Work Text:
“Mom! There’s some weird people at the door!” a certain kid from a not-so important family somewhere in the Merged Lands called out.
Her brother tried jumping to see through the hole in the front door, in vain. When their mother finally came and took a look herself, she saw a pair of disheveled human teenagers wearing strange clothes. The taller one was a girl with hair dyed pink, although it had long grown past its roots, and a somehow originally white outfit that had seen months of wear. The shorter one had an orange hoodie covered by some sort of ripped black coat and was mostly carrying his things in pockets and on multiple belts and straps. Both were armed, but they looked so pityful and like they could be sick or injured with the tears and stains in their clothes.
“Go to your rooms,” the mother said and opened the mail hatch once her children complied with annoyance. “Who are you two?”
One of the two leaned forward towards the mail hatch.
“Hello, ma’am. My name is Sora and with me is my friend Arin. Please, if it’s not too much to ask, could we stay at your house for the night? We haven’t eaten for hours, it’s getting dark and we don’t even have a map.”
“You may come, but leave your weapons elsewhere.”
A faint sigh of relief.
“Thank you so much.”
***
The atmosphere of the kitchen was very awkward. Arin and Sora sat on the floor, as apparently people around here ate, with all their clothes on except for shoes. It was too cold to take anything off, and honestly their toes were probably going to freeze off with only socks on. Either these people were more resistant to the cold, or Arin and Sora’s bodies had permanently frozen over after their “adventure” with Ras. The children stared from the doorway, not daring to come in, so it was just the mother with the duo. She was currently making food, and after having made sure that she wasn’t on the way to burning her cooking, she turned around and started interrogating.
“May I ask you children what you did to get in this sorry state?”
Arin grimaced. Oh, me? I only betrayed the only people I have in these lands for a feeble hope of something that was always doomed to fail and almost got my best friend sacrific—
“We followed a weirdo around for a while, because he made false promises to us. Stuff like that. We’re going back to our family now,” Sora said.
“You children ran away from home and followed a stranger this far from home?” the lady said, in utter shock.
“It’s not like that, they let us go, actually!” Sora tried to correct.
This only made the woman more horrified.
“Don’t listen to her,” Arin said, with more annoyance than he intended, and tried to correct himself. “I mean, we’re pretty used to living on our own and going on dangerous adventures. Besides, they’re not really our family.”
Sora opened her mouth to object, but stopped herself last second.
“Yeah!” she said instead. “This was just another weird adventure for us.”
Sora, Arin and the woman all knew it wasn’t. It was written on their faces, particularly Arin’s. The residents of the small hut all tried to ask the two about their lives, but it was Arin who kept telling Sora to not tell so much.
The whole time Sora had stuck by Arin’s side after they’d reunited, Arin had been on edge. It wasn’t hard to see why: Ras was looming over them every day and that man solved disagreements by slamming people against the nearest surface, with his hammer or otherwise. Ras’s threat of imminent physical violence or just leaving them and refusing to help Arin with bringing his parents back weren’t all it was, though. Arin admired Ras. It wasn’t the kind of admiration that had him praising the guy, but Sora saw it in Arin’s sad look when he disappointed his “teacher”.
Sora had thought that surely it’d pass once they took their bikes and ran as far away from the evil lion as possible, but alas, Arin seemed even more stressed than before. Well, he had to now accept that his parents were gone forever, maybe it was that. But, although Sora couldn’t really relate to whatever Arin was going through, she’d expected him to be a little more sad than… angry?
“Arin, you can be honest with me. Are you still angry at me?” she said when a mattress had been laid beside the sofa for them to sleep on, in some sort of office room.
“What? No! I’ve told you already, I overreacted. I know you were just trying to make me feel better.”
“Then, is there something on your mind?”
“Yes.”
Arin gave Sora a dead stare, trying to make his mouth into a thin line to stop his lip from trembling.
“Sorry, bad phrasing. You just seem so angry.”
“I’m not! Everything’s just a lot right now.”
Sora looked down. “...Yeah.”
Arin shut off the lights and laid on the sofa, facing away from her.
Sora stayed sitting up. It felt wrong to lay on top of these clean sheets. They’d been allowed to wash themselves and borrow some clothes, but Sora couldn’t help but feel like her old ninja outfit was still peeled against her skin.
Her thoughts drifted to the sword she’d left at her motorcycle. Lloyd’s sword. Hopefully it wouldn’t get stolen, because she suspected Lloyd had given it to her when she left with Arin and Ras specifically to say “Please come back.” Or maybe it was just because he knew the dangers better than even Sora, and wanted her to be safe. Either way, that sword had been on Lloyd’s back since the day he busted them out of that Imperian train, and he would probably like it back.
