow, ice was his element, and Kai loved seeing how the white ninja softened when he stood on something he loved.

The snowflake fell from Zane's hand, falling to the floor and quickly melting into water.

"Careful, they'll melt if you drop them, little snowflake." Kai reminded, the little nindroid listened to him, clumsily trying to keep the snow from falling.

Blinking, a minute later Zane looked up in surprise. "Did you just call me snowflake?"

"Huh? Did I just say that?" Kai didn't even realize it, his instinct to nickname all the children had become so habitual that sometimes he nicknamed the kid without even knowing it. "You can just assume that." The fire ninja waved his hand and laughed.

A few more snowflakes fell, Zane's shock fading and becoming confused.

Kai was about to take a picture of the boy like this when another nindroid attacked him, Pixal, she rushed into the monastery and shouted his name. "Kai!"

Kai quickly took a picture of Zane, hey, no one could stop him from taking pictures of these kids, and then hurried out. "Pixal?"

"Kai, we need to talk. Now!" Pixal ran into Master Wu's room with his strange stack of papers. Leaving Kai following him in a daze, before leaving he didn't forget to glance to see if Nya and LIoyd were awake, they weren't, luckily.

When Kai entered, Master Wu was already there. He handed him a cup of tea when he reached them, although he didn't understand, Kai drank it before asking. "What's going on?"

"Ninjago has been attacked." Pixal continued immediately when the red ninja just opened his eyes wide, "They're after something I haven't figured out yet."

Kai opened his mouth and closed it again, he frowned. "Them again?"

Pixal nodded, she let out a heavy breath. "I don't want to do this at all, but I really need you to help Kai."

"It's okay Pix, I was hoping you would call me if anything happened to Ninjago." Kai placed a hand on her shoulder and said. Pixal smiled back at him, then she saw him hesitate a bit. "But what about them?..."

Oh, right, she forgot, what about them.

"We should bring them along." Kai glanced at Pixal as quickly as he could with a very disapproving look, Pixal pretended to ignore it. "We have no choice, this will take longer than you think Kai."

There was a silence between them, Kai was torn between agreeing or not. Pixal was right, this mission was definitely not simple at all but if he brought the ninjas along, Kai was just worried that they would be dragged into the war as well.

"Kai, you know what you have to do." Wu told him, and Kai didn't look at him, he looked at the chicken that had suddenly appeared on the table.

Finally sighed, he wanted to be in bed now, it was already twelve o'clock at night.

"Let's do it."

That night Kai didn't sleep.

Chapter Text

"Be careful, kids." Kai lifted Cole, who was leaning closest to the edge of the boat, "Don't climb over there."

The kids didn't look at him, they didn't even listen to him. Kai frowned, whatever, they wouldn't listen to him now.

"Brother, brother, there's so much fun here, come play with me!" Nya excitedly ran out and pulled his shirt. Kai wanted to agree with her, but fuck it, he hadn't even gone to bed yet.

Refusing was a must.

"Sorry Nya, your big brother needs to sleep for a bit." Pixal saved him, Kai silently thanked her because he didn't have the energy to deal with such a stubborn little girl, especially his little sister.

His sister frowned in disapproval. "But I want to play." She whined.

"Your brother is tired, Nya, you can see that."

Nya was still stubborn, her high-pitched voice dropping. “Just a little bit.” That made Pixal frown.

“Nya.” Pixal warned softly, Nya scowled at her before pouting and turning to run back to the rest of the kids.

Pixal raised an eyebrow and Kai let out a short laugh.

“I almost forgot what a stubborn girl she was.”

“Yeah, I almost forgot that too.” Pixal laughed along with him, standing up and nudging Kai’s arm. “What magic is it that lets you handle a bunch of stubborn and energetic kids all by yourself?”

Kai rubbed his arm and chuckled in response, “I don’t know.” He joked, “Coffee?”

“Shut up you coffee addict.” She said, “Go to sleep before I throw you into this damn mission.”

The ninja blinked quickly. “You can't treat the most favorite brother here like that, Pix.” Kai snorted and dodged the nindroid’s kick, he knew she was going to kick him after that.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, do you want me to throw you in too?” Pixal rolled her eyes, speaking in her flat, robotic voice. Kai’s self-important demeanor made her want to punch him straight in.

“No, I’ll just go take that chair.” Pixal glanced over as Kai turned around, watching his back disappear behind the wooden door with a soft word left behind. “See you later Pix.”

He had been gone for a few minutes before Pixal reacted, she exhaled, whispering softly.

“Sleep well Kai.”

Her mother's heavy breathing and trembling body were the only things she could feel, her mother was trying to protect her from something. Her mother's tears ran down her cheeks, making her uncomfortable, no one could make her mother cry, she would be strong and no one could make her mother cry.

She struggled out of her mother's arms, her mother worriedly hugged her tightly. Her mother was saying something, but she didn't care, she would protect her mother, protect her like her mother always protected her.

"Stay away from my mother!"

A red spark flashed across the group of people, the little girl could recognize what it was. The red tornado slammed the strange bad guys into the wall, he stopped right in front of them, bent down and gently asked: "Are you two okay?"

She grinned, waving her hands to express her joy. "Red Ninja!!"

The red ninja glanced at her, his eyes curved behind his hood, he was smiling. She couldn't contain her excitement, struggling away from her mother to stand in front of one of her favorite ninjas. "I knew you guys would show up!"

"My friends kept saying you guys ran away, I didn't believe it and now! Hah, they'll have to believe me." The child snorted dramatically.

Kai chuckled at the way the child kept telling him, while the mother beside her tried to stop her energetic daughter from talking too much. She looked at Kai with an apologetic smile, Kai returned an understanding smile.

"So... shouldn't you go tell them now?" Kai said and the child looked up at him, mouth open in what looked like shock.

"Right! I'll beat them up and tell them!! You're Mark's favorite ninja, he'll cry if he finds out I got to meet you!!"

This child was really-

While the girl was still talking, Kai turned to the mother and pointed her to safety, when the mother nodded he turned back to the child.

"Kid, I need to go now." The girl stopped talking, Kai continued, "We can meet another time."

The girl blinked, frowned and pouted but didn't complain, which reminded him of Nya. "Okay... then next time can I meet the white or gray ninja? They're my favorite ninjas."

Kai patted the child's head, "Sure, you can meet both of them next time."

The child jumped up and asked to take a picture with him. Well.

It's a bit silly that they're actually taking pictures in this state.

"Right, red ninja..." Kai looked at the child, the child looked up at him. "Those guys are weird, Eli said they saw them kidnapping kids from their school."

What?

"Two of my friends disappeared, they parents are very sad..." The little girl wrapped her arms around her shirt, her eyes downcast, looking worried. "The red ninja... will they, will they come back?"

Kai looked at her, her eyes made his heart feel like it was being stabbed. The child's weak eyes gave him all the hope, Kai would kick himself if he didn't accept it.

"They'll be fine." Kai said, "I'll definitely save them, because ninjas never give up."

When they reached safety, Kai turned back to deal with each group of people, the energy he had gained from his nap was almost gone and the discomfort from his body was making Kai's actions violent, especially when these weird people were too many and annoying.

And especially when they were aiming for something else.

Meanwhile Pixal was not much better than him, she tried not to twitch her eyelids as the children were playing around everywhere, crying, fighting, curious and chasing chicken.

Turning away, in the safe place they had fixed for the people it was even more chaotic, everywhere was screaming, crying or whatever the loudest thing existed.

Why did they hold a concert here???????

How could that group of people still meditate?!

And Master Wu had disappeared somewhere. Fuck this, she was going crazy!

Why did the craziest things happen now?!

"Sorry!"

Pixal was startled when the microphones were pressed close to her face, they surrounded Pixal as if she were some super famous actress. The camera screen was on, it was straight on, showing the way the nindroid's eyebrows raised.

"As far as I know, you are also a ninja. May I ask why the city was attacked but no ninja appeared?" The woman pressed the microphone close to Pixal's mouth.

Pixal felt every circuit in her body heating up, she grimaced, the camera recorded her entire moment.

The reporter continued to ask without hesitation, "Did something happen to them?"

"No." Pixal replied in her cold, mechanical voice.

"Then why-"

"No."

"But-"

"I said no."

The reporters glanced at each other as Pixal kept interrupting them.

"Did they run away?" Pixal turned to glare, the reporter pulled the microphone back when he saw her gaze.

Pixal was not usually rude in public, they all were because they are fucking ninja, they needed to gain the trust of the people. But because of FSM, she was almost at her limit now.

If Kai was here, he would probably kick the microphones away.

"Hey, don't say that!" The nindroid glanced at the voice, it was a girl around nine years old. The child snorted dramatically, "Ninjas never give up, I met the red ninja! He saved my mother."

Pixal tried not to blink.

The reporters gasped and freed her and surrounded the child to ask questions, the child looked very proud as he told them what he had witnessed.

The surrounding noise faded away from her audio system, the nindroid glanced up at Destiny's Bountry, probably those little ninjas were destroying things up there. Master Wu would have to show up wherever he was when they threw his tea. 

Pixal bet it was Morro, LIoyd, or Cole, since those three seemed to like throwing things.

... Ninjas never give up huh.

It seems Kai is about to gain more fans.

Thanks to the help of the red ninja, the people were able to find a safer place, Pixal's robots were not destroyed much anymore. When the sun set, the night had already covered the sky.

Ninjago City seemed to have fallen asleep, the chaos had strangely stopped.

Kai grumbled and kicked the man out of the way, this was the last group of people he found tonight. It seemed like they weren't active at night and that was strange.

He glanced at the woman who had passed out beside him, like the man, she was also wearing a black outfit. The difference was that the woman was also carrying a large coat with her.

Kai squinted, that coat really looked suspicious to him.

Kneeling down beside the woman's unconscious body, Kai lifted his hand to pull the shirt away. His eyes widened in shock, his stiff hand moving stiffly near the thing inside.

A child, a newborn baby that was purple and showing poor vital signs.

Fuck it, he needed to tell Pixal.

Before that.

Pixal leaned on the Destiny's Bountry's operating system, his brow furrowed in thought.

"Sister robot."

Jay tugged on her shirt, enough force to snap the nindroid out of her thoughts to look at the boy. 

What did Jay just call her?-

"I'm hungry." Jay said, "Where's Kai?"

"Um..." Honestly, Pixal still couldn't get used to the fact that the ninja was a child. She avoided the child's innocent eyes, "He's busy, maybe... Kai will be back in a few minutes."

Jay looked down sadly, the child's blue eyes starting to water. Pixal looked at the boy, sighing. She bent down in front of Jay, her hand hovering for a moment as if examining him carefully before placing it on the child's shoulder.

