Chapter Text
The streets of Ninjago were dead, swallowed by a quiet, suffocating night. Only one figure braved the emptiness. Thin black stilettos snapped against the cold pavement with a rhythmic, lethal purpose. The woman wore a dress of crimson silk. It clung desperately to her curves, a strapless, low-bodice design that bared her cleavage and barely covered what necessity demanded. Over her exposed shoulders, a plush white fur jacket offered an illusion of modesty before the grand show tonight.
Her deep brown eyes cut through the dark, framed by a rich, tanned complexion. Chocolate-coloured hair cascaded down her back in heavy, sweeping waves, held back on one side by a small red spider lily hair clip. As she glided down a shadowy backstreet, her destination materialised—the rusted steel entrance to the Slither Pit, marked only by a burly bouncer guarding the nondescript door. He eyed her with a weary gaze as she clicked toward him. The woman flashed a sweet, disarming smile. With silver stiletto nails, she lightly tapped the lily clip in her hair. The bouncer recognised the sign of Chen’s inner circle, nodded silently, and stepped aside, throwing the heavy door open to the underground.
The transition was violent.
A wall of noise, heat, and the heavy stench of sweat and cheap beer slammed into her. The interior was a sensory overload of neon and raw aggression. This wasn't just a standard rave; it was a subterranean fight arena. Hordes of jeering spectators yelled around the central, chain-link cages where fighters battered each other for blood money. Music thudded from speakers, completely obliterating the possibility of conversation as a choked queue of people suffocated the bar.
She stood at the edge of the chaos for a fraction of a second, getting her bearings as her eyes swept past the cages—unaware off the black haired woman currently inside one of them, breaking an opponent's ribs.
Before she could linger, a man in a sharp black tuxedo pushed his way through the crowd and beckoned her. She followed him away from the main floor and up two flights of industrial stairs, the thudding bass and the roars of the fight crowd muffling slightly as they entered a private VIP lounge bathed in a bruised purple neon glow.
The air up here was thick with expensive liquor and the acrid sting of smoke. Heavy-set bodyguards lined the walls. On a sweeping white leather couch sat four men, each flanked by girls catering to their whims. They were laughing uproariously, snorting thick lines of white powder off a glass table. One of them looked up, catching sight of her. His lips pulled back into a malicious, toothy grin.
"Welcome! Chiyosuzu, right? Master Chen warned us this vixen was coming," he shouted over the music. The couch erupted into dark laughter.
She kept her expression perfectly composed, a flawless mask masking the truth. Chiyosuzu was a lie. Her real, realm-born name was Kai.
The man speaking wore an unbuttoned white polo shirt, exposing a pale, skinny chest. His bleached, platinum-blonde hair was styled into aggressive, swept-up spikes. Kai recognised him instantly: Aris Salvage.
Aris patted the empty cushion next to him.
"It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Salvage," Kai replied, her voice a rehearsed, sultry purr. Her heels clinked delicately on the hardwood as she waded through the room, enduring the lust-filled glares of the surrounding men. She felt like a prized trophy. Perfect.
The atmosphere grew increasingly unhinged. The smell of cheap narcotics and burning tobacco filled the room. Kai politely waved off the offered cocaine but accepted a glass of liquor, sipping it with calculated slowness while a cigarette burned between her lips. Nearby, a girl in a silver micro-dress entertained one of Aris’s associates, while another in a crop top was led out into a back room. Kai didn’t judge; everyone had a way of earning a living in the underbelly of Ninjago.
Aris leaned in close, the stench of alcohol hot on his breath. A hand began a slow, uninvited glide up Kai's thigh. "So, Chiyosuzu... if our families are going to do business together, what exactly are the Chens bringing to the Salvage table?"
"Well..." Kai drawled, removing the cigarette from her rosy lips and blowing a plume of smoke into his face. She smiled. "Aren't I enough?"
Aris chuckled, but his eyes remained cold, unimpressed.
"Master Chen, in exchange for your total cooperation, has agreed to grant your family a seat of absolute power once his grand scheme is complete," she delivered smoothly.
Aris threw his head back and roared with genuine laughter. "You seem to forget, sweetheart—my family is the power around here. Compared to us, Chen is just a lowly noodle-peddling pimp."