The face he’d made when they’d left had been a betrayed one, but one that had always somehow known this would happen. It wasn’t nice imagining that Lloyd took them in expecting them to bring bad things with them, but it was worse proving him right. Even Jay, who had been pretty close to Lloyd (by way of being one of the original ninja, but also by the way Lloyd talked about him) had ended up letting them all down.
Riyu hadn’t had the face of “I knew you’d hurt me but I wanted you to be different so bad”, he’d had the face of someone whose whole life had been Arin and Sora. He’d left with them instead of going with his dragon family. Sora may have lost half of herself when Arin went into that portal gate, but she still left with him while looking Riyu in the eye. Although she tried to deny it, she’d been bitter that Arin loved his parents more than Sora when he left everyone to look for them, but in that moment, she was exactly the same. Riyu was her second priority, and even lower for Arin, and she declared it with her actions while looking him in the eye. She was selfish and she’d always known it.
Even when they got back, she could never take back the fact that she left not knowing if she’d ever return. Lloyd would probably hug them like it was his last day alive and apologize for them like she’d overheard him tell Nya he wanted to, back when Arin had disappeared. Riyu would probably crush them, completely aware of his weight and concerned only with being reunited. But then would come night, and they’d go to sleep knowing that things would never be the same.
Sora’s gaze was fixed on her lone prosthesis by the side of her mattress. She hadn’t been wearing it almost any of the trip for a few reasons: 1) It was difficult to clean and maintain in these conditions, and oh, did it get dirty and fast. 2) It only took Ras yanking her by it the second time, and it was already broken. Sure, Sora was able to fix it, since it was just a couple components snapping out of place anyway, but Ras seemed to think he could do whatever he wanted with her arm just because it “wouldn’t even hurt”. Although that wasn’t even true, as it had to be attached to her somehow, so either it pulled her along or fell off, and Sora had strapped it tight so it wouldn’t fall off easily.
After she had left Imperium and had to eventually adjust it to her growing body, she’d specifically made sure it was clearly a prosthetic, not flesh and blood. Recently she’d even gotten Cole to draw a print design for it. When she’d tried to run away as a child and lost the arm, her parents had quickly insisted she get a prosthetic and given her tips on how to hide the fact it wasn’t organic. They didn’t like that she had to take it off regularly, even more in the beginning. Apparently, they just wanted her to feel normal again. More accurately, they wanted her to be normal. She was always told to lie that she lost her arm to disease, because nobody was allowed to think Imperium could be dangerous, much less that her parents let her endanger herself.
Initially, Sora left her prosthetic and all of her engineering equipment in her room in Imperium. Technology is nothing more than a tool for repression, something like that she had thought, although she probably didn’t know the word “repression” yet. Still, she had given in one time and constructed Arin a grappling hook as a surprise. It was only four months after they’d met each other, but it was like she’d gone half her life without her hobby. Seeing Arin’s eyes light up, seeing him stumble around and discover the wonders of flying all over the place, it made Sora rethink her choices. As a few more months passed, she kept tinkering with all sorts of things. Eventually, they decided to participate in a race, and she needed to build a mech. As she began planning it out, she was reminded of one thought she’d been pushing away for a while now. It would be easier to drive with two hands.
She’d been doing fine without the prosthetic, really. Back in Imperium, she’d take her arm off every time she built things, because she wasn’t allowed to attend school without it and school days were long. But there were enough moments where she wished she had another option. But no, she wouldn’t become what her parents wanted. She couldn’t go back to being Ana.
Well, obviously that hadn’t lasted. By the time Lloyd showed up, she’d already found someone to help her with a new prosthetic arm. To her mild disappointment, it hadn’t been as advanced as the one she had in Imperium, but nowadays technology was actually starting to catch up. It wasn’t there to hide what she was anymore, it was just a tool that was occasionally helpful.
Time dragged out, and Sora’s thoughts were eventually invaded by sobbing. At first Sora didn’t say anything. Let Arin cry, he needs it. But eventually it started feeling wrong to ignore it.
“Arin?”
The sobs immediately ceased along with Arin’s very breathing.
“Do you want to come down here?” Sora asked.
He held his breath like a prey animal in hiding for a few more seconds, before sitting up. He dropped off the sofa onto Sora’s mattress, from sitting to kneeling. In turn, Sora got closer to him. As she settled Arin barely hesitated to rest his head against her shoulder. (Barely, but he still hesitated.) It had been long since he’d done this, staying pretty silent and distant the time they’d spent with Ras. The weight of his head hit a sore spot, but it was nothing Sora couldn’t ignore for the sake of Arin.
