Archive of Our Own

Lloyd was really starting to hate this whole “green ninja” thing. 

Between the fact that it seemed as though the “watch Lloyd” statement his uncle had made when he first moved in with them had gotten ten times more strict just because of a title and the whole “having to fight your dad” thing…yeah, he was really starting to hate it.

He understood why he wasn’t allowed to go anywhere by himself. For one, he was still a kid, that hadn’t changed since he had been taken captive by Pythor. Between that and his recently revealed destiny, it made sense.

What didn’t make sense was that every time the others would go out to fight the serpentine or on yet another search for the final Fangblade, Nya would go into this denial mode where she wouldn’t tell him where or why they were going until they had returned before following behind as Samurai X.

Which meant he was alone in the creaking walls of The Bounty and was forced to hope that one of the others had taken pity on his exile from the outside world and had bought a new Fritz Donnegan comic or a new video game.

After all, it wasn’t like he could train himself for a fight that he wasn’t even sure that he wanted to win due to the fear of what he could lose.

So when they had pulled to a stop and had jumped off of the deck of the ship onto the ground, Nya following closely behind in her mech, Lloyd couldn’t help but turn to his uncle and ask, “I can’t go this time?” even though he knew how he would respond.

And like clockwork, he nodded as he spoke, his voice low, “it’s best to let the ninja handle this one.” before he walked below deck, leaving Lloyd by himself yet again, forced to watch the others battle the snakes in droves as his stomach twisted.

‘This is because of me. This is all because I opened those tombs,’ he thought to himself, but as he looked down at the green gi he was wearing and how it seemed to shine with the sun’s reflection, he lifted his hood over his head and took a long, deep breath, ‘I have to help them fix this.’

And with that, he grabbed onto the chain of the anchor and slid down, holding tighter and tighter as the ground got closer and closer and for a brief second let the all too scary thought cross his mind.

‘Is this a bad idea?’

…

Kai knew that he bragged about a lot of things, but he had gotten really good at fighting these snakes that he was pretty sure that he could do it in his sleep. Hit, spin, fire. Hit, spin, fire. Hit, spin, fire.’

If it wasn’t for the chance that they could get the blades, he’d be growing bored and tormenting his sister over the comms asking if she could do him a favor and get everyone’s McDonald’s order while making sure he adjusted for each different breed of snake. Don’t look, hit, spin, fire. Deflect with metal, hit, spin, fire. Dodge venom, hit, spin, fire. Loosen muscles, hit, spin, fire.

If it had been Cole, he would have compared it to dance steps, or Jay, instructions for a video game. But Kai viewed it as blacksmith work, which he had never been that good at, but he tried his hardest to memorize. ‘To forge the perfect weapon, you first need the right metal and plenty of heat. Cool it off and presto!’

As he pushed back a few Venomari, he had to keep the mental image of the horribly mangled sword that had been in his hands a little more then a year ago to himself because even though he looked back on it fondly, the last thing he wanted was for Nya to hold it over his head for another six months.

But just like that, the lightheartedness of his mind crumbled into chaos. The first thing was the green out of the corner of his eye that couldn’t have been a snake, it was too dark. He knew it was Lloyd who had snuck off of The Bounty and had gone head first into the battle despite not even knowing how to do spinjitzu yet.

But before his lips could move and he could shout at the young boy to ‘get back on the ship’ , that’s when pain washed over him suddenly before he even had a chance to breathe and his hands went to the wounded area, only to feel warm liquid seep onto his hands.

He had been stabbed, and by the way it felt, it was bad. Really bad.

He couldn’t even call for help as he fell to the ground with his vision dimming rapidly. The only thing he could do was feel his heart beat rapidly in his chest due to the panic of the fact that Lloyd could have just gotten himself killed.

Kai had no idea how long his world had darkened. One moment, he was bleeding in the midst of one of the largest battles he had been in, if not the largest, and the next thing he knew, his surroundings were shockingly quiet.

Even when they would go to sleep at the end of the day, The Bounty creaked and cracked throughout the night, so there was only one logical explanation.

‘I’m definitely dead.’

Luckily, when he shifted slightly and a ripple of pain traveled up the left side of his body, he was pretty sure that he was not dead, which was relieving for a brief moment until a new thought entered his mind.

‘Lloyd.’

He didn’t have to wait for an answer on that one, however; he just had to have the strength to open his eyes to see the small child in his oversized gi looking at him from the doorway with a face that couldn’t be described as anything other than pitiful; his recently turned green eyes were shiny with tears and his cheeks had the same effect.

“Lloyd? Are you okay?” Kai spoke, realizing just how dry his mouth was as the words made their way out. “Did you get hurt?”

“Did I get hurt?” Lloyd’s eyes were wide with something like anger or confusion, “you got fucking stabbed,-”

“Hey, your uncle said you’re not allowed to swear anymore.”

“-and it’s my fault.”

And with that, the tears ran down the boy’s face which stunned Kai into silence immediately. Yes, he had comforted Nya when she had been crying in the past, but that had been way different. 

This was an eight year old boy who had just had his entire world shaken up in a way that Kay couldn’t even begin to pretend to relate to and now he had convinced himself that everything going wrong was because of him.

“Lloyd, hey,” he spoke softly as he shifted to face him better, biting back the sharp pain from moving, “bud, this wasn’t your fault.”

“Pythor did it, and I let him out-”

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Kai cut him off, startling his tears into a stop, “your dad does a lot of bad things, you know that.”

“Not helping.”

“Well, let me finish, short stack,” Kai responded before continuing, “remember when your dad was staying here to help rescue you and he started to try and steal files?”

“Yeah, because it was a few days ago.” 

“Saying that Pythor stabbing me was your fault because you let him out is like saying that it’s your uncle’s fault that our files got stolen because he let Garmadon stay here. You are not responsible for other’s actions. You got that?”

Lloyd nodded, but the tears were still on his face and his body was still shaking with the cries. It seemed as though hearing what he was saying wasn’t the same as understanding what he was saying. But, Kai knew that he couldn’t make Lloyd understand, so he sighed and adjusted on the bed, wincing at the sharp shot of pain.

“Are you okay?” Lloyd asked, his voice still shaky from crying.

“Sit next to me, kid,” Kai insisted, waiting for him to pull himself onto the bed and sit in the empty space, “I don’t blame you. So you don’t need to blame yourself. Okay?”

The room was silent again. If it could have been, it was more quiet then when he initially woke up. But all he could focus on was waiting for Lloyd’s response and if he had to continue with the damage control or not.

“Okay.” Lloyd breathed at last, and Kai couldn’t help but sigh in relief as well before asking the next question on his mind.

“How mad did your uncle get when you snuck off The Bounty ?”