Kai had been out for most of the day, she had brought food for the children at noon. They kept asking Pixal where Kai was, and every time they asked, Pixal had to patiently answer and explain.

Those bandits wouldn't be active much at night, Kai would more or less realize that so he might be back in a few minutes.

"Jay, little friend, look at me." Jay sniffled and looked up at her and Pixal smiled, her fingers lightly brushing the cobwebs on the boy's shoulder through his shirt. "Kai will be back and he'll be fine."

The child rubbed her eyes, "You promise?"

His eyes glistening as he waited for her answer, Pixal nodded. "I promise."

"See Jay, I told you Kai would be fine." Lloyd appeared behind Jay, patting the older kid's back with a small hand. Was the kid trying to comforting?

"Yeah, Kai is strong." Cole chuckled, a small scar on his cheek covered with a bandage from when he slammed the table earlier.

No one knew how Pixal managed to calm him down, she didn't know either.

"That's right, my big brother is the best!" Nya said proudly, Morro snorted behind her and rolled his eyes.

Zane laughed with the rest of the kids. The little ninjas, they smiled innocently at each other, their eyes sparkling without worry, fatigue, or clouded by the things outside. Pixal understood, she understood why Kai didn't want them to be affected.

[Pixal, we have an emergency.]

Kai's voice came from the communicator, Pixal reacted immediately and went to the communicator. "Kai, what's going on?"

[I found a baby.]

Nindroid could stop breathing for a few seconds if she could breathe, the loud wind next to Kai's voice was enough for Pixal to know he was going at a high speed. Pixal inhaled, she was inhaling right?

Whatever.

"I got it." Pixal looked up at the signal on the screen, "Be careful Kai, they can still appear."

[I will.]

Pixal grimaced after Kai's communicator turned off, turning around to pass by the little ninjas to prepare something.

Nya watched her go with a confused look, she didn't know what Kai and Pixal were talking about, but both she and the others knew they looked rushed and... scared?

"What's going on?" Cole asked the eldest of the six worriedly.

"I don't know." Zane shook his head.

They looked at each other, confused as Pixal walked away in a hurry.

Master Wu stepped out, placing the teapot on the table at the same time Kai rushed in. Pixal rushed out like lightning, Morro even flinched at the oddity.

Nya and LIoyd were excited to see him, but immediately had to back away when the red ninja carried a black bundle and placed it in Pixal's arms.

"His breathing was weak, I helped his body not get cold anymore." Pixal nodded, she carried the black bundle and walked away. 

Kai exhaled, the energy in his body dropping to an alarming level, his legs couldn't even hold him steady. Kai leaned over and grabbed the control panel to steady himself.

There was a sound of panic next to him. Kai closed his eyes, trying to regain his vision to look over. The kids, the ninjas looked scared...

Kai pushed his hood down, he leaned over to kneel in front of them, deliberately ignoring his aching body. Jay, LIoyd, Cole, even Nya looked like they were about to cry, Zane frowned in concern, Morro grimaced from behind them, the boy looked both annoyed and worried.

Kai guessed he was in pretty bad shape.

“LLoyd…” Kai raised his hand when he saw the child stutter, what he didn’t expect was that the boy avoided his touch. Kai froze, blinking and glancing at his arm. It was red, not the red of a Gi but blood, his blood.

The gloves and sleeves of the gi were torn, Kai's knuckles, biceps, and exposed shoulders were all covered in blood. Oh, he had almost forgotten that he was injured.

Normally he wouldn't get injured to this extent, Spinjitzu could handle being surrounded but it couldn't completely avoid all the weapons, especially when Kai was the only one saving this city...

No, there was Pixal, he wasn't alone, Yeah.

"Sorry." Kai stood up, The children were startled, LIoyd panicked, realizing what he had just done. The boy was about to speak but Kai stopped him. "I'll be back later."

He smiled and walked, walk awkwardly and with difficulty, leaning on everything he could along the way. Accidentally smearing his blood where he had touched.

His body swayed, almost falling.

LIoyd pursed his lips, the boy quickly wiped his tears to follow Kai.

Kai flinched away as the kids followed him, Jay hugged his leg, Kai groaned and pulled away.

Cole hugged his waist, for FSM, it hurts kid!

"Big brother can't leave!" Nya hugged his leg from the front. Kai looked at his sister with wide eyes. LIoyd imitated, hugging his other leg as well.

Morro and Zane didn't join in, but the way the two brats stood defiantly in front of them was enough to understand.

Kai wanted to curse, what the hell are these kids!

They didn't care that Kai's blood was on them too, they were just doing what they thought would keep him from going. Even though it was incredibly silly and stupid.

Kai figured he should have stayed out until tomorrow if he knew they were going to do that.

"You're smearing blood everywhere." Morro said. Kai blinked quickly, he glanced at the wooden wall he was leaning against that was covered in blood.

Oh.

He didn't notice that.

Master Wu stepped forward, placing the first aid kit in Zane's hands. Kai raised an eyebrow. He spoke, but not to Kai. "Zane, Cole, help Kai to the chair."

Kai was dragged away in a state of confusion.

He didn't remember when he passed out.

Chapter Text

It was getting to be too much.

The city was falling apart and Pixal couldn’t do anything. She wanted to smash them, throw those bastards from the tallest building in Ninjago.

How dare they target children?

Her iron fingers curled, pressing hard against the thick glass of the glass chamber where a newborn baby was fighting with the god of death. The child’s pale body and the purple, quivering lips made her uneasy.

Looking away, the nurses and doctors here were carrying children. Pixal could see that many injured children were found. And if asked who saved them, they would answer red ninja.

Kai had crushed many groups of people sneaking around but he couldn't find their lair, especially with that injured body.

Furthermore, Kai couldn't go alone. That would be no different than giving himself up to them.

"Is she progressing any further?"

Pixal looked at the bandaged hand on her shoulder and then looked up at him, Kai. He was wearing casual clothes, his body covered in different bandages, new scars overlapping old scars.

These two days. Two days Pixal couldn't help much, Kai kept rushing into danger regardless of their worries. Every time he came back, he had new injuries, some minor, some serious.

The little ninjas cried a lot about it, and Kai hugged them, comforted them, and told them he had to do it. Pixal could see the way the little ninjas tried to hold him back every time he walked away.

Pixal didn't want to sit there, she couldn't just sit there and use words or some old random robot.

During those two fucking days, during those two days Pixal tried to create other robots.

She was also quite surprised that the kids wanted to help, especially Morro. They had never communicated before, but the way the boy stared at her work with hesitant fingers was enough for her to understand.

"Her lungs are still weak."

Today was already the seventh day, the ninjas could return to normal at any moment but it didn't matter, her and their product was finished.

This morning when Kai was limping around rummaging through his old gis, the ones he was using were all torn. Pixal rushed out with Cole to pull him down to the chair, Nya jumped onto the chair right after and hugged her brother's waist as if afraid he would run away. Although they both knew Kai couldn't do that when LIoyd climbed onto his lap with Morro staring.

And a chicken on his head.

Jay held a tablet with toy glasses that he didn't know who he got from and Zane explained to Kai their new product.

Kai looked confused, extremely confused. He blinked, tilted his head to understand the situation and then laughed. His face was rosier than the past few days.

Kai agreed that they could use it instead of him kicking those bastards' asses today.

He agreed?

He agreed!!

The little ninjas cheered, even Morro couldn't help but smile. Pixal remembered how Kai took out his camera to take pictures of them.

Everyone knew it was extremely difficult to convince Kai, they had tried so many times, you know. But he actually agreed!

After the kids' excitement, Pixal pulled Kai aside to ask if he actually agreed. Kai chuckled and pushed her shoulder, of course he agreed.

Kai said and waved his hand, "If they come back, they'll scream at me for five hours if I say no, Pix."

Oh, right, today was Saturday. The earliest the ninjas would be back was today.

So here they were, at the hospital, meeting the people they had saved. They also met the little girl who had protected Kai in front of the camera last time, and she had brought along a smaller boy.

Kai called the kid Mark. Mark was almost hysterical and almost had a fit of excitement when Kai patted his head and signed the soccer ball the boy was carrying.

Pixal looked at Kai, who was watching the little ninjas interact with the other children. "You know." Kai turned back to her, "I still have my doubts about you agreeing with that idea."

"Is that so?" Kai narrowed his eyes, and he shrugged. "I won't try to prove it."

"Just try."

"Hey, I won't do that nonsense." Kai waved his hand, and Pixal noticed that the bandage on his hand was loose. She reached out to pull his hand down.

The palm of his hand was exposed through the bandage, and Pixal could see the large wound there. She said nothing about it, snorting and wrapping the red ninja's bandages, "You always do thoughtless things K." 

Kai blinked, his eyebrows raised in a small smile. "I'm K now?"

Pixal hummed, pulling at the bandage to secure it before tying it neatly. "Yep, K as in Kелесоо." 

There was an awkward pause and then Kai looked at her as if she'd said she was human. "What?" He was confused, "K-K? uh... what?" 

"Kелесоо." 

"What the fuc-" 

Pixal tugged. "It's been a while since you've cursed, K." 

"Not that long..." Kai groaned. Oh FSM, his poor hand.

LIoyd snorted and dodged the kid who had almost bumped into him, standing next to Morro, wincing. 

While the others were happily interacting, he and Morro were avoiding each other almost completely, this was the first time LIoyd felt like he and Morro could accept each other.

Jay sneaked in to join them, the kid too nervous to finish a sentence with anyone else. He leaned close to Lloyd and whispered, “Where’s Kai?”

"Stay with Pixal." Morro glanced at the two adults who were talking to a doctor on the other side.

"He looks terrible." Jay muttered, his face scrunched up in sadness.

Neither he nor LIoyd objected to that, because he was in bad shape. Even FSM didn't know how many injuries Kai had on his body, he didn't sleep much, at least three to four hours at most. If not, it was more like fainting than sleeping.

LIoyd looked down at the teddy bear that Jay was holding, the boy blinked, "Where did you get that?"

"Huh? Oh, it?" Jay held the bear out in front of them, "A little girl gave it to me."

"A little girl?" Morro laughed and said mockingly, "You don't feel ashamed to take a girl's things?"

"Hey, what do you mean?" Jay scowled, "Don't you have any respect for girls?!"

“I said you, not her.” Morro corrected.

“So what? No one gives it to you so you're jealous?" Jay sneered, leaning over and snorting.

Morro turned quickly with an offended look on his face. “Wha?- Okay. So? You want me to hit you again?”