“I lived all these years for my parents,” he whispered.
He opened his mouth a couple times more, grasping at the right words.
“I told myself this was only temporary. Especially when I was with Ras. I threw away everything I’d been given and pushed past all the pain, and the hunger, the cold… because it was all temporary. It was all for a purpose. It would all be worth it…”
Sora grabbed Arin’s had quietly and started tracing circles on the back of his palm with her thumb. He squeezed her hand back.
“I could blame Wu for causing the Merge… I could blame Ras for treating me harshly. I could blame Lloyd for holding me back… and for just keeping me around so he could mold out of me whatever he wanted…”
Sora tensed at the last sentence, and Arin bit his lip. That must’ve sounded so silly to her.
“And I could blame you for lying to me. It was a lot easier to leave when I thought it was everyone else who’d wronged me and I was innocent. But now we’re here, you almost died, and I can only blame myself. You— You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Sora, and I considered it. I don’t know what came over me in that awful place, but I seriously…”
Arin choked on his words. Sora had to say something.
“You wouldn’t have done it,” was what she went with, tired and so perfectly and uselessly out of the words she needed to help her best friend. “And I’ll never hold this whole mess against you, Arin.”
She had to say something more. If she’d done a better job at helping Arin before, maybe—
“When I ran away from Imperium, I didn’t have anything to grieve. Well, not in the same way anyway. I can’t say I know what it’s like to lose your parents and entire childhood, because I don’t know if I ever had any to begin with… but when you disappeared, I lost what I love the most. And I considered doing some pretty wild things to have you back. People do that when there’s someone they love.”
Arin squeezed Sora’s hand even tighter and tears fell onto it.
“I’m sorry. I was so stupid. I should’ve known he was full of shit from the beginning. And even if he wasn’t… I… Ugh, how could I believe him? I can’t go back to Lloyd and the others like this. I got all angry at everyone even though they were trying to help me, and then I come back saying ‘Lol, just kidding, also I almost sacrificed your other student just to—’”
“You didn’t ‘almost sacrifice’ anyone, dude.”
“Whatever. But I’m still angry at them, and I don’t know why. They probably don’t even want me back. Lloyd is probably glad he didn’t have to keep trying to keep lying to me and himself that I would ever amount to anything.”
“Stop downplaying yourself,” Sora said, not as an argument but softly. “You’ve been making great progress.”
Arin whipped his head up in frustration and fell backwards onto Sora’s mattress.
“And what if I stop making progress? What if I suddenly backtrack and never go forward again? Ras taught me spinjitzu through hate, but if that’s all wrong, what am I even supposed to do? I’m tired of this, Sora. These two years that we’ve had a teacher, whether it’s Lloyd or Ras, it’s been a constant race to keep up and I can’t take being just barely good enough anymore, because one day I’ll fall under the bar and…”
“...And what?”
“Forget it. It’s just that… I miss Riyu and Lloyd and the others, I really do, but I don’t know if they want me back and I don’t know if I want to be a ninja anymore.”
Sora was dumbfounded.
“You don’t want to be a ninja? But that’s all you’ve ever talked about. How could you not…” she said, only then realizing that she should probably deny the claim that nobody wanted Arin back.
“I’m not sure anymore. Listen, I’ve clung onto that like…”
Arin’s voice broke.
“...like I clung onto my parents.”
…
“And I’m not sure what to do anymore. All this time I’ve lived like that same little kid. I’ve only deluded myself into thinking that I’m any good as a ninja, and I can’t have the world depending on a delusional kid. If I’m ever going to live without them, I need to grow up. …But I’m afraid I’ve put so much of myself into it already, that I’m nothing if I’m not a ninja.”
“Arin… I could tell you all about how you’re wrong, but I don’t think it’s any use right now. What do you say if we just… Get back home, see what oh-so-horrible things people deeefinetely think about you, and then we can think about the future. This is all a lot, and we’re tired, and everything is uncertain, but you know I’ll be by your side whatever happens. Let’s think about it all when we’re ready.”
