Archive of Our Own ^beta

At first everyone thought it was fine, there was a thick tensing in the air in the first day of Autumn but no one could quite place it. Until Cole coughed. Everyone, even Cole himself said it was likely just a cold and teased him about it. Warm laughs and food were cooked as nothing had occurred that day. No robbers trying to heist a bank, no evil fiend from their old Master's past to hunt them down and no life threatening villains that day. 

Oh how they wished they knew better. Perhaps if they had seen it sooner...It was Lou who first brought it up upon meeting Geo for the first time through Cole's request. 

"Cole are you feeling alright? You are looking quite..pale. And not like when you were a ghost." Lou joked a little but there was concern drifting in his voice. 

Cole tried to play it off but even he was getting concerned, he was still coughing even a month later and tried to jack it up to allergies but this hadn't happened before. Per Lou's and soon Geo's concern, Cole went to Nya and Zane about it. A harsh, dry cough and sometimes feeling like he was getting weaker by the day, as he described as his chest swelled with fear underneath his demeanor. It didn't take long for Zane nor Nya to figure it out. 

While no one quite knew the details of it, they all knew subconsciously it was from Lily. Her illness passed down onto her son."It could be genetic.." Zane tried to explain but even the nindroid couldn't help but have his voice fell flat as he realize what was going on. 

Cole nor Lou knew exactly what had taken the women's life, just that it wasn't treatable at the time and nor was it now. Now taking another person in the strange world. Lou cursed and cried, screaming how wasn't it possible to find something. No one could blame him, they all felt the same. Cole was the one who delivered the news, Jay at first thought he was joking but even his laughs fell as the room grew quiet before tears of plenty filled air. 

Geo was inconsolable as so were the rest. 

They made sure the Earth Ninja wasn't in pain in his last couple months with them. Taken priority over missions to see the Black Ninja if it was more minor and hoped the police would handle it. Cole tried to reason they didn't need to but they persisted. He tried to reassure Fritz and Spitz it would be alright but even they knew he was lying. Kai and Jay would help keep him up with his game scores before it turned into a pillow fight that Zane would need to clean with their help. Zane and P.I.X.A.L would try and make him cake while teaching him other recipes in free time. Nya would try and get him out more despite his deterring health to try and keep him active despite the pained smile on her face everytime he had a coughing fit. Spitz and Fritz would tell him stories of fiction and reality of their day in the town, Arin would try to show off with Wyldefire hypijg him up. Sora would ask for inputs with dance techniques to see if that woukd help her trianing in anyway, much to Cole's ammusmemt and dismay. Geo was there in the midst of the night's when hid partner would cry from the pain in his chest or from his throat being sore from the coughs. 

Lloyd and Bonsle kept their distant but Cole didn't blame them. Perhaps Kai or Jay was a little upset with them but Cole shook his head when he asked If he was upset with them for it. 

"They've..  been through a lot." Cole said solemnly, his shirt barely alhanging out his arms as he scratched his neck. His stomach growled but he felt like he couldn't eat anymore, even cake was started to taste bitter. " As long as I can see them maybe..once, maybe twice a week, I'm fine with them. Me and my dad went through the something- gah, augh!- samething when my mom passed away. " 

Kai only sighed and accepted the answer. 

It was five months later when Cole was found lifeless on his bed, having passed away in his sleep. Geo was the one to find him and he was the one to first inform Zane while tears swelling in his eyes as he heald onto the bed frame of the ice ninja's quarters.

"I'm sorry, I am so sorry-!" Geo would cry before Zane placed a hand in his shoulders. Zane turned away with his head facing away from the other but his grip was still light. 

"..Do you know how long?" 

"I—I do not..." 

Zane nodded. "Alright.. I'll wake the others..Can you call Lou?" 

Geo nodded and Zane took his hand off him before they both went in the opposite directions. While he couldn't shed tears himself, Zane couldn't help but wipe his face with his sleeve as he made his way to his brother's room with his head hung low, silently praying it was wrong and that Geo had misunderstood. But as he arrived to Cole's room, the door was opened a jar before he slipped through. His eyes widened a little as he saw Lloyd and Bonsle next to the bed with their eyes locked on Cole. In Lloyd's hands was a vase that he gently placed on top of Cole's stand. Inside the vase was one pure white Lily standing tall. 

Lloyd glossed his eyes over to the Titanium ninja." I'm sorry I didn't-" 

"You don't need to explain anything, Lloyd..." Zane said with a shook of the head as he walked towards the bed himself, taking a Cole's arm in his hand for a few seconds before gulping. "A few hours at most.." 

It wasn't long before a cry of grief rang all throughout the monetary that day. Cole's funeral wasn't long after, set up by Lou himself but gladly took Geo's and the rest of the Ninja's input for it. The Royal Blacksmiths sung slowly a few feet away from the coffin as it was lowered into the ground and covered. Lillies of various hues and wilt piled upon the patch of ground as if it was a fruitful garden in the high of spring. 

Lloyd could only look on in sorrow, he knew this was coming..The Source Dragon had showed him this. Graves of his family, students and friends bestowed to him in a vision, he would outlive them. This he knew and this he hated.. Even the mightiest break and Lloyd hung his head in his hands with his face even being harsh from how many tears he shed that day. 

He cried as much as the first as he did the last, one by one finding the monetary more and more empty by the seasons. Each picture and each candle being placed in their honor. The city wept and even the villains showed remorse in the despair, almost having themselves wondering 'when will the next die so young?' 

Arin placed the headphones on his head as he tried to tune it all out or find himself working in the dead of might before Zane or Geo dragged him back inside to sleep just to repeat it the next day. 

Cole was around his mid twenty, maybe even his early 30s but after so many years of blood, so many years in the heaps of battle and the edge of war, even he had lost count of his own age. Yet all his youth was set fighting and fighting til his last breath... 

It was two months later when Jay and Nya had fallen, everyone hoped not in pain but at least it was with each other. Perhaps it was his grief that blinded him in his machine, trying to perfect the old wing design he had made before he had become a Ninja with Nya's assistant. Perhaps his tears were blinding his to the flaw in his design. Maybe it was a crooked gear or a ripped piece of fabric. All that people knew was that they saw a ball of fire falling from the sky that day. 

Ray, Maya, Ed, and Edna all showed up, even residents from The Empire had showed. Scott gave his condolences before he had soon departed from the service. The Ying and Yang were placed on both their tombs, immortalizing their loves to death. 

Kai couldn't take it anymore, his funeral was merely another month later. The bent sword he had made all those years ago was placed on his grave, Ray trying to joke about it before tearing it up along side his wife. He didn't blame anyone, as far as anyone who knew Kai at least known. That didn't stop the blame being shifted and the unfluence of the media being placed but all was ignored. All kept silent. 

Lloyd cursed and blamed fate for it taking his friends, his teammates and his family again and again into the night. All of them were frustrated mostly upset at what had happened. They all hated it on one way or another, no matter how they tried to justify it, nothing made the pain go away. The monastery might as well have been a ghost town as Geo moved out with Fritz, Spitz, and Bonsle's into Lou's but they did sometimes visit. But now it was only Lloyd, Zane, and P.I.X.A.L that lived there. 

Why was fate so cruel?