“I’ll bite you again.

“Try it.”

LIoyd turned around, picked up the teddy bear Jay had dropped, and walked to the waiting room, as far away from the two of them as possible. He was too embarrassed to stand with them.

Nya looked at the two kids arguing on the other side, grimacing and groaning, "They're fighting again."

"I'm hardly surprised by that." Cole shrugged from behind, holding a newborn baby in his arms. He had helped a nurse carry it when he saw her hurrying back and forth.

The baby rubbed his eyes, chubby fingers gripping Cole's hair with small lips opening and closing. Cole chuckled, rocking the baby awkwardly, "Are you sleepy?"

If Kai saw that, he would definitely take a few pictures. Who knows how many he'd taken of them. Zane thought to himself.

He leaned over to catch the baby swinging in his arms, the baby's mouth gaping in what looked like surprise, eyes wide and looking up at Zane with all the excitement. Zane had always been tall, he was strong and could easily support the weight of two children.

The little girl with the broken arm sat on his shoulder, clinging to Zane's head and smiling brightly.

The adults around them looked at them and smiled too.

Pixal leaned against the wall, watching the little ninjas interact. She chuckled when Zane almost dropped one of the children, look at his panicked face.

Kai was right, they were adorable.

The red ninja, Kai, who had been the talk of the town lately, limped out of the clinic. He groaned, almost falling into Pixal.

Pixal caught him, her surprised expression replaced by a short laugh at Kai's sullen, pouty face. "What's wrong? Did they say bad things about you?" She asked.

"Pix... They didn't let me touch coffee for a month." Kai groaned, clinging to her to regain his balance and hugging the nindroid at the same time.

"They made me drink those bitter pills too." Kai stuck his tongue out childishly.

"They did it for your own good, Kai." Pixal patted the red ninja on the back, and glanced at the few people watching them. "Your coffee is pretty bitter anyway."

She could see a few cameras here. "And... you'll be responsible if they say we're dating."

Kai snorted from Pixal's shoulder.

"At least after a week off." He suggested.

Pixal chuckled in response, "Alright, after a week we get to rest."

"No night missions."

“You won’t be able to do anything with this body, Kai.” Pixal interrupted him, shrugging.

Kai grumbled, “Just listen to me, Pix.” He inhaled and exhaled.

“No work for a week.”

“No work for a week.”

“I’ll get to eat my favorite food for that week.”

“Sure,” Nindroid looked down at the bandage that had come loose under his collar, pushing it back with her hand. “Zane can guarantee that.”

“Yeah, I miss his food so much.” Kai laughed.

“I know.” Pixal smiled too.

Kai snorted and thought for a moment, glancing at the kids who had just run past them. “I’ll be lying in that bed for days.”

Pixal frowned but kept his smile, “Don’t forget to shower and eat.”

“Sure.” Kai hummed, his voice hoarse but soft. They smiled at each other.

Pixal and Kai had never been that close. They still interacted, but it was only casual.

But after this, her relationship with the red ninja would definitely improve a lot. They would talk to each other, tell and discuss about this terrible week. Kai would definitely joke about it a lot, and no one except Pixal would like that.

Wu could join them, he seemed to enjoy Kai keeping so many photos. Pixal couldn't forget how Master Wu remembered Morro as a child, he said him was quite cute.

Morro heard that and of course the kid blushed, shouting that he wasn't like that.

"They're really close." Nya looked down, tapping the teddy bear's hand on the little girl's head who was playing with her. The little girl blinked, tilted her head in confusion, then raised her hand and smiled brightly.

Anyone who looked at her could tell she was jealous. After all, Kai was her older brother, the only relative she had relied on for a long time. And their relationship had always been the strongest among the ninjas.

So when she returned, Nya waited for her brother to fall asleep and climbed up to lie down next to him. Kai, who pretended to fall asleep after seeing his little sister looking at him with burning eyes.

Nya chased away all the other children, crawled into Kai's arms and hugged him like a little fierce puppy.

Holding Kai's finger in her small hand, her lovely pink fingers touched the thick bandage wrapped around his arm. Kai silently looked at his little sister.

When Kai was little, his little sister did the same thing, she said she had the ability to help him relieve pain, and that was to continuously rub the painful spot like a character in a magic comic book. Kai laughed happily about it, but it really did help him feel better.

It was a little sad that the ninjas were about to return to normal.

Nya blinked, worriedly looking up at her brother and asking, "Does it hurt?"

The big brother looked quite surprised when she asked that. His orange eyes widened, then he smiled.

Kai smiled, he could never lie to his little sister.

"It hurts." Of course. Kai paused to see the frightened reaction on Nya's face, "But it will go away."

The younger sister looked at him confused, tilting her head innocently. Her fingers were still holding Kai's hand. "Really?"

Kai tilted his head, really thinking before answering Nya, "Not exactly."

He chuckled at the way Nya's face scrunched up, an unpleasant sigh escaping from her nose."What's wrong, little star, are you worried about your big brother?"

Nya snorted, pouting and pushing Kai's hand away. In fact, she just gently pushed her brother's hand down, pouting as if she was disgusted by him but her eyes were sincere and careful not to hit any of his wounds.

Even the way her body tensed, not daring to press against her brother's chest.

Kai narrowed his eyes, removing his hand from supporting his head and reaching over to wrap his arms around her small body. Nya made a surprised sound, wincing and struggling weakly. "Kai, let me go!"

A happy hum was his response. Kai's arms weren't tight around Nya, but they were tight enough to restrain a child.

After a failed attempt, Nya gasped into her brother's chest and grumbled, "You're annoying."

"And you love me." Kai finished, knowing his sister was definitely frowning in his arms.

Both bodies pressed together, Kai's face resting on his sister's head. His fond fingers threaded through Nya's short black hair, carefully untangling the knots.

There was a sticky, candy-like residue on the child's hair, Kai frowned, it couldn't be removed simply by hand. He needed something to smooth out this nasty stuff, or... Nya could remove it herself.

Who knew.

"I don't want you to die..."

Kai froze, eyes wide as he looked down at Nya. Nya looked at her hands, at the red on Kai's shirt, or anything but his face, with her cheek pressed against his t-shirt, "I don't like blood, it's scary in red." Her voice was shaky.

"Nya."

Kai wanted to interrupt her, but it didn't work as Nya continued speaking as if the words were being pulled from her mouth, "But you're not scary," Nya swallowed, "You're red too, but you're not scary."

Air rushed into his lungs, Kai watched in bewilderment as the tear-stained face slowly looked up at him. He moved his lips, an indescribable feeling that made Kai feel like he was trying to stand on a thin wire. Very thin.

He didn't even know if someone had walked in or if Nya had risen from his embrace. There was a figure crouching next to where he lay.

That hand was placed on Kai's hair and ruffled it. Kai blinked to clear the fog, he looked up and saw Wu. Master Wu stroked the fire ninja's hair, he pushed him bangs up to show the scar that cut through his eyebrow and a bandage across his forehead.

They didn't say anything to each other, when Master Wu left, the red ninja, Kai, fell asleep.

A moment later Morro came in and threw the blanket over him.

Cole peeked in to check on him, picked up the chicken, and adjusted the blanket.

LIoyd walked into the room and lay down on the couch, taking a quick nap before leaving.

There was a light weight on the floor, Zane came in, sat in front of him for a moment then stood up and turned off the light.

Nya took Jay's hand and sat on the carpet, quietly playing with each other or whispering about something.

Occasionally Pixal would pass by, look at him and smile.

How long had it been?

When the room was quiet for a long time.

No one disturbed Kai's sleep or called out to him.

The only thing that woke Kai was the shrill alarm, he kicked the blanket to the floor with a speed that could have been compared to lightning, rushing out of the room with a body completely sore.

Pixal turned to him, her lips moving then closing into a thin line of pain.

The screen was a mess of signals. The screen was flashing blindingly with warnings.

"What's going on?" Kai quickly walked over, looking at the screen with a frown and confusion. If there was a word to compare it to, he looked like he wanted to burn someone.

"They've expanded their attack. I can't find any signals from all the robots." Pixal nervously tapped away trying to find a signal. "They've been disabled."

"Shit." Kai cursed and muttered something mostly insulting. Okay, Kai, calm down.

"I'll go down there." The Nindroid frowned, the odd thing was that she wasn't trying to stop him anymore. Kai paused for a few seconds to take notice, looking around. Wu stood to one side, not drinking his tea and his fingers gripping his staff.

Kai didn't like this, definitely not what he thought. This was going to be the worst.

"Pixal, where are the ninjas?" There was no response. Kai took a shaky breath, pulling her arm with force, “Pixal! Where are the ninjas?!” 

The Nindroid grimaced, her fists clenched. It was silent for a few seconds before she looked up at him, “They got them.”

Chapter Text

"You're such a fucking idiot."

"Hey! Kai said no swearing."

"He's not here!"

Cole stuck his tongue out at Morro. Morro growled, leaning over to kick the other kid's leg.

"Hey!" Cole yelled, wincing as he moved to kick back but was stopped by Zane. He pouted, mumbling a few incoherent words.

"You guys are too loud!" Nya yelled. Zane winced on the side.

Jay was sobbing, crying uncontrollably, and LIoyd beside him had started sniffling, biting his lip in a failed attempt to hold back his tears. The kids tied up in the other corner were looking at them strangely.

Zane wanted to cry too. He pulled his knees up to his chest, wrinkling his nose to avoid Morro's group's argument.

They had been kidnapped, that was for sure.

Cole had invited them to hang out with a group of kids at least an hour ago. They left the safe area, Zane wouldn't say he was curious about the outside world too, so he followed them.

They ran away, jumping over the rubble and pulling the normal kids into hiding places to avoid the strangers. They did it instinctively, something in that moment urged them to do it.

They saw themselves as someone. A hero of the city. Kai, they saw themselves as Kai.

Ninja?

That's how some of the kids said it. Those kids even knew their names, they said they looked like the red ninja's companions.

Kai's companions?

The kids even talked about the powers of those teammates. Those powers were the elemental powers they possessed.

So immersed in the words and interesting stories, they were all discovered. And now here they were, tied together, sharing a ruined building with other children.The scolding from one of the strange group was harsh, he shouted at Jay, holding a sharp spear in his hand and slamming it into the ground. Jay pressed his lips together as he hiccupped.

LIoyd was startled, his face contorted in fear. He clung to Nya, who was shaking and trying to protect her brother with a weak growl.

Morro was the best, at least in terms of controlling his fear. He gritted his teeth, glaring at the group while his body unconsciously pushed the child taller than him, Cole, behind him.