Arin couldn’t help but smile a little at Sora’s sarcastic remarks. He almost argued. It was almost like Sora didn’t care, or at least understand that his whole world was being shattered. Everything was a huge mess, and he had to decide where to take his waste of a life from here. He couldn’t rely on his parents, not on Lloyd or Ras, and well, Sora was about as lost as him. Sure, she was two years older than him, but that only mattered when Sora wanted to abuse the made-up authority of being “the older one.” When Arin had left, he had been convinced even Sora could abandon him any moment. Because Sora was older, she knew what she was doing. She didn’t need anyone. Arin couldn’t have survived the Crossroads without her, but she could’ve handled herself. But in all the long nights Arin had spent sleeping under the night sky in the past months, he’d recalled all the times Sora had told him “I’m thinking about killing myself again,” and “I’m not sure I would still be here without you, Arin.” The memories of the two of them figuring out all the strange ways of the adult world together plagued him, and he knew that even if Sora could’ve learned to navigate the world alone, it would’ve been a lot scarier for her that way. Even if everyone else would eventually let Arin get left behind in some dark cave while they packed their things and continued on with their lives, Sora would always look out for him. So even if Arin was falling out of sync with the spinning of the Earth right now, he and Sora had the rest of their lives to figure everything out.
“Maybe you’re right.”
His smile twitched as his parents came to mind again. Sora hugged him again, for the nth time today, but she hadn’t been able to properly do this in such a long time.
“Let’s sleep, and when we get up, we’ll head to the Monastery as soon as possible, because I really need to be in my own, clean clothes again. Not to mention my hair.”
“Don’t forget my hair. I think I’d rather go bald at this point than deal with this mess.”
“Pfft, don’t make me imagine that. Haven’t I done a good job at braiding it? The bun actually looks pretty good on you, and I bet it’d look even better if you could take care of your hair properly like you used to.”
“I mean, yeah, it’d be easier to take care of if I had access to… well, anything, unlike in the fricking desert. You and your slightly wavy hair could never understand.”
Sora laughed. And as soon as she quieted down, melancholy sank back in the room. It was in the way Arin’s breath hitched slightly, before he held it in to hide the fact that he could start crying any second.
Despite all she’d said, Sora had always known that most likely, either Arin or her would depart first. One day, one would lose the other. Any day now, maybe even tonight. It would be a rare occurrence if they died at the same time. She selfishly hoped that she would go first. All the while she was the one who’d survived loneliness so much before. It would’ve been easier to not care, but she couldn’t let that get taken away from her now. It would mean that Imperium had won. Back there, anyone who cared got crushed between the cold cogs that ran the system. She would always care about Arin, even if it broke every part of her.
***
Destiny’s Bounty drifted among the clouds. The harsher the wind was on Arin’s face, the less real everything felt.
His parents were alive. And now they were with him. That was one hell of a turn of events. It was too good to be true. Something was bound to ruin everything soon. Maybe Wyldfyre would make a weird turn and Arin would fly right off the edge of the Bounty, where he was currently staring at the passing clouds. It was getting dark and his back was lit by the warm lights attached to the mast. The wind made his hair fly on his face and his tears streamed slightly to the side, leaving cold trails as the wind swallowed up all the heat from any wet areas of his face it could touch. It was just like when he was a child. Late nights, lit by warm lights. He glanced behind him. His parents laughed at Sora’s story just like they had laughed with Arin over six years ago. Oddly enough, having them back made Arin grieve them all the more.
He turned his eyes back to the clouds so nobody could see him crying. It was still a few hours until they would reach the Spectral Lands, and his final mission with the ninja would start. He had decided so. Sora didn’t know yet, but most he dreaded telling Lloyd.
He couldn’t pretend anymore. He could never be whatever Lloyd wanted to make out of him, and he was tired of waiting for the day the illusion would shatter. Nobody should need to suffer because of Arin’s selfish dreams. It was time he grew up and gave up his fantasy land.
“Uh, Arin,” Lloyd said, making the boy jump. “If you’re not busy, I’d like to talk to you and Sora.”
What could it possibly be? Of course things couldn’t be normal after they just left with Ras like that—
“Yoo hoo, do you hear me?”
“Yeah.”
“...You okay, Arin?”
Arin’s brows furrowed and he opened his mouth to snap something about how he could hardly be okay under the present circumstances, but he simply stated:
“Yes.”
Anger colored his voice, but he immediately shrunk back. He was just a scared animal that Lloyd could pick up and toss over the border. He didn’t hate Lloyd, but honestly, that would’ve been more respectable. He was scared. His parents were watching now, watching how he was acting like an asshole to everyone because he couldn’t hold his own weight. Supposedly, he was a hero — really, he was a coward.
“Come on, lead the way,” he said to Lloyd, as his former teacher just stood there, confused and worried.