Kai simply shrugged, placing the cigarette back between her teeth.
The casual indifference snapped his temper. "DON'T LOOK DOWN ON ME, BITCH!" Aris exploded, lunging forward. The girls on the couch flinched away in terror. Kai forced a fake, fragile shudder, playing the part of the terrified damsel.
Before Aris could do more than run a frustrated hand through his spiked hair, the room shattered.
The bodyguards suddenly surged forward. Two heavy hands grabbed Aris, shoving him violently behind the couch, while the rest formed a defensive wall at the entrance. The party girls scrambled into the corners, shrieking. Kai didn't flee; she shifted closer to Aris, her eyes tracking his movements with predatory focus.
From the other side of the heavy oak doors, shouting erupted, followed by the deafening cracks of gunfire. Then, a sudden, dead silence.
The guards tensed, weapons raised. The doors swung open. A crumpled, black-clad figure was rolled brutally across the floor.
"Caught this one trying to break into the vault for the spell book," a monotone voice announced. A massive enforcer stood over the intruder, the barrel of a pistol pressed firmly against the back of their neck. Another guard reached down and violently ripped the black mask away.
A young woman gasped for air, revealing a fierce mane of vibrant red hair and a sharp, olive skin tone. Her thick black lashes framed angry, burning orange eyes.
When Aris saw her face, his terror vanished, replaced by an arrogant, twisting laugh. "Only a woman would be stupid enough to try and rob the Salvage family," he cackled, stepping out from behind his guards toward the glass table.
"That vault is just a decoy. This is the real prize." Aris pressed a hidden release valve beneath the table's edge. A concealed compartment clicked open with a mechanical hiss, revealing a dark, heavy volume. It was the Book of Spells, its cover glowing with an eerie purple hue, deeply engraved in gold with the ancient symbol of the Ouroboros serpent.
Aris snatched it up, aggressively waving it in the redhead's face. "Since you want it so bad, maybe I should see what kind of curse is written inside for thieves, huh?"
Kai made brief, eye contact with the captured newcomer, then quickly looked away to maintain her cover.
The fiery redhead muttered something under her breath.
"What was that, girl? Speak up!" Aris barked. His friends laughed nervously behind him, tightening their grips on the weeping hostesses.
The redhead lifted her chin, a vicious smirk breaking across her face. "I said... maybe you shouldn’t wave the thing I want right in my face. We bite."
Aris blinked, his cocky grin faltering. "HA! Sure you do. Wait... we?"
The brat never had the chance to process the word.
Kai crossed the distance in a blur of motion. Before Aris could even turn his head, her hand thrust straight into the front of his neck. Her fingers met a brief, sickening resistance before punching through muscle and sinew. With a brutal twist, she ripped her hand back out. Her pointed metal stiletto nails were entirely drenched in dark, thick crimson.
The room froze for one horrific heartbeat. Then, a violent spray of arterial blood erupted from Aris’s ruined throat. His eyes rolled back, blown wide with shock, as he stumbled blindly backward into the white couch, painting it red.
The lounge erupted into absolute chaos.
Skylor used the distraction to flip violently off the floor, breaking the enforcer's grip and driving a brutal kick into his jaw, sending him crashing through a glass.
Kai’s hand was warm and sticky. Blood splattered across her face, her chocolate hair, and the front of her red silk dress, but she didn’t care. She lunged forward, swiping the Book of Spells off the table, and dove for cover behind the heavy mahogany bar just as a hail of bullets tore through the air where she had been standing.
The bartender was already curled into a fetal position beneath the liquor cabinets. He shot Kai a look of pure, unadulterated terror as she crashed down beside him. She ignored him entirely.
Out in the open, Skylor was a whirlwind of elemental power. With a flash of her hands, she froze incoming bullets mid-air, turning the advancing bodyguards into rigid, weeping statues of solid ice. Amidst the chaos, Skylor kicked a fallen Glock 19 off the floor, sending it sliding across the slick tile right over the bar.
Kai caught the pistol out of the air. It was heavy, fully loaded. She popped up over the counter and opened fire, providing lethal suppressive cover for Skylor. Each bullet found its mark with terrifying precision, dropping heads and collapsing bodies in a calculated wave.