One, two, three men in black entered. They kicked the child near the entrance, their eyes scanning the room and stopping at them. One squinted, whispering to the next.

Zane shrank back, wishing he wasn't different.

Heavy footsteps came towards them. Zane closed his eyes, his lips pressed together as he was lifted away from the group.

They dragged Zane away. Cole jumped up but then fell back down as the rope wrapped tightly around his leg.

They looked at him, eyes panicked and worried as their bodies struggled to stand up to catch up with him.

They couldn't, as the door was blocked by a large figure. Zane could no longer see them. His natural reaction was fear as his body was dragged across the dirty cement.

They dragged the boy into another room, pushing him against the corner. Something in Zane's head broke because of that, they made one of his eyes droop, flickering and unclear.

Zane shook, trying to fight the chaos inside him. The fear had activated his elemental powers. His body was stiff with cold knuckles clenched.

The crowd stared wide-eyed at the frozen rope. They tilted their heads, squinted, then laughed and said he looked familiar. Like someone famous??

Zane hadn't expected this reaction.

“This looks better than those annoying robots.” One snorted, shoving his hands into his pockets. At his side, a pistol on his belt. “I think that guy’s gonna love this.”

“He’ll be laughing all the way through that room. Man, that psycho.” The other scoffed. Glancing back at the nindroid, “I keep feeling like I’ve seen that robot somewhere.”

That sounded creepy. Zane didn’t want to meet the guy they were talking about. He put pressure on the rope in an attempt to snap it, or break it?

Zane could hear the ice breaking. The two in front of him were still talking, they weren’t paying attention to him so this was his chance.

He pulled, pulled harder, and the sound of the ice breaking grew louder as one of them took notice. Zane shivered, avoiding the kidnapper’s gaze.

He wasn’t sure he could handle these two. It was just... some instinct that compelled him to try to free himself.

Ninjas never gave up.

They were strong.

They were... ninjas-

Zane's thoughts were interrupted as the door to the other room swung open. None of them had noticed the strange black streaks in the room.

One of the men turned, turning his attention away from Zane to the person who had just stepped out. "Here! Hey, look at what-"

The smile on his face was instantly extinguished as a burning smell wafted out from the dark room, and a body swayed out. The body was covered in black burn marks with large burns along its arms and neck. Zane couldn't tell if it was a woman or a man as most of their hair was burned off.

He flinched as the body fell face down on the cement floor. The other two men glanced at each other in confusion before quickly approaching. Their steps were hesitant and uncertain. The gunman slowly reached down to his belt, touched his pistol, and assumed a tense defensive stance.

They had just reached the body when a loud noise came from the room. One of the men drew his gun and fired forward. The gun was thrown up into the ceiling, his head thrown back by the force of the blow to his chin. Zane thought he heard the man's jaw snap.

They were pushed to the ground, their heads smashed together with their eyes still wide and white.

Zane stuttered, eyes wide. Even though one of his eyes was gone, he could still make out the red shadow, the shadow of an angry, powerful ninja.

Kai let out a growl in his throat, his fingers and suit still smoking. His body screamed as the stitches tore. Over the makeshift communication headset Pixal had given him, Wu was telling him not to rush into the lab like that.

His voice was hoarse and angry, Kai was so angry that he wished he could rip the headset off and throw it against the wall, pick up the gun and shoot it twenty times, or grip it tightly, burning it to black dust.

Instead he took a sharp breath. Sniffed at the burning smell that still surrounded him.

He couldn't control his anger as he sneaked through the lab and saw the knocked out children, ready to be taken to the operating table, along with many things that Kai was sure were from Pixal's robots.

They wanted to modify their bodies. They wanted to turn them into weapons. They wanted to create an army of children with no fucking emotions.

A cloud of anger filled his eyes, Kai gritted his teeth. In his ear, Pixal advised him to calm down, her voice both worried and angry. She was angry about this too, but she was more angry that Kai had recklessly barged in.

There were only two of them, they couldn’t be so reckless. Pixal scolded. If she were here, the nindroid would definitely be yelling at him while she sewed up his torn stitches.

He shook his head, his hair falling in a tangle. He didn’t even bother to brush it, which he always did when he woke up. Since returning to duty, Kai hadn’t realized he’d been so hasty in jumping into ninjago that he’d skipped his morning hygiene routine. His hair was a little long, and it was really uncomfortable in its current state.

He didn’t even have his hood on, which was pretty useless without the head armor. The last time he used it, it was broken.

His shoulder throbbed from the old dislocation, the stitches in his abdomen and thighs seemed to have torn as Kai smelled the blood and pain there. His broken leg wasn't even fully healed yet. His bruised body hurt like some damn dog had bitten him. Kai should thank Pixal again when she made him some support equipment.

His anger erupted like a volcano, his bloodshot eyes narrowed with nerves fighting for his damn sanity.

There was a shaky breath in the area. Kai quickly looked up, and there was Zane, the boy sitting in the corner, his eyes wide while one side seemed to be broken. He was tied up and looked... small.

He felt like he had been dumped with a bucket of cold water on his head, Kai mindlessly threw away his anger and replaced it with worry.

Kai jumped up and quickly walked towards Zane.

Zane couldn't see the other three bodies anymore as Kai blocked his vision. The energy the boy had been holding back was burned away, Zane could see the ice around the rope break, turning into snow and quickly disappearing into thin air as relief crept up on him.

Kai's arm was floating above Zane shoulder, the thick bandages wrapped around his arm were bright red. It was Kai's blood, it looked a bit scary as it stained his gloves and gauntlets. The red cloth couldn't hide the blood that was flowing down his side.

Zane wondered briefly why Kai was bleeding like that without a single drop falling. It was quite odd and a bit scary.

But it was Kai's blood, and Kai wasn't scary. Kai wrapped his arms around him, carefully removing the rope that still had a few pieces of ice.

He hesitated a bit, pursed his lips, then placed his fingers on Zane's arm, smiling softly.

"I got you."

As soon as the rope was completely released, Zane lunged at Kai, his arms wrapped tightly around the red ninja's neck. Kai fell back, a pained hiss escaping his lips as he felt pain all over his body. Zane clung to him like a frightened snow bear cub, his body shaking as he heard him groan.

Kai looked at him, paused for a moment, then hugged the back of his neck, stroking the child's back.

They sat on the floor for a moment. Kai stood up, ignoring all the pain in his body, and carried the child to a hiding place. The hiding place he was talking about was actually outside the window.

The child tightened his grip on his neck as he climbed out, Kai reassuringly patting the boy on the back.

The crowd flooded into the room, Kai standing straight. The wind whipped against his face, blowing fine dust past. Kai reached up and grabbed the loose beam above. It was loose, but just enough.

He winced, sucking in the hot, uncomfortable air to suppress the pain in his shoulders and hips.

“Little snowflake.” He whispered, his voice shaking slightly. Zane looked up from his neck, looking at him with concern, the boy picking up the pain in his voice. Kai hugged him tighter, “Hold on tight, okay?”

Zane hesitated for a second before nodding at him. Kai smiled, he stood up, holding the nindroid in one arm. They jumped to the top floor, Kai glanced around to make sure before climbing in.

The building had once been a high-class hotel, the room they climbed into was still relatively clean compared to some. There were no suspicious traces in the area, indicating that no one had been here yet.

Kai let himself comfort Zane for a moment and tried not to collapse on his shaky legs, hoping Zane wouldn't notice the stiffness in Kai's hands. Kai glanced at the dusty red bed. He grimaced, resisting the urge to throw himself onto it.

It was dirty but damn, it looked so soft.

Zane relaxed his grip as he slowly realized they were safe for the time being, pressing his cheek against Kai's shoulder, smelling the scent of smoke and blood from the red ninja's gi. After a moment, Kai's now less shaky hand moved from his back and clicked a device in his ear, the nindroid hadn't noticed he had it.

"I got Zane."

A few indistinct static noises were all the boy could hear. Kai breathed out, “I know. Fuck, I know Pixal.”

Zane winced at Kai’s swearing. It seemed his tolerance for language had burst like a bubble when they’d been kidnapped.

Guilt hammered into his chest, Zane was sure he owed Kai an apology. They’d dragged Kai, the one who’d fought so hard for this city, the one who should’ve been sleeping peacefully and being healed. He should be resting, not here, badly injured and trying to save them.

“His eyes are damaged, I guess.” Kai nodded, his voice hoarse. “We’re upstairs, the seventeenth.”

They were on the seventeenth?! Zane was glad he hadn’t looked down.

Who knew how terrifying it would look?

"Don't make me not do it."

Kai's harsh voice startled Zane. Kai ignored him, his eyes looking out and Zane saw a few flashes of red in his eyes.

Who else was he talking to besides Pixal?

"They're fucking kids." Kai hissed, red taking over most of the orange in his irises. "No, no, don't try to say anything right now because I'm not listening." He growled.

Kai turned off the comm and took a deep breath before pressing it again. Silence fell as he listened to what the other end said, the orange returning to the red ninja's eyes. "I'll be careful, thank you Pixal."

"Fuck." He ran a hand through his hair, yanking it back. A sharp pain kicked into his head. Kai thought his nerves might snap from the strain.

The child in his arms fidgeted, Kai turned to the boy. Zane looked at him, his fingertips clutching the red gi with his body tensing. The boy's eyes widened, blinking in confusion.

"Oh Zane." He said, keeping his voice as gentle as possible. "Did I scare you?"

Zane quickly shook his head vigorously. Kai chuckled, stroking the scratch next to his ear. "We'll get this over with, buddy." He said softly.

It was hard to believe. Those weirdos had nearly destroyed the entire city of ninjago. But something, something made Zane unable to not trust the red ninja. He looked Kai in the eyes, nodded, paused, and stammered, "I'll help too! l-like we always do!"

The last word slipped from his tongue, both Kai and Zane surprised by it. Kai blinked, confusion flashing before it was replaced by amusement. Kai laughed, Zane looked at him bewildered.

"I'm sure this will be over sooner than expected." He said, grinning, revealing his fangs. "First, tell Pix to prepare something for you."

Zane had no idea what he was talking about.

"Because ninjas never give up."

LIoyd stiffened, looking up in confusion to see the child who had spoken. The boy snorted vigorously, his eyes still slightly watery, his cheeks flushed.

"I was saved by the red ninja last time." The boy said, "He'll definitely come back!"

"With other ninjas?" Another child timidly interjected.

"With other ninjas!" The boy nodded affirmatively.

Something ran through LIoyd's chest, an uneasy feeling that made him wince. He felt like he needed to do something.

He glanced at Nya from behind her, timidly wanting to take her place in the front instead of being the one being protected. Lloyd pulled his knees up, jerking his forearms to test the strength of the rope.