Lloyd had too many things to worry about right now, Arin shouldn’t be one of them. Awkwardly, he smiled at his parents as Lloyd called Sora to come too. It was kind of humiliating, like when you do something bad at school and your parents get called in. Now his (former) ninja teacher was giving him and Sora a talking-to, but this time about allying with a dangerous criminal, with a murderer. Jenny and Barry, your son protected a murderer, your son sought the respect of a murderer, your son is a murderer. No, he was never going to do it. He would never do that. He didn’t consider it, ever!
***
The three of them had never had a moment as awkward as this one. The Green Ninja and the first students he’d ever had sat around a round table. Clouds shrouded them from the rest of the world and wrapped around the windows of their small room. There was an air of finality between them. Lloyd tried to prepare himself to talk like everything could continue like normal, but it was just a mask on the fact that this was the end of their road together. Even if they continued on together after this, they all had to be buried here today.
Lloyd squeezed the fabric of his pants, trying his best not to start fidgeting. It was totally possible to delay this conversation further, with the imminent threat on the horizon and all, but it was a hours long flight and he had stayed up many nights because of these two. It was better to get this over with.
“Listen, I know this may be a bad time, but we still have three hours until we reach the Spectral Lands, and I’ve been thinking of what I should say if… when I saw you again. So I think there’s a talk we need to have.”
Sora glanced at Arin, expecting to meet his gaze, but he just stared at his shoes. The ship shook, but nobody even adjusted their gaze, just tried to keep their balance.
“Before I say anything else, I want you both to know that you’re some of the most wonderful people I’ve met, and I have never regretted being your friend for a second. But… I’m starting to consider I never should’ve agreed to teach you two.”
Both of their eyes widened a little — Sora’s shot up at Lloyd and Arin’s found an even more remote place to hide.
“I dragged two kids into something nobody can take back. Being a ninja always comes with things you couldn’t have, and maybe still can’t imagine, and I was nowhere near ready to even guide you through that. I didn’t put enough weight on finding your parents, Arin, and I… I treated your training like the world’s most important thing.”
Despite his best attempts at maintaining eye contact with the two, Lloyd brought his gaze down.
“I lived in constant fear of not being good enough when some great catastrophe eventually happened, and then I extended it to you. And whenever you’d start to slip away or notice you weren’t improving very fast, I’d panic. Your successes became my successes, and my successes were my worth. I only tried to assure you of how successful you were and could be — which wasn’t a lie, for the record — because that’s all I could see. I never told you that you were important to me, not because you were good ninja, but because I love you two.”
Arin had frozen in place, afraid to make a move so as not to reveal what he was feeling. What was he feeling? Something that got stuck in his throat, that wanted to escape through his dry eyes, that threatened to expose him. Lloyd shouldn’t love him. Why would he want Lloyd to love him? What was it worth that Lloyd loved him? But oh, it did make Arin feel safe. Too safe. The kind of safe that he should never take for granted.
“We chose to be ninja,” Sora finally said, “so why are you apologizing? It’s not like you manipulated, or even asked us to be your students?”
“Because kids shouldn’t decide what their entire future is going to look like. And being a ninja isn’t something you just stop doing one day like it’s nothing. So… there’s no taking it back now. I just wanted to apologize.”
So why didn’t your apology fix anything?
***
Lloyd really didn’t walk into the Bounty’s kitchen while Arin was inside, but he was incredibly hungry and it wouldn’t be good to seem like he was avoiding Arin. He opened his mouth to say something, but couldn’t figure out what. Instead, he took a yoghurt from the fridge, as there wasn’t much else to eat. Despite being tired, he didn’t sit down, as the way Arin was holding himself told Lloyd that the boy might stand up and leave if Lloyd got too close.
The lights flickered a couple of times.
“I’m sorry to be your failure.”
“You’re not,” Lloyd said solemnly, his tone carrying the words and you know that.
Silence continued, until Arin continued eating his yoghurt. A minute or so of almost-silence continued with only Arin eating, until he turned around and took another yoghurt from the fridge.
“Cole once said that every artist’s first piece sucks,” he muttered, almost like he didn’t want Lloyd to hear.
Lloyd was almost getting mad at Arin, almost. Maybe this was what it was like with him and his annoying self-hate, too. Nothing he said could reach this boy, and all he could say was:
“Stop.”
Didn’t this happen with Morro, too? Was replicating his master causing Lloyd to repeat Wu’s horrible mistakes all over again? No, no. Arin wasn’t a failure. Arin was just struggling. Lloyd needed to fix this — fix Arin — somehow. And he needed to do it before Arin left like Morro did.