Suddenly, a hand clamped onto the shoulder of her white fur jacket. One of Aris’s surviving associates—dressed like a street-level thug—ripped her out from behind the safety of the bar.
Kai hit the floor hard, the silk dress tearing slightly. Before she could recover, the man loomed over her, a heavy revolver aimed directly between her eyes. His hands were shaking violently.
Kai didn't hesitate. She spun fluidly on her back, sweeping her legs out in a vicious arc that took his feet right out from under him. As he crashed heavily to the floor, Kai surged upward. With a single, explosive motion, she brought her thin black stiletto heel down like a spike, driving it straight through his skull in one swift, sickening stamp.
She kept the heavy book clutched tightly against her ribs, forced into a brutal, close-quarters scramble.
Skylor, commanding the room as the primary threat, held the attention of the heavy security detail. That left Kai to deal with Aris’s remaining crew—men furious that she had already slaughtered two of their own. They lunged at her in a frantic wave, blades flashing. Kai moved on pure instinct. Using one hand to parry and redirect the incoming knives, she slipped inside one man's guard, forced his blade upward, and rammed the rigid spine of the book directly into his trachea. He collapsed, choking. Her manicured titanium nails, filed to lethal points, tore tracks of crimson through exposed flesh with every strike.
In a desperate breath of space, she discarded her damaged footwear, and moved with a raw, unyielding focus to neutralize the remaining threats.
When the struggle finally ended, the room was a silent ruin of shattered furniture and the aftermath of the clash. Kai walked across the wreckage, her bare feet pressing against the cold floor as she moved to recover her belongings. Her low-cut dress was shredded and frayed, marked by the intensity of the fight. At least the fabric was red, masking much of the damage, but her white fur coat was clearly beyond repair.
She looked down at it with a heavy frown. Her chocolate-brown hair was a tangled mess, and she exhaled a sharp breath, trying to blow a stray lock away from her eyes where it was stuck to her skin.
"We’re definitely burning that when we get home."
Skylor’s voice cut through the heavy silence. Unlike Kai, Skylor appeared composed and largely untouched by the chaos. Not a single strand of her amber hair was out of place. She looked like a queen, even in the center of such a devastating scene.
"It’s a gift…" Kai mumbled, her fingers tightening on the ruined fur. For a fraction of a second, her cold, detached mask cracked, revealing the hollow ache underneath.
"It was a gift to help us secure the book. Father won’t care about the coat; he'll be focused on the prize," Skylor countered. She stepped into Kai’s space, gently but firmly forcing Kai to meet her eyes. "The cleanup crew will be here any minute. We have a boat to catch." She plucked the coat from Kai’s grip and dropped it onto the bloody floor.
Holding her shoes in one hand and the precious text in the other, Kai let herself be led away from the scene and back into the thumping, neon-lit noise of the club. They moved through the crowd with a presence that kept others at a distance, save for one pervert who was far too drunk- which skylor elbowed in the face, eventually walking out into the night.
Outside, the gravel crunched sharply beneath their feet as they headed toward the docks. The biting sea wind whipped across the shoreline, sending shivers through Kai’s bruised shoulders.
She hugged the book tighter against her chest, but the smell of the salt water and the crashing waves only triggered a memory—a ghost she had been repeatedly told to move past.
"Really?" Skylor asked. The question slipped out harsher than she intended, her eyes sharp.
"Sorry," Kai mumbled, flinching slightly as she averted her eyes from the moonlit waves.
Skylor sighed, her posture softening. "Please, don't stay stuck on the past. They moved on, and you owe them nothing. Though... I still don't understand why the ocean always brings this out in you."
"Skylor, please. She's still my sister," Kai whispered, the words catching in her throat. Just as much as you are, she thought, though she couldn't say it. “And… she looked so much like my mother. She used to tell us stories about the sea.” A small smile graced her lips until the horrid memories of them leaving her leapt out. Them all leaving her.
She looked back out at the dark, infinite expanse of the ocean. She couldn't bring herself to say the truth out loud. Her sister wasn't just gone—she was the Water Ninja now, part of a world that had seemingly left Kai behind in the shadows.