Kai said no elemental powers, he said so, but Lloyd knew they could use them. Use that power whenever there was danger.

There was a flash of green light from the rope, LIoyd ignored Jay's gasp of surprise as he dropped his hands, still behind his back to pretend he was still tied.

LIoyd furrowed his brows, looking at the large, grinning man before them. His fists clenched, then opened and hesitantly placed on Nya's shoulders.

Nya was startled for a moment, looking at her brother in confusion, then panicked as LIoyd pushed her back.

From beside him, Morro looked up in surprise. LIoyd, the smallest looking child among them, had lunged at the kidnapper, the boy pushing him to the ground. In a split second of shock from the slight head jolt, the kidnapper was instantly electrocuted.

His scream of pain rang out, in pain and then he passed out. LIoyd looked on the kidnapper in confusion, the boy looked up, eyes wide, "Jay?"

All attention was on Jay, who looked down at the lightning at his feet in confusion. He blinked, smiling hesitantly, "It worked?..."

There was an awkward silence before it was replaced by excited shouts.

"Hey what was that?!"

"How did you do it Jay??"

"It's so cool!"

"That's lightning?! You're the blue ninja, right??"

"I want to do that too!"

"Teach me! Teach me!"

"Me too!"

Jay was flustered by the admiring looks from the kids around him, blushing, pulling his knees up to hide his face.

"Dude, that's so cool!" Cole excitedly raised his hands. The other kids turned to him with surprised looks.

Cole chuckled and sniffed, opening his eyes to see everyone staring at him. "Uhm..." Cole blinked in confusion. He raised his hand to scratch his head.

"What's wrong, guys? - What! - Hey I can get out of it!!" Then he interrupted himself with a gasp of excitement.

"I can too."

They turned to Morro, who stood up and brushed his pants. He looked up, smirking, "What?"

The cool wind wrapped around his hand, slithering like little snakes and gathering in his palm, disappearing behind his clenched fingers. Morro released his fist, letting the wind ball sway in his hand for a few seconds before throwing it up at the ceiling, hitting the fire sprinkler system.

The fire sprinkler system somehow turned on automatically, the water falling but in a different direction.

"What the hell are you doing?" Nya grumbled, throwing her hand up to push the water back into the sprinkler system.

"What? Help you?" Morro shrugged, smiling smugly

"That's not-" Nya growled, but was cut off by LIoyd.

"Hey, is that Zane?"

They froze, looking in the direction LIoyd was pointing. Zane, who was behind the glass, was waving at them, a bright smile on his face as they all realized he was there.

"Zane!" Jay gasped, running to the glass.

Zane waved back, wearing a white gi, the same kind of clothes as Kai. The Nindroid pointed at the glass, pressed it, and opened it, waving it at them. The ninjas blinked at each other.

"What did he say?" Cole asked, LIoyd looked back at him confused. He squinted, thinking for a moment, then gasped in realization.

"He told us to back off." Morro interrupted him, which LIoyd was sure was intentional. LIoyd glared at him.

They backed away, and when they were sure they were far enough Zane pressed his finger against the glass, freezing it with gasps of excitement and surprise from the other kids. With a small thud, the glass shattered, falling like little snowflakes.

Zane stepped on it without a problem, giggling, "I'm back."

All the voices exploded again.

"Zane!"

"I missed you!!"

"How?-"

"Zaneee!!"

"Welcome back!!"

"You look like a snow princess." Morro scoffed but not maliciously as he grinned.

"Oh, shut up Mo." Zane said back at him and Morro snorted, pretending he wasn't frozen by the abbreviated name.

"I missed you, man." Cole hugged him,

Zane hugged him back. "Me too." Cole laughed against his shoulder, pulling back slightly so they could laugh together.

"I was so worried, are you okay?" Jay joined in, hugging both of them with his awkward height so he looked like he was sandwiched between them.

"I'm fine." Zane replied, "Pixal fixed my eyes and Kai saved me before they did anything."

"Kai's here?" Nya looked surprised, a glimmer of amusement flashing through her large eyes before she stopped, frowning, "Wait, why did Pixal have to fix your eyes?"

"Some of my gears got out of place when they threw me into the wall-"

"They threw you into the wall?!"

"Yeah." Zane was still smiling, not looking like someone who had just been injured, even though he wasn't human. "Kai kicked their asses, don't worry."

"Good." LIoyd sighed in relief, shaking his head to clear his worries. "Where's Kai?" he asked.

"Burn them." Zane replied.

Huh?

"Do what?"

“Burn them.” Zane repeated, his smile growing bright. They all looked at him with confused eyes.

What the hell was he doing?????

Zane wasn’t lying. 

After transferring all the children in the room to Pixal, they decided to go around to another room to check. All the rooms, and grimaced when they saw the labs. Luckily, none of the children had been completely weaponized by those sick people.

Zane said that some of the children in the implanted state had been transferred to the hospital before, he didn't say who but when they saw the severe burns and charred marks all over the room, they knew who had kicked the door down to save them.

Their bodies slowly returned to normal. And in a moment, they had turned back into tall, strong ninjas.

The whole way was filled with people bleeding, severely burned, and fainted. Zane wasn't sure if anyone had died, but he said Wu definitely didn't like this while still laughing.

How could he still laugh like that??

They jumped to the side in surprise when a guy was thrown towards them. Jay could smell the burnt smell of clothes and flesh on the body, he wrinkled his nose and looked towards where the body had flown out.

Kai stood in the hallway, he looked up after wiping the blood from his leg onto the chest of a passed out man, looking at them in amazement.

Blood was pouring from his head, flowing over a bruised eye that was slightly drooping, his gi was torn in several places. Blood was running down his leg, even as he tried to wipe it away.

"Oh you guys are back!" He laughed and leaned over to fall in front of them.

"KAI!!!" They shouted in unison.

Chapter Text

After completely destroying the organization that destroyed the city, Ninjago gradually returned to everyday life. Everyone worked together to rebuild the city, children could run around freely again, adults could return to their daily chores.

The only thing that had changed was the popularity of the red ninja.

After that time, people had not seen him participating in the ninja activities, but no one questioned it.

It had been almost a week since then, and the city had been significantly rebuilt. In the hospital, in the intensive care room, where the famous red ninja should be, the hero of the city should be there, not a damn empty bed.

The entire hospital was in a panic looking for him, they turned every room upside down just to find him. On the other hand, the hero whose name they were calling was limping up to the rooftop with crutches.

Kai leaned against the railing, pushing his forearm that was braced tightly against his chest against the railing and let out a small sigh. His hair, which had been cut considerably shorter for his treatment, flew and covered his left eye, where the doctor had confirmed that his vision was not as good as before.

The person next to him stopped a little distance away, his arms crossed, his eyes looking down at his feet as he muttered, "This place needs a cleanup."

A significantly stronger wind shows the owner's uncomfortable mood, and the sounds of tapping feet on the tile floor show that the other person is in a restless state. Kai remembered a week ago, when the short kid in front of him showed the same attitude every time he was in someone's circle.

"Just relax, man." Kai tilted his head over, giving the other man a relaxed smile that he never thought he could, "Your wind is so strong."

"I don't control them." Morro grumbled, but the lessening of the wind gave him away.

"Yeah, sure." Kai sneered.

They were silent for a moment before Morro spoke, "Anyway... you should go down."

His voice was hesitant, his eyes looking up at the sky as a form of evasion. Kai blinked, shrugging, "They'll be fine."

"It's stuffy down there. You know, I don't like the smell of medicine." Kai said, shaking his head and sticking out his tongue.

"Yeah, I can remember you acting disgusted when you put the medicine on us." Morro smiled, a fragile but genuine smile that Kai had only seen on the little greenbird he'd taken care of last week.

"You remember them?" Kai blinked in surprise. He had also guessed that there were two possibilities when the tea wore off, one was that they'd forget everything, and two was that they'd remember everything. According to him, the first one is more likely to happen.

“Yeah?” Morro raised an eyebrow, finally looking at Kai for the first time since they’d returned to normal, “Didn’t anyone tell you anything?”

“Dude, I just woke up from a five-day coma.” Kai groaned, squinting his eyes. Hell, he could still see that annoying brat in his line of sight instead of the wind ninja.

"Oh, I forgot. Sorry." Morro rolled his eyes, his voice sarcastically annoyed. Putting that aside...

"Oh hell, did you just say sorry?" The red ninja blinked excitedly, “Looks like I took pretty good care of you.”

“What- you!- forget it!” Morro stuttered and hissed, pressing his face into his hands as his cheeks heated up.

Kai chuckled, “Come on, don’t be shy, little greenbird.”

Morro groaned but surprisingly didn't say anything about how Kai called him. Maybe their relationship had improved because of the strange event last week?

Not knowing how the others were doing, Kai also didn't expect him to be able to sleep for five days after fainting. Guess he was too exhausted?

Kai's body was quite stiff and sore when he woke up. Due to his injuries and lack of movement during his coma, his actions needed to be carefully watched. Going against the doctors' worries, Kai took a crutch and climbed to the rooftop. Come on he'll be fine, he's a ninja after all, this wound is dangerous but it's not something a ninja can't endure.

The wind hit Kai's face, he ignored it and turned back to admire the view from above.

The city was being rebuilt quite quickly, the roads were completed, the high-rise buildings were being redesigned. Kai squinted, looking over at the nearby high-rise where two workers were arguing even at their deadly height.

"Why are you here alone?" Kai asked, chuckling as the two workers began to clash as if they were in a gladiator ring.

There was a moment of silence. When the footsteps approached, Kai knew Morrro was standing next to him. They watched as the two workers began to sway, one of them seeming to scream something as he missed kicking the other.

"Dunno, I guess it's because I feel like some bastard is dirtying my wind."

"Hey, rude!" Kai yelled, turning to slam his crutch into Morro's leg.

“Hey!” Morro shouted back, wincing even though he dodged the blow, he grumbled in a way that Kai was sure was childish, "Ugh, you're so annoying!"

“Yeah, yeah. You’re no different, bird.” Kai rolled his eyes, turning back to watch the other two workers. They still had to fight each other, a paint can was kicked up and fell on the head of the guy who had previously dodged, he screamed as the other person gloated and laughed loudly.

Morro groaned, grumbling under his breath as Kai snorted.

“So, no one showed any signs?” Kai asked, Morro glancing at him with a frown that said he hadn’t gotten the message, “I mean the ninjas, no side effects or anything?”

The wind ninja frowned, a growl of annoyance laced in his voice, “You think I’d care enough to know what they had?”