Lloyd had managed to beat those emotions, the fear and hate and all the thoughts he was not allowed to have, but had he taught Arin to do the same? The world would see the product of his teaching, Lloyd Garmadon’s student would be nothing but—
No. He was doing it again. He shouldn’t think of Arin as just proof of his success. This was supposed to be for Arin, not himself. Why couldn’t he even see his own students as human beings? What was wrong with him?
He’d been quiet for too long. Say something, gosh.
“How does it feel to have your parents back finally?”
Arin twiddled with the foil cover of the yoghurt.
“When I left, I wasn’t planning on coming back,” he said hesitantly. “I thought that I’d fall behind eventually, you’d see that I’m a fraud and forget me on some street corner one day. I left because everything was crumbling apart and Ras offered to return the only thing that had never stopped feeling safe, when even Sora lied to me. But you know what’s funny? I need to protect my parents now. I need to protect my parents now.”
Arin’s body shook and his eyes glimmered with tears.
“The world is so much bigger and colder now, and I thought… I thought that if I just found my parents I would finally get to rest. But now I just have more to lose.”
Oh, Arin, Lloyd wanted to say, but pursed his lips.
Lloyd sat beside Arin and raised his hand to put it on Arin’s shoulder, but ended up awkwardly resting it on his own lap instead.
“But you’re not on your own anymore. We’ll all be there for you.”
“Don’t give me that. I don’t want you to keep telling me I belong here. I can tell just fine where I belong and where I don’t.”
Get your act together, Lloyd. This is going nowhere fast. Arin’s just gonna leave again if you keep being dumb. What would Wu say in your shoes?
“I know it’s not fair how early you were forced to grow up. It often isn’t… A lot of things are unfair and hard, but there's no going back, so…”
Arin stood up, licked his spoon and threw the package away.
“Thanks, Lloyd,” he said, not trying a bit to make it sound genuine.
Lloyd buried his face in his palms as soon as Arin was out the door. That had to be the worst attempt at giving advice he’d ever managed. He should’ve remained the youngest ninja — who allowed him to have students?
***
The hills of the Spectral Lands were swallowed by a fog that was more alive than anything that passed through here.
The words of master Egalt echoed through Lloyd’s mind. I was hard on him because he had the greatest potential of any ninja, he’d said. The world needs that potential fulfilled. And now Arin had officially declared he was quitting the ninja. But every time Lloyd tried shaming himself or mentally apologizing for failing Egalt, there was something interrupting his sentences before he could finish, scolding him for thinking such things. It’d taken him a while to make out what that voice was saying, but walking down that hill towards, the road that lead the dead to their final rest, with Thunderfang’s lightning lighting the whole place, Wu’s voice said clearly:
“No, Lloyd, you’re too important for the future of Ninjago. We cannot risk anything happening to you. You will stay on the ship.”
You’re too important. The world needs you.
Arin was a tool to him.
Lloyd’s mech stopped, and Arin asked something, but it all went right through him.
After all these years of teaching himself not to detest the people who used him as a tool, at least the ones with good goals, Lloyd had instead learned to justify doing the exact same thing. Maybe it should’ve been obvious in the past months when he realized he’d started seeing Arin and Sora’s successes as a sign of his own self-worth, but it wasn’t.
The mech contined walking after Arin called out for the third time.
Lloyd couldn’t justify it just by saying he loved his students for more than their achievements, because…
…because Wu loved Lloyd too.
Lloyd swallowed and tried to steady his breathing.
There were things he had never talked about with Wu. He learned to not ask for things or about things when his master only told him things like “Life isn’t always fair,” whenever he had questions.
After he aged rapidly due to Tomorrow’s Tea, he had almost taken his life in the week after. Wu had noticed he was abnormal and asked him about it with genuine concern, but Lloyd never said anything. Wu wouldn’t get it anyway, and he’d just get another lesson shoved down his throat. Somehow in all of the man’s thousands of years of life, he’d forgotten, or perhaps never learned the consequences of taking years off someone’s childhood in a matter of seconds. It was never Wu’s decision, but he did praise Lloyd for being a hero. And Lloyd’s entire purpose was being a hero. So… this was to be expected. This was the bare minimum.
But master Wu always knew what he was doing, right? He didn’t raise Lloyd wrong! There’s already enough wrong with Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon, and his life is only as bad as it has to be for the sake of everyone else! Wu has had thousands of years to learn, so if he doesn’t know, how could Lloyd? If Wu is wrong, then who will Lloyd look to? He can’t do this alone. Please, don’t make him do this alone. Wu knows, Wu will help, even if praying at his shrine day after day really hasn’t been doing much of anything, he still…
Still…
The road to the well was never-ending.