Kai could never hate her little sister for seizing the moment. But she could—and did—despise those worthless excuses for parents. They had abandoned their children, leaving them to starve and claw for raw survival in a cold world, forcing Kai to sell whatever she could just to keep them alive. That was why she had been more than happy to abandon her last name. She was just Kai now.
As the rugged city streets finally dissolved into the rocky coastline, the small, fog-shrouded dock emerged from the darkness. Waiting for them under the flickering amber lights were several heavily armed members of Master Chen’s guard, led by a smug-looking Eyezor.
"Look who finally decided to show up," Eyezor sneered, crossing his arms.
Skylor didn't even slow her pace, rolling her eyes with practiced disdain. "We have the book, Eyezor. Which is exactly what we went for. What have you done tonight besides stand around in the damp?"
Kai caught the general muttering a bitter phrase under his breath—something about how he could have done the job with half the mess—but she chose to ignore him. Skylor clearly hadn't heard, and Kai was too exhausted to carve him up with her nails. They boarded the vessel, and it didn't take long for the private ferry to sway away from the shoreline. The engines thrummed beneath their feet as they set off into the Endless Sea, charting a course toward an island no one else could see.
Skylor stood beside her at the railing in a comfortable silence. The biting sea wind whipped through their hair. Skylor's amber locks flew free, while Kai’s chocolate-brown strands remained stiff, knotted, and tacky with dried blood.
Looking out into the black water, Kai’s mind drifted back to the night her world had truly fractured.
It had been a few months after Nya vanished. Kai had been desperately scouring New Ninjago City, working back-alleys and picking up whispers, terrified her little sister had been kidnapped, sold or killed. Then, she saw the news broadcast. The city was under attack by Serpentine, and there, riding a mechanical dragon and wielding the power of the ocean, was Nya. She was wearing pristine maroon ninja robes. She was surrounded by a new family. She looked fed, healthy, and powerful. Master Wu stood in the background, a proud mentor.
Kai had stood frozen in front of a shop window television, the rain pouring down her face. Nya hadn't been taken. She had been chosen. She had traded their squalid, starving life for glory and a noble destiny—leaving Kai behind in the dirt without a single backward glance.
A sudden jolt shattered the memory.
The small ferry had just broken through Clouse’s shimmering magic barrier. The oppressive fog vanished, instantly revealing the sprawling, fire-lit docks of Chen's island. An army of cultists stood eagerly awaiting their arrival, and right at the front of the crowd was Master Chen himself.
The moment the boat docked, before the two girls could even step onto the gangplank, Chen scrambled aboard. His manic smile stretched practically from ear to ear. He threw his arms around them in a brief, chaotic hug before his wild eyes locked onto the ancient book tucked securely against Kai’s ribs.
Kai handed it over. Chen snatched it, literally jumping up and down on the wooden deck with pure, unadulterated joy.
"That’s my girls! I knew I could count on you!" he laughed, his voice echoing over the water. He leaned in, placing a affectionate kiss on each of their foreheads. "Those wretched, salvage families won’t last long in my new empire! Come now, you two—freshen up and join us for celebratory noodles!"
Suddenly, his hyperactive gaze halted, finally taking in Kai’s rugged appearance. "Oh dear, Kai... your dress! And what on earth happened to that white fur jacket I bought you?"
"I'm sorry, Master Chen," Kai murmured, looking down at the torn silk. "The security detail was heavier than we anticipated. Everything got ruined. I’ll pay you back for the coat, I swear."
"My dear girl!" Chen chuckled, waving a hand dismissively as he clutched the prized book to his chest. "You could ruin a hundred dresses if you keep delivering work as spectacular as this! Tell you what—after my tournament is finished, I will buy you an entire wardrobe. As many dresses as you want! And they’ll be made from the finest, pure silk."
He smiled, utterly lost in the bliss of his grand future. Kai bowed her head respectfully, stepping past him to descend the gangplank. The cold sea air still nipped at her bare feet, but she took comfort in knowing that just inside the palace, a scorching hot shower was finally waiting for her.
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The air inside the subterranean arena was thick with the stench of sweat and cheap beer. In the center of the roaring crowd, the cage matches of the Slither Pit were a brutal spectacle. But tonight, it wasn't a powerhouse brute dominating the ring.