How come their relationship hasn’t improved? Kai thought for a moment doubtfully and then sighed, trying to soothe Morro, "No, I'm just asking. You're the first person I saw after waking up anyway."

Morro stared at him, Kai continued to rub the back of his neck with his unbroken hand. As mentioned before, Kai's hair was cut upwards even without gelling it in that strange hairstyle, the wind ninja could still easily see that the back of his neck was slightly red, "Yeah, I ran away as soon as the doctor rushed in."

"What?" Morro's eyes widened, his face a mixture of confusion and annoyance, "You fuckin'crazy."

"Not as good as you, I guess." The red ninja shrugged.

He looked at him with an offended expression. The wind ninja crossed his arms, exhaling in annoyance, "When did you wake up?" He asked.

Kai thought, looking back at Morro to reply, "Probably an hour ago."

"The fuck? No one knew you woke up an hour ago?" He continued to ask, Kai shrugged uncertainly.

"Fuck, this city's stupid social system." Morro rubbed his face, groaning softly as doctors and nurses began to pour out of the hospital to find Kai, "They don't even check up here."

"Just ignore them." Kai chuckled, his fingers moving forward, brushing over the long, uncut hair above his ears. He glanced at it, thinking he would fix it himself when his hands healed.

"I don't get it, how do you put up with this shit?" Morro grumbled, not paying attention to what he was saying and asking the red ninja way too many questions than usual.

"Who knows." Kai snorted as the two workers stopped, one of them holding onto the cable car because he was so tired.

"But then again, watching you guys is more tiring than dealing with this city." He said, "If not say I have to do both."

One of the workers started to gain momentum and jumped at the other, he dodged but the jumper slid down and grabbed the side of the cable car in panic. The co-worker was startled, ducking in confusion as he screamed in panic.

They might fall. Kai narrowed his eyes.

People in the building began to pay attention to them, they quickly pressed their faces against the glass to try to say something. Kai stared at them dumbly. He raised his eyebrows, are these people stupid?

“I'm really confused about it.”

Kai blinked at Morro, the wind ninja wasn't looking at him, his eyes were focused on the chaotic doctors and nurses below. Morro hunched forward, his arms crossed as his face rested on his arms, his injured hand hidden behind the crossed arms.

Kai, who was only now noticing Morro's injury, narrowed his eyes.

"My memory is a bit hazy about what happened." Kai listened to him, the wind ninja continued, "I still remember it all pretty clearly, including how you froze me to stop me from causing havoc."

"Remember how you kept telling me to watch my language when you cursed more than I did."

“My instinct, sorry.”

Morro glanced at him, turned back and sighed, "You like to punish me by threatening to take away snacks and TV."

"Dude, that's the easiest way to convince a child." Kai said. He used to do that with Nya when they were kids.

"You-" Morro snorted, correcting himself, "You cut my hair..."

"Your hair is too long."

"Your hair is long too."

"But I take care of it, and you don't." Kai rolled his eyes.

"You cook, talk, and... hug me."

Kai frowned and turned away, he couldn't read any emotion in the wind ninja, those empty and chaotic eyes could even swallow Kai if he added any more sarcastic words. Kai pursed his lips, swallowing unconsciously.

"Why?" Morro asked, "I wouldn't blame you if you just left me alone and just took care of them."

His voice trailed off, Kai fell silent, his stifling silence making the stone in the wind ninja's heart heavier. He had thought they had become closer, even though the fear of interacting with other ninjas was slowly filling his mind. Morro still decided to try talking to Kai again, they could talk properly like then.

As Kai hugged him and gave him a genuine, embarrassed smile. As Morro felt human body heat so close for the first time. He shook his head, sighing softly, "Forget what I said."

He turned around, heading towards the exit, "You should go back, idiot, they might call a helicopter to find you."

"C'mon, they won't." Kai replied, his voice softer than he expected.

Morro paused for a few seconds before walking away again, returning to the space where he was alone, where no one would welcome him or chase him away. Where he could mourn his fate.

"Hey."

Kai's voice rang out, interrupting Morro's mental circle. His hand on the doorknob paused, not knowing why he waited to hear the red ninja speak.

“Want a hug?”

Kai watched the way the wind ninja’s shoulders tensed, or the way he turned and looked at Kai with wide eyes, his lips moving as if he was trying to say something and then closing again. Morro winced, Kai ignored him, raising both his arms.

Although Kai’s arms and shoulders hurt terribly, he endured it and opened his arms, welcoming the injured bird in front of him. Kai smiled, looking pained, but who cared?

“Don’t hurt me while I wait, Mo.”

Morro moved closer to him, his steps quickening to the point of haste as he bumped his head against Kai’s shoulder, who groaned softly in pain. Kai took the wind ninja into his arms, feeling a little embarrassed by their contact. This Morro wasn’t the little bird he had been patting and carrying all that time.

But he was still Morro, a wounded bird panicking in his cage. Kai would cursed himself if he didn't wipe the blood off that bird, especially after seeing how vulnerable little Morro was.

Morro quickly backed away after melting in the hug for a few seconds, he looked at Kai seriously, "Thanks..."

"And I'm not Mo."

Then he hurriedly walked away, this time disappearing into the wind, Kai looked at the spot where he had been standing, blinked then chuckled in confusion, "Did he just thanks?"

The wind blew hard then gradually died down.

Kai lowered his hand, his eyes softening as he glanced toward the two workers. They had helped each other and were now hugging each other like two idiots, he laughed, lifting his crutches as he muttered forward, "Time to go back."

Going up the stairs with a broken leg, needing crutches and covered in injuries was one thing, but going down in such a state was another.

Ninjas were taught to have balance and reflexes, but that didn't help when you were seriously injured. Kai gasped, grunting as the few steps down were enough to make his injuries hurt.

The doctors and nurses spotted him as soon as he hobbled down the last few steps, they lifted Kai up and carried him like he was a thin feather and not a ninja with proper muscle and weight.

They forced him to do a lot of tests, his main doctor even sat there for two hours grumbling about how he had run away to the rooftop after waking up instead of calling them. By the time he finished speaking, Kai had already finished his provided lunch.

"I'll let them in but only for thirty minutes, and you'll have to go to sleep after that." The doctor said sternly, ending his lecture.

Kai drank water, "Are they here?"

"Yes, but they're too noisy so we can't let them in here." The doctor said, signaling the nurse to come in and clean up, "They even fought in the hospital two days ago."

Haha, why was he not surprised?

He handed the glass of water to the nurse who was cleaning up and leaned back, letting out a slightly tired sigh. Kai had just woken up not long ago, his actions just now seemed to have consumed quite a lot of his energy. When his stomach was no longer hungry, exhaustion set in.

"Is that why they were injured?" Kai yawned.

"Huh?" The doctor raised an eyebrow, wondering how he knew the ninjas were injured. Pushing the thought aside, he said, "No, they were injured because they were too violent when they fought those bastards. Also, they helped rebuild the city but because they were inexperienced, they were a bit injured."

"By the way, I heard that you destroyed most of the members of that group, right? It sounds unbelievable, but I really can't help but believe it when I'm your main doctor..." The cheerful and slightly shy voice of someone like him who wasn't used to compliments gradually faded away.

The teenager on the hospital bed didn't hear him, he tilted his head, resting it on the bed frame as his eyes closed. The doctor lowered his hand, smiled slightly, then shook his head and sighed, "At least listen to my praise, this kid."

He pushed Kai down on the bed, pulling the blanket up to the red ninja's chest.

Perhaps, the other ninjas needed to wait a little longer to visit this patient.

---

The next time Kai woke up, the only person beside him was Jay. If he paid attention to his surroundings, he could see a few new items appearing in the room like Cole's half-eaten cake, a basket of flowers from the ninjas, and the unfinished cups of water left on the table, showing Kai that the ninjas had been here not long ago.

Right now, it was just Jay, dozing off next to Kai's bed with his hand on his wrist.

Kai looked down at the sleeping man, wondering why he was the only one here. Guess the other ninjas were punching each other or rescuing a cat?

Or maybe arguing with someone who wouldn't park properly. Well, he wonder what they did while he was unconscious.

Kai laughed softly, his giggles gradually fading and fading behind the sound of the heartbeat on the machine next to him. Suddenly, Kai remembered the silly things they had done together, yes, the things they were willing to do together...

He really missed them. It was a shame that it would be difficult to continue doing pranks with this injury. Besides, the permanent damage from the eye would probably limit them in many ways.

But why should he worry about that? They could always go back to it. Kai just needed to get used to it and focus more, and no one would care.

Since when did the red ninja get so soft? Where did the hot-tempered guy go? Wasn't he going to jump up and demand to get out of the hospital?

Of course not. Oh come on, Kai was so exhausted that he couldn't even be angry anymore.

Besides, it was a miracle that he was still alive.

Hmm?

Kai was pulled out of his thoughts when Jay suddenly squeezed his hand. He looked down again and saw that the boy looked a little uncomfortable in his sleep as his eyebrows furrowed.

Kai blinked, "Jay?"

Jay groaned and pulled his hand closer, which hurt Kai a little. He winced, his fingers trembling and moving stiffly.

Oh my first master, the adrenaline was fading from his body and it was making the pain more obvious. Kai had been warned about this many times, but who knew that the adrenaline that could get him to the rooftop to see the view could also put him in this state.

Kai tried to pull his hand up, struggling to pull it out of Jay's grip. Gosh, how could he be so strong now?!

He almost gave up.

"Jay." Kai called, tapping his friend's hand with his finger, "Wake up you idiot."

"Hmm? H-Huh?" Jay stuttered, blinking rapidly before quickly looking up. He looked at Kai dreamily and rubbed his eyes sleepily, "Ah... you woke up."

"Yeah, a few minutes ago and you were hurting me." Kai reminded, his voice softer than he expected. Jay jerked his hand back, face wide, his hand trembling as it hovered over Kai's arm.

"Hey, hey, don't panic, idiot. Just don't squeeze my hand." Kai consoled, chuckling at the panicked Jay beside him. "I'm fine."

Jay winced, the amount of Kai's injuries telling him otherwise that the red ninja was not fine.

"You-"

"I know for myself whether I'm okay or not, Jay."

Kai cut him off immediately. Jay opened and closed his mouth, he swallowed and shook his head and said, "I'm not sure if you disappearing four hours ago is considered okay."

"I fell asleep?" Kai blinked.

"Yeah, slept like hell." Jay chuckled, though there was a hint of hesitation in his laugh.

Kai feigned offense, "That's how you talk to the coolest brother?! How dare you."

"Oh come on, you're still the bad brother for teasing me all the time." Jay scoffed, his smile looking more natural.