It took an eternity to get there,
only for him to get but a brief glance at the bubbling depths that promised rest,
and then he would have to tear his eyes away, turn around, and continue to fulfill his duty.
Arin would go the other way, leaving only echoes, and Lloyd knew that if he ever got to come back here, he would be the very last.
***
The dead dust and undying fog of the Spectral Lands clouded everything. Thunderfang should be gone for good, finally, and the souls were released.
I came here to release their souls.
But once this is all over, I’m quitting the ninja.
So it had come. The three years that Arin, Sora and Riyu had been his to teach, he’d theorized about how it would all end, because it was hard to imagine anything good lasting for too long. It would be just his luck for someone to show up and decide to kill Lloyd’s students just to spite him, or perhaps the world would just end before anything happened. A horrible part of him wanted to say “Of course you would leave too,” and wallow in self-pity, but really, he could never blame them. He wasn’t sure how much of this he could take, but at least this time, he could find a little value in it.
“Arin,” Lloyd said, “during the fight, I was trying to force things to go the way I wanted, to control it all. But now I realize… I need to let go sometimes.”
Lloyd made one last attempt at smiling away his grief and shrugged bashfully.
“Which also means… letting go of you.”
Gently, he placed his hands on Arin’s shoulders and sighed. The boy looked back at him with — for the first time in a while — compassion.
“It was easier for me to worship master Wu and try to become him, than it was to make my own judgements and face their consequences. I was in denial about him, because I valued my own comfort more than reality. I acted childishly and avoided responsibility, because I was so afraid of having to be alone. Really, I shouldn’t be called a master when I hadn’t even grown out of copying my own master and stood on my own two feet.”
Arin’s eyes lit up in a strange way.
“You know the thing I said about master Egalt before you told me you’d quit?” Lloyd continued. “About you having the most potential of any ninja? He told me that like it was my duty to force you down this path. Given that I had already been doing that and he was all old and wise, in theory his guidance should’ve only made me more convinced. But I just can’t do it. I can’t force you.”
Lloyd took his hands off Arin’s shoulders, trying and failing to make eye contact.
“I don’t know if master Wu did the right thing when he started training an 8-year-old boy to kill his father, and I don’t know if whoever decided I should be the Green Ninja should've ever had the authority to decide that, nor do I know if I would change anything even if I could… but none of that matters, because you’re not in any prophecy. You have a choice.
You might have the most potential of anyone to ever live, but mere potential is just one thing. There are other ways of making a difference than being a ninja. Master Egalt might spite me for not using every tool in the box to protect the world, but I won’t let you be a tool to me. If protecting the world means sacrificing someone in the process, then I haven’t protected all of the world, have I? So Arin, even if it hurts for me to let you go, I will stand behind your choice. And… I will always love you.”
The tears that had been building up dripped onto Arin’s cheeks. He shook with the weight of his choice, that he alone had to make. Lloyd couldn’t bring himself to cry, even if no-one was expecting anything from him. He just looked at his former student and held out his arms just slightly. Arin wrapped his arms around Lloyd cautiously but quickly.
“Actually… If it's my choice, then I'm staying.”
“Really?”
“A ninja is what I’ve always wanted to be. And I’ve missed you guys so bad. You kept apologizing for dragging us into this, but I was never afraid of the bad things that could happen to me if I was a ninja. Maybe you think I should be, but bad things happen anyway. And I don’t think I could ever be as fulfilled as when I get to help people, so maybe it’ll be worth it in the end? So if it’s still okay with you…”
“I would want nothing more than to have you back.”
There may never be a thing in all the Merged Lands that could take away the part of Lloyd that just wanted to go, but standing there with Arin, maybe his life had been worth living. He might never be able to truly accept why he had to be born, but in the time that he had to stay here, he could use a few things to keep him going.
***
How long was the way to the portal gate anyway? The air was crisp on Arin’s somewhat wet face, and sweat on his clothes from the previous fight was starting to become cold. It wasn’t something he hadn’t gotten used to, but now that he had no distant goal to motivate him and he could vividly imagine all this being over soon, it was almost impossible to bear.
“When you’re ready to start training again, I’m gonna force you and the other kids to find some new hobbies and friends your age,” Lloyd said, catching his breath.
“Where did this come from?”
“I don’t want to pass onto you and Sora the need to justify your existence by being used up until there isn’t anything left of you.”
Arin observed Lloyd’s weary face that hadn’t lost its red tint along their walk. The latter didn’t seem to notice, and continued walking as casually as he’d said that.