She stood over her latest opponent—a massive, heavily tattooed brawler who was currently gasping for air on the canvas. Nya didn't even look winded. Her hair was tied back in a high, flawless ponytail, and her dark training gear was pristine, save for a few splatters of her opponent's blood.
"Is that really all the streets have to offer?" Nya asked, her voice cutting through the cheers of the bloodthirsty crowd. She looked down at the groaning man with absolute disgust, casually tapping a foot against the canvas. "Get up. I didn't pay my entry fee to watch a grown man take a nap."
The brawler pushed himself up, roaring in humiliation, and lunged at her. Nya didn't blink. She waited until the last possible second, effortlessly ducked beneath his wild swing, and drove a vicious, precise side-kick directly into his fractured ribs. The crack echoed over the noise of the crowd. As he doubled over, she grabbed the back of his head and slammed his face into her knee, sending him crashing back down, completely unconscious.
The crowd went wild, throwing money into the ring. Nya didn't smile. She just rolled her eyes, wiping a stray drop of sweat from her forehead.
"Pathetic," she muttered under her breath.
Ever since Zane had died the team had shattered. Lloyd had tried to keep them together, but Nya had no patience for his weak, hopeful speeches. Hope didn't bring people back. And hope certainly hadn't stopped her sister, Kai, from vanishing into thin air every so often years ago, leaving her alone to provide for herself until Master Wu found her.what had Kai even been doing, the thought regularly crossed her mind, but she didn’t dwell on it too long. It was like her sister fleeting, there for a moment then gone again. If people were going to abandon her, she was going to make sure she was too strong to care.
She grabbed her water bottle from the corner of the cage, ignoring the referee who tried to raise her hand in victory.
"Get him out of my sight before I decide to break something else," Nya snapped at the ring announcers. She stepped out of the cage, the crowd parting for her out of genuine fear. She had earned a reputation here: she wasn't just the maroon Ninja anymore. She was cruel, unpredictable, and took far too much pleasure in breaking her opponents.
As she began to wrap her hands for the next round, a shadow fell over her.
"You're making quite a name for yourself down here, Nya. But this isn't who you are."
Nya didn't even look up. She recognized Lloyd’s overly earnest voice instantly. Standing beside him was Cole, looking uncomfortable in the dingy club.
"Oh, look. The green boy wonder and his rocky sidekick," Nya sneered, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she tightened the fabric around her knuckles. "Did you two get lost on the way to a charity event, or are you just here to ruin my evening?"
"Nya, please," Lloyd said, stepping closer, his eyes full of that exhausting, desperate hope. "We need you. The team isn't the same without you. Zane is gone, and—"
"Zane is dead, Lloyd," Nya interrupted, her voice dropping to a dangerous, icy whisper as she finally looked up, her eyes narrowing. "Get it through your thick skull. He’s gone. Just like everyone else who promises to stick around. I’m done playing dress-up and saving a city that doesn't care. Out here, I actually get paid to hurt people."
Cole frowned, crossing his arms. "You’ve gotten mean, Nya. Zane wouldn't want to see you like this."
The mention of her brother’s name made Nya’s expression instantly harden into something genuinely venomous. The grief and bitterness she kept locked away flared to the surface.
"Don't you ever speak to me out what Zane wanted," Nya hissed, stepping directly into Cole's space, entirely unfazed by his size. "The lot of you are cowards, and since we never found Zane’s body it’s probably rotting in a ditch somewhere about to be turned into scrap. I don't care about him, and I don't care about your pathetic little club. Now get out of my way."
Before Lloyd could plead any further, a strange commotion at the back of the VIP lounge caught Nya's attention. A woman in dark clothing and dark red hair were slipping away through a side exit with a rather tattered looking prostitute in a low cut red dress clutching a strange, ancient-looking book to her chest.
Nya froze, her cruel demeanor slipping for a split second as a bizarre, haunting sense of déjà vu washed over her. Nya blinked, but the fleeting image of the chocolate-haired girl clutching the book was already swallowed by the neon haze of the Slither Pit's exit. She shook her head violently. A ghost, she told herself. Just another mind game.