"Oh, look who's talking. Little blueberry who wants to sleep with me every night and doesn't dare go to the bathroom alone is disrespecting his brother for all the sacrifices he's made." Kai rolled his eyes, his lips curling as he spoke loudly.

"W-what- you- you can't threaten me with that!" Jay stuttered, his face red as he stood up.

“Yes, I can.” Kai smirked.

"You- I don't want to talk to you!"

Kai chuckled, a hint of pain in his laugh but they both ignored it.

Anyway, everything was back to normal, right, they weren't those kids that needed Kai to keep safe anymore, so it was fine.

Nothing was going to change

No.

Why had Kai never noticed that the ninjas were such clumsy bastards?

The change had been obvious since he'd returned. Unlike in the hospital, where they'd nearly blown it up multiple times with their stupid, asshole pranks.

Kai was back after a few weeks in the hospital, still limping so they wouldn't let him go on missions.

Honestly, Kai was bored to death, he'd been stuck in one place so much that it was getting annoying. It was nice to have a break, but it wasn't fun being alone in the monastery.

So when they left immediately after he returned, Kai tried to hang on and successfully got on the boat.

He sat next to Pixal, watching the ninjas in action with her.

They sat on the couch, saying nothing but the occasional sip of water. Kai sighed, grumbling, "Are you always this bored?"

"Sometimes, but not usually because you're there." Pixal shrugged, taking a sip of coffee.

Kai raised his eyebrows, he could clearly see the nindroid's smile on the rim of the cup. Pixal put down the cup, pretended to snort, and turned away to avoid the red ninja's narrowed gaze.

"Ignoring that, usually if it's just a thief or saving cats, it's boring." Pixal said.

Kai was still staring at her, "So what do you usually do when you're bored?"

"Hmm..." The nindroid rested his chin on his hand, thinking seriously then tilted his head and laughed, "I don't. But do you have any ideas?"

Kai blinked in surprise, Pixal and he weren't that close, they didn't interact much so they weren't completely compatible. So, even when their relationship became closer, he never thought that she would ask him this question.

Kai smiled brightly and sat up straight.

While the ninjas were running around the city, Pixal and the red ninja sat pointing at something. A moment later Master Wu walked in, tapped them on the head with his stick, and left.

The two looked at each other, blinking in confusion.

Just then the ninjas returned, Kai put down his phone, flashing his usual smile but immediately stopped when he saw a pouting, scowling LIoyd with torn gi.

"What's wrong?" Kai asked, frowning at the state of all of them. Pixal next to him stood up to get the first aid box.

“Just a nasty cat.” Nya answered him, absentmindedly waving her scratched hands. She didn't notice her brother staring at her hands.

"A cat?" Kai looked away from his sister's hands, crossed his arms and tilted his head, then chuckled, "Doesn't it like you guys?"

"It's a devil, not a cat!!" Jay shouted with a face full of scratches. Cole next to him nodded in agreement and were those crumbs? Why was he eating cake on a mission?

Zane claims to be the best because he's a nindroid, even though everyone can clearly see his torn white gi. He chuckled nervously as he scratched the back of his neck, looking like a kid who had been caught explaining to an adult, “It’s a ferocious cat…”

“Oh, I’m glad I wasn’t there.” Kai snorted, hiding his laughter. The ninja stared at him, clearly unhappy by his shaky, suppressed-laughing tone.

Pixal turned around and put the first aid kit down next to Kai. She looked at their clothes and frowned. Nindroid grumbled and rolled his eyes, "Again?"

She glanced at Zane and Cole scratching their heads then back at the red ninja, who sat comfortably in his chair. Pixal patted Kai's shoulder to get his attention, "Take care of them, K."

Kai's smile stiffened for a few seconds, he frowned, looking up at Pixal in confusion, "Why me?"

"Look at them." Pixal said, tilting her head and opening her hand, pointing it towards a group of ninjas that seemed to have just crawled out of a minefield. Although she sounded serious, the smile on her lips was getting wider. Kai chuckled.

"They can do it themselves, don't joke like that P-" Kai stopped talking, both he and she were startled unconsciously.

LIoyd suddenly came in front of him and shoved something into his hand. Kai looked down at the bag of cookies in his lap, bewildered. He blinked, blinked, and blinked again, finally looking up in confusion.

"the cat kept snatching it." The boy said shortly and turned away. Nya stood near him, shaking her head and laughing.

She looked at her brother and put her hands on her hips, sighed and explained wearily, "LIoyd was trying to protect that last cake because it was for you."

His sister rolled her eyes, a somewhat teasing smile turned to their youngest brother. Lioyd snorted, tilting his head back and then looking down to hide his burning cheeks. The ninjas behind him chuckled, even Morro, who had entered the room first and returned in casual clothes as he passed by, let out a snort.

"Aw... For me?" Kai cooed, his smile widening as he wanted to ruffle LIoyd's hair.

Lioyd's face reddened even more as his shoulders hunched. Kai smiled, taking the bag of cookies that his youngest brother had protected with his life.

Alright, let's see what kind of cake the kid wanted to bring him.

Kai opened it excitedly.

...

?

He could feel Pixal's confused blinks.

Kai looked up at them, the ninjas were eagerly waiting for his reaction and Cole, Cole was scratching his cheek, where there were some crumbs on it.

Morro carefully took the portion of cookies he had just put in the fridge and quickly returned to his room.

Ha...haha...

"Cole."

"Hmm?"

"WHERE'S THE REMAINING HALF OF MY FUCKING CAKE?!"

From that moment on Kai was like a babysitter, he didn't want that!

"Hey, stay away from that shit Jay!"

Jay pouted but surprisingly obeyed him.

At first, Kai still felt weird about this, but gradually he acted on instinct.

They are still in chaos. Well, that was their personality. It was just that they listened to Kai more now.

It was still weird in a way.

Kai muttered and sighed and paid the compensation to the owner of the restaurant where a fight had just taken place. Luckily, the owner didn't ask him to pay much, but unfortunately, he now had to walk home by himself.

They argued and each went their separate ways, did they forget that Kai hadn't recovered yet?!

Oh come on, I know those people didn't accept his opinion but at least leave him a car?!

Is this how you guys treat my care?!

Kai grumbled, feeling like this was deja vu. Today was only his first day in ninjago and already like this. He will learn from this experience, and if he gets hurt, he will never go with these bastards again.

"Oh yes, here! Can you accept it for me and my husband?" The owner suddenly thrust a bag of grilled meat into Kai's hands, Kai looked at them in confusion.

Before he could understand what was happening, the people gathered around and stuffed more stuff into his hands.

"Me too, me too!"

"Here, here!"

"Red Ninja, I have some candy for you too!"

"Take some of this!"

Kai stood in the center, gasping for breath.

A moment later, Zane was the one who came around to pick him up. The Nindroid blinked and laughed, "I knew they'd give you a thank you gift, but I didn't know it was this much."

"Get this damn stuff off me..." Kai groaned, stuck in the pile of stuff. Zane chuckled and jumped down to help him pick it up.

It took him thirty minutes to lift it all, Kai sighed and plopped down in the passenger seat. Zane threw the rest of his stuff into the car and jumped in with him. They moved along the rebuilt streets of ninjago, passing houses and shops that had been repaired and were beginning to reopen.

Kai snorted, glancing at the children who had begun to put on their warm clothes.

“Looks like it’s going to snow soon.”

"Yeah." Zane responded to his words, quickly analyzing and answering, "It's supposed to snow tomorrow morning."

The red ninja said "oh" once and then fell silent again. Zane glanced at him, feeling somewhat nervous. Was he expecting something from Kai?

No, no, don’t let the memory of that time affect you, Zane.

Zane wasn’t a child, not even a human, why did he have the same thoughts as a child expecting his brother to hold his hand?

But Zane could still clearly remember Kai’s handshake, the way the human’s flesh and the warmth of the master of fire enveloped him at that time. The simple skin contact and the way Kai protected them were all clearly imprinted in his memory.

Zane glanced at his fingers. Why did he feel comforted when that hand touched him?

Sometimes it was hard to analyze emotions.

"You're not going on a mission tomorrow morning, right?"

Zane turned around, blinking as Kai smirked and asked, "Don't you like snow, little snowflake?"

Yes, Zane liked snow.

He remembered the little snowflakes Kai had taught him to make back then. They were small, cold, and soft at the same time.

Early the next morning they had fun playing in the snow. Even though Kai caught a cold afterward because his immune system had not yet recovered, even Master Wu only scolded him a few words.

LIoyd looked like he wanted to play too, but he had to do the mission, and that wasn't Zane's problem as he stepped out of the snow and into the kitchen with Kai.

And Kai also liked the ninjas' faces when they saw the pile of things people gave him. Even Pixal had to gasp at the sight of them. Kai snorted, arrogant to the point of annoyance when Jay grumbled that they had helped them a lot before but no one had given them anything.

“Haha! As expected, I, the red ninja is the most popular!”

Even though they were grateful for what Kai had done, his arrogant appearance really made people want to punch him.

That same night, when Kai had just woken up from a nap and was about to instinctively reach for the coffee machine, he suddenly stopped, blinking.

"Nya?"

His sister paused, her shoulders hunching up and down when she saw her brother. Nya closed the refrigerator, "Kai."

"You haven't slept yet?" Kai asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Not yet." She answered, then paused for a few seconds to consider before continuing, "I'm hungry."

"Oh." Her brother blinked, and Nya fell silent again, her body moving as if ready to leave.

"So... you haven't slept either?" Nya asked hesitantly, trying to fight off the thought that she was trying to escape her brother. Kai tilted his head slightly, the light from outside was enough to see his suspicious look.

"I just woke up." Kai replied, squinting, "When did you get back?"

Nya bowed her head, thought seriously, then grumbled softly, "I don't remember either. I just know I missed dinner."

"Heh, me too."

"Nah, you overslept." His sister rolled her eyes.

Kai chuckled, he really liked his sister's stubbornness, it was a nature that would never disappear even when she grew up.

"Yes, yes, we're not the same." Kai raised his hands in surrender and pretended to sigh, using a doting tone to ask his sister, "Let me cook something for you?"

Nya stuck out her tongue at her brother. Kai smiled and walked past her to get things from the refrigerator. Nya moved, stepped back, then walked to the table and sat down. In the outside noise, there was only the sound of the wind and the rustling of the trees, and the sound of Kai's knife. Nya pulled her knees up, leaning forward as her sparkling eyes stared at her brother's back.

Kai had always been a wonderful person in her eyes.