“Crazy thought, but maybe you shouldn’t think of yourself like that,” Arin said, pushing himself up the hill with his hand on his leg.
“Yeah yeah, I know it’s bad.”
”If you know it’s bad, then why do you think that?”
Lloyd huffed as they reached the top of a hill again.
“Uh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just easier to let myself hurt than to be lazy and let other people get hurt. It also kinda feels like atoning, to be honest. I don’t know why I’m even telling you this.”
“Well I’m no expert on… anything, but my dad always told me that usually the right path is the harder one. Although, I wouldn’t be so sure, because I thought going with Ras was harder than staying. But like, being lazy always seems to be easier than not being lazy.”
“Not to pretend like I know you better than you do,” Lloyd said, “but maybe going with Ras was the easier path. You were scared, so you ran away to avoid getting hurt, right?”
Arin was silent for long enough for them to cross a long old bridge.
“Couldn’t it then be that you’re running away too? Not from being lazy… but like…” Arin said, walking backwards ahead of Lloyd.
“Feeling guilty for not doing enough and being selfish.”
“Sure, yeah.”
“But I really can’t find anything wrong with wanting to be selfless instead of selfish,” Lloyd said and looked over the same old foggy landscape.
“Well… If you ask me, you wouldn’t really be selfless if you just let yourself be hurt for the sake of it. That’s more like… taking the easy shortcut to feeling better about yourself, no? Wouldn’t you help everyone a lot more if you were healthy enough to actually do good things?”
The freezing wind got in through cracks in Lloyd’s green gi.
“Sorry if that sounded stupid. But like, are you really helping anyone by suffering like you’re suggesting, or are you just… Nevermind.”
The word he was thinking of was “a masochist”, but that sounded even more stupid than what he’d said before. Arin was expecting Lloyd to laugh, but the man just stared at him with an unreadable, but definitely serious face.
“Sorry, I throw out accusations you like that. I take it back,” Arin said and awkwardly eyed the path.
As they reached another peak on the path, Arin spoke up again:
“Lloyd? This is getting really awkward. Are you okay? What did I say?”
“Gosh, I’m such an idiot…”
“Huh?”
Lloyd went silent again, gritting his teeth, then eventually sighing and smiling like the whole conversation didn’t happen.
“I’ll be glad to be back at the Monastery. I really need a change of clothes.”
“Oh don’t even get me started on that,” Arin said, relieved, “I haven’t brushed my teeth since the tournament and my hair has never been this long in my life. The last time I’ve gone this long without warm water was right after the Merge! I don’t wanna see these clothes ever again, thank you very much.”
Lloyd lended half an ear to Arin’s list of things he really needed to do when he got back to the Monastery and to his parents. The rest of his mind was a minute or few in the past.
Are you helping people or are you just hurting them in order to run away from your guilt?
It was just supposed to be him. He had always convinced himself it didn’t matter if his way of dealing with things was bad, because it was just him. It was good, actually, that he was getting his punishment both through pushing way beyond his limits, even when it was completely unneccessary, and going out of his way to hurt himself. But he had ignored all the times it had affected people.
He would never pay his imaginary debt, that he knew. But he wasn’t even doing this for the people he owed. Just for himself.
Yet another failure, yet another reason to avoid people’s eyes, and yet another urge for punishment. He wanted to punish himself for punishing himself. He could only laugh at himself.
“It wasn’t very funny, Lloyd. I threw up after eating that thing.”
“What? Oh, sorry, I zoned out. What were you talking about?”
He hadn’t even noticed the Monastery gate being visible now.
“Uh… nothing. Uhm, say, will you take your own advice and start new hobbies and find new friends?”
“Even if I tried, it might be a little hard since I’m the Green Ninja and all… Sure, there are people in the Merged Lands now who’ve never heard of the Realm of Ninjago at all, but those people usually aren’t near the Monastery.”
“Me and Sora will get you in some knitting club, mark my words.”
“Knitting club?”
“Yeah, ‘cause you’re old, like a grandma.”
“Uh huh? I’m your grandma. So then I’ll ground you.”
“What for?”
“For being a little shit,” Lloyd said, flicking Arin’s bangs (which he now had) with his finger.
“Woah woah woah! Gramps, you can’t swear in front of the sixteen-year-old! He’s sooo little!”
Sixteen. Arin sure was sixteen now. Huh.
The portal gate was so close now that Arin couldn’t keep himself from running to it. As Lloyd was about to pick up his pace too, the earth tilted.
“Lloyd? Are you okay?” Arin called out as Lloyd’s hands dug into the dirt and everything spun round and round.
What the hell.