"Are you coming or not?" Nya snapped, turning her icy gaze back to Lloyd and Cole, who were watching her with a mix of pity and concern. "If we're going to talk about whatever garbage emergency you've cooked up, we do it over food. I’m starving."
Twenty minutes later, the three of them slid into a booth at Master Chen’s Noodle House. The restaurant was buzzing with its usual late-night crowd, but the atmosphere at their table was suffocating. Sitting across from them, waiting with a jittery, anxious energy, was Jay.
He looked awful. Ever since Zane’s disappearance and the team’s subsequent collapse, Jay had isolated himself, hosting a terrible reality TV show just to avoid reality.
"Oh, look who decided to grace us with her presence," Jay muttered, leaning back and crossing his arms. He tried to sound detached, but his eyes kept darting to Nya, lingering on the bruises on her knuckles and the fierce, beautiful anger in her posture.
"Shut up, Jay," Nya said smoothly, sliding into the booth next to Cole—a deliberate move that made Jay’s jaw instantly tighten. She grabbed a pair of chopsticks and didn't look at either of them. "I’m only here because Lloyd wouldn't stop crying about a reunion. Say what you have to say so I can leave."
"We’re not here to fight," Lloyd pleaded, placing a glowing, stylized fortune cookie in the center of the table. "Look at this. It’s an invitation. Someone named Master Chen is hosting a Tournament of Elements on a hidden island. The message said... it said Zane is alive."
The table went dead silent. Nya paused, her chopsticks hovering an inch above her bowl. For a second, a flicker of genuine shock crossed her face, but it was quickly masked by her usual cynical armor. "A trap. Obviously. Zane blew up in the middle of New Ninjago City. You expect me to believe he’s sunbathing on a private island?"
"It’s a lead, Nya!" Jay burst out, leaning over the table, his voice cracking with a mixture of desperate hope and irritation. "But of course, you wouldn't care. You're too busy playing queen of the underground, punching people for pocket change!"
"At least I'm not a clown on a screen, Jay," Nya shot back, her voice dropping to a dangerous, growl. "I face my problems. You just run away from them." Jay shot back
"Hey! Knock it of both off you," Cole growled, stepping in defensively. He glared at jay just because he was across the table, his arms crossed over his massive chest.
Jay’s eyes flared with sudden, bitter jealousy. He slammed a hand on the table. "Oh, naturally! The rock-head jumps to her defense! What’s the matter, Cole? Still trying to swoop in now that the team is broken? I know what you’ve been doing."
Cole exhaled a harsh, furious breath, his fists clenching. The rivalry between them wasn't about Nya—not for Cole. It was about the betrayal. "You're an idiot, Jay. You actually believed Cyrus Borg's stupid matchmaking machine over your own best friend. You honestly thought I would try to steal Nya from you? You trusted a computer algorithm instead of me!"
"Well, look where she’s sitting, Cole!" Jay yelled back, pointing a trembling finger at Nya, his face flushing red. "You guys walk in together, she sits next to you, and you're suddenly her bodyguard? Forgive me for believing what's right in front of my face!"
"Grow up, both of you," Nya interrupted, her voice cutting through their argument like a shard of ice. She looked between the two boys with pure, unadulterated disgust.
She leaned back in the booth, crossing her legs. A cruel, grimace graced her lips as she watched them bicker over her like dogs over a scrap of meat. She didn't love either of them—not anymore. The vulnerability required to love someone had died a long time ago, Zane's death had buried the rest. But she certainly enjoyed the power she held over them. It was amusing to watch them tear their brotherhood apart over a girl who felt absolutely nothing for them.
"You two are pathetic," Nya sneered, tapping her fingers against the wooden table. "Fighting over a machine's glitch while the world moves on. If this Chen guy is holding a tournament, I'm going. Not to save Zane, and certainly not to play happy family with you losers."
She snatched the fortune cookie from the center of the table and cracked it open with one hand, letting the shell shatter onto the table.
"I'm going because I want to see what kind of competition is out there," Nya said, her dark eyes flashing with a wicked, predatory excitement. "And if anyone gets in my way... I'll break them just like the guys in the Slither Pit."
She eyed them all in challenge and tucked into her noodles ignoring their horrified stares.