Ever since she was little or even when she grew up, his back always left Nya with great comfort, as if all her worries would disappear if she had her brother.

Nya sighed, her eyes downcast as she recalled their childhood. Although it was difficult and full of suffering, Nya didn't feel sad about that time, because she had Kai. For Kai, all his hardships were nothing when Nya was still there.

They lived for each other, Kai for Nya and Nya for Kai.

"Hmm, what are you sighing about?" Kai placed the bowl of noodles in front of her.

Nya stared at the simple bowl of noodles, smiled slightly and shook her head, "Nothing."

She curved her eyes, smiled at her brother, "Thanks for the meal, brother."

Kai blinked and raised his eyebrows but didn't ask anything. He sat down next to her, taking a few minutes to find the words to respond.

"So... enjoy your meal?"

Nya enjoyed the bowl of noodles. When she returned to her room, the last thing she heard from her brother behind the door was an embarrassed whisper, "Good night, little star."

Nya whispered back after a while, "You too, big brother."

Even though he couldn't hear her, she knew he would understand.

Because they are siblings.

Sometimes after patting the head or saying goodnight, Kai will mumble more about their childhood nicknames. Nya didn't say anything.

But she was willing to throw the coffee machine out of the monastery if her brother dared to say that nickname out loud to tease her. Nya would ignore their youngest brother who was about to cry as he watched the coffee machine disappear behind the clouds.

Master Wu clearly agreed with her actions.

"Why isn't there anywhere that sells that kind of coffee?"

Kai grumbled, leaving the cafe with two cups of coffee and a box of pastries. This was for Cole, Kai accidentally bought it before he noticed. He didn't dare to return it, but why did he buy it?

Probably because looking at that pile of sweets makes him think of that glutton, never mind, it's okay to buy it for him. While he was at it, he stopped by his usual shop to buy more candy for LIoyd, the kid seemed to really like the candy he bought before.

Kai walked around ninjago, finally ending up with a pile of stuff. He stood in the middle of the city, blinking and slightly confused by his actions. Since when did he become like a mother?

Ugh, this was so fucking weird.

"Kai."

Kai raised his head, raised his eyebrows and turned back, "Cole?"

Cole scratched his head and greeted him. The red ninja looked at his somewhat evasive appearance, secretly suspicious. He was just about to open his mouth to ask when he was suddenly attacked.

"Kai, tell them to stay away from me!!" Jay rushed forward, like Cole, running behind Kai. Kai was startled and leaned slightly, growling in annoyance instinctively.

"Oh, hello. You must be their acquaintance!" A group of people appeared in front of them. Kai raised his eyebrows and glanced at them.

"...Yes?" he replied, squinting.

"Great! Then can we ask you three to take some pictures?"

Normally Kai would have agreed, but Jay and Cole pulled his shirt back, looking at him and shaking their heads repeatedly, almost begging Kai not to agree. That's really strange.

Normally the two of them wouldn't have refused these things.

Kai looked back and forth between the two groups, squinting and sighing. He crossed his arms and shook his head, "Sorry, they don't want to take pictures." Cole and Jay nodded.

"Sorry? Why?" The person holding the camera in the group frowned, his smile becoming a little more forced as he asked.

"Because they don't want it." Kai repeated, an annoyance starting to form in him as the other group didn't seem to like this answer.

“But-”

“I said they don’t want to.”

The group holding the cameras backed away slightly at Kai's harsh tone. They were confused, hesitated, and finally apologized and left. As they left, one of the group muttered softly.

"Man, he's so aggressive."

"Agreed. Who is he?" The person next to him shrugged, "They brother?"

"No way, they don't look alike."

"Yeah, you're right."

Kai raised an eyebrow at the short conversation. It seemed like they didn't know who they were. Jay and Cole didn't notice.

"Thanks Kai, we're safe." Jay breathed a sigh of relief, his arm still wrapped around Kai's.

"What are you two doing that makes them follow you? And who are they?" Kai asked.

"They claimed to be photographers from other places." Cole replied, his tall figure taking a few steps back. He laughed nervously, "They keep asking us to be models."

"Sounds good. Shouldn't you guys agree?" Kai tilted his head slightly, a teasing smile curling up, but his words were true. Given Cole and Jay's personalities, they would agree.

"Give me a break. We've already tried, they're so mean!" Jay grumbled, his hands raised in the air to show his annoyance before he crossed his arms and pouted, "Besides, their clothes are ugly."

Kai smirked, "Worse than your fashion?"

"Hey!"

"No wonder you two were gone all day, it turns out you were involved in this." Kai threw the unnecessary things at Cole, ignoring Jay's protesting shouts behind him.

"I'm innocent, Jay dragged me into it." Cole defended, Jay protesting again.

Kai chuckled and dropped the cake box into his hands, "No need to explain, idiot."

Cole blinked, his eyes lighting up with each blink. Jay stopped, he looked at the cake box then looked up at Kai, "What about me?"

"What about you?" Kai repeated.

"Me, you didn't buy me anything?" Jay pointed at himself and jerked his finger toward the cake like a child insisting an adult buy him a toy.

"No. I didn't."

"Wha- Why?" Jay stuttered, hurt evident in his voice.

Kai looked at him, staring into those hopeful blue eyes before smiling and handing over the bag. "Just kidding, here you go, little blueberry."

Jay happily took it and jumped up like a child as he ran forward. Kai watched his figure gradually disappear behind the curious looks of the people around him, he sighed and turned around. Cole hugged the bags of goods, the cakes in his hands were almost punctured by that greedy gaze.

"Are you drooling?"

Cole gulped back.

The red ninja rolled his eyes, he patted Cole's back to push the big bear forward. "Let's go home, glutton."

"I don't eat first."

"No one said you would eat first, little bear. I was just saying."

Kai walked ahead, Cole blinked, blinked a few times before following him in confusion.

"What did you just call me?"

It seemed that the influence from that week was stronger than they thought. Kai was using his nickname and privilege more freely, the special thing here was that the ninjas themselves didn't object to it. They were fine with it.

Sometimes, it's not bad to have someone to talk to.

LIoyd is like Nya, in his mind Kai is always the best older brother, the standard image he once hoped he would be. To the boy himself, Kai was not only like a big brother but also more like a father.

The warm touches, the teasing words, and the protective actions. They were all things that the bad kid at the bad kid school had once wished for. LIoyd seems really lucky that he has the ninjas, and Kai.

LIoyd smiled as he looked at the mints on his table.

"Oh, green beans. Up early?" Kai appeared in front of the bathroom door, a few tufts of chicken feathers sticking to his hoodie as he exited. His brown hair was wet and down, it was quite similar to the old hairstyle the red ninja had. Ah, right, he had to cut his hair for treatment.

Guilt making him tense up a bit, Lloyd forced a smile, "Yeah, I just woke up."

"Why don't you sleep more?" Kai asked, drying his hair with a towel and walking over to the cabinet near where LIoyd was standing and taking out a new tube of toothpaste. He went back to the bathroom to put the tube of toothpaste in there.

"Can't sleep more." LIoyd squinted, his thoughts unconsciously turning into words, "You're starting to sound like a mother."

Kai paused, frowning, "What?"

"I-" LIoyd paused to find the right words before continuing, "You don't usually pay attention to these things before."

"I know." Kai replied, glancing at the Wu chicken that was circling his feet, "But yesterday Cole mistakenly used Nya's facial cleanser to brush his teeth and she screamed and grumbled at me all afternoon yesterday."

"She must be really mad." Lloyd winced and shuddered at the thought of the facial cleanser in his mouth.

"Yeah, really mad." Kai laughed.

"That's why Cole was gargling all the time yesterday?"

"Yeah, he said it tasted really bitter and gross." Kai shrugged, curling his lips to add, "And Nya kept complaining about how her strawberry-flavored cleanser wasn't that gross."

“I can even feel that disgust.” LIoyd hugged himself, groaning at the disgusting illusion on the tip of his tongue.

"Nya would be pissed if she heard that." Kai chuckled.

"She deserved it for throwing the coffee maker away." LIoyd snorted, he didn't pout, not at all.

"Yeah." Kai agreed, walking over to LIoyd and patting his head, "Brush your teeth, kid." Then he walked away, away from there and into the hallway leading to the kitchen. Wu the chicken followed him, following him like a duckling.

After a while he poked his head out and called out, "Green Bean, want some milk in your coffee?"

"A little." LIoyd happily shouted back and received a voice of agreement from the other side.

When the ninjas woke up they saw Lloyd drinking coffee and Kai talking to Pixal about something in the control room. Both ninjas were using each other's cups, Kai using Lloyd's and Lloyd using his brother's.

After a while Master Wu came out, squinting. Kai turned away, pretending that he wasn't holding a cup of coffee.

Kai could now start training again.

He wasn't planning on doing that right away.

Kai sat on the monastery porch, humming happily and watching the ninjas fight. He didn't participate, not because he wasn't allowed to, but simply because he didn't want to. Anyway, he's quite lazy today.

The chicken Wu occasionally intervened and pecked at the ninjas' legs, causing them to scream and chase after it in anger. The scene before him was so familiar.

Kai was lucky that the chicken and he got along, because it was a bastard chicken and it could have pecked him repeatedly like Morro did now if they still hated each other like before.

Kai wants to repeat again that the feeling of sitting here watching is really interesting. It would have been nice if there was something to drink, but unfortunately if he drank more coffee, not only would he get knocked on the head by the master, but the doctor would also kick him in the stomach.

How sad.

And from some point, Master Wu suddenly appeared, he sat down next to Kai. Kai was startled and stammered, trying to explain, "Ah, master, it's not what you see. I'm just taking a break, I'm not lazy."

Master Wu calmly poured tea into a cup, he put the cup down, and used his finger to push it towards Kai. Kai stopped talking, blinking.

"...Master?"

Wu sipped his tea, blowing on it before replying softly, "Don't like tea?"

Kai quickly shook his head, "Ah, no, that's not it."

Wu returned to his teacup. Kai still looked at his master and hesitantly picked up the cup of tea. He drank it, feeling the hot air entering his stomach.

Master Wu was satisfied, he picked up the teapot and asked, "More?"

"Ah yes." Kai replied in confusion, holding it out for his master to pour more tea.

White tea poured into the cup, clear and reflecting his face. Kai looked at it, his lips slightly pursed because of the new scar that had formed next to the old scar on his eye. He could still clearly remember the burning sensation when that sharp iron blade had grazed his eye. It was even more painful than the old scar.

Perhaps it was quite fortunate that the cut had only caused some damage.

Kai sighed, shaking off his thoughts. He sat with Master Wu, sipping tea with him as the ninjas began to yell at each other.