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spinchip · 5 months

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BEEN THERE ONCE BEFORE AND I WISH THAT I NEVER DIED

Pairings: none Word count: 6500 Warning: Graphic depictions of violence and death. Gore, murder, Ear trauma and limb loss tw

Summary: Zane would do anything to keep the ninja safe.

There is a pot of tea between you, sitting in Master Wu's private garden right outside the door to his room, and it’s some sort of oolong blend with a sweet smelling screen hanging over it. Osmanthus flowers float in your cup and you trace their pattern, watching them shift idly in what little breeze this summer day has brought you. The tea is too bitter despite the honey you’d added, over-steeped and thick on your tongue.

There is a sword on his lap, a sleek red sheath and neatly wrapped handles. There are no adornments on this blade, it is plain and unassuming, a tool for its master and whatever that may entail. Master Wu had asked you out here, months after the desperate fight for Ninjago at the corridor of elders (even longer after you had been torn apart by a power that was never yours to hold,) and the rattlesnake smile he’d offered as he’d led you out vanished the moment you were hidden from prying eyes. He makes your tea silently, and he burns it.

He looks at you in a way that makes you bristle, with eyes that no longer see you as human. Your silver skin itches, your tea tastes like ash.

“Do you know what a ninja is, historically?” He asks you finally, his voice quiet but clear over the space between you.

You do not, but you could look it up in an instant. You don’t do that either. He does not expect you to answer.

“They were said to be assassins. Hired blades sent to the house of the lands lord to slaughter them- the last recorded deaths by these assassins was years and years ago, but that was not the end of the era of the ninja. They snuck between the shadows, they pulled their hidden weapons, and they eliminated their targets cleanly and efficiently.” He waits, gauging your reaction. You can feel his eyes sit heavy on where your hands are deceptively calm around your tea cup, assessing, searching for something like he had that day he’d first laid eyes upon you in the frozen pond.

A phantom of a red flashes across your HUD that screams DANGER- and despite how there is no real warning clawing its way across your eyes, you know you should be afraid anyway. Tread carefully, you are in dangerous territory. Do not react. Control.

“Is this a history lesson?”

“Perhaps.” Master Wu murmurs, finding something in your expression with those dark eyes.

“The best way to defeat my enemy is to make him my friend.” You can’t help but say, a parrot of his own words, your eyes calculating.

“And if your kindness is rejected?” He does not skip a beat.

You hesitate, the clink of your cup as you set it down on the table too loud on your ears.

“You are no longer a child, Zane. Your innocence died with the Overlord. The others still have that innocence.” You jerk, the reminder of your death bruising on your soul, but he doesn't handle you with kid gloves, “You’ve killed once, to protect them.” Sensei Wu does not touch his tea, and there is a rising sickness in your stomach, “Can you do it again?”

He draws the blade and it’s blood red, holding it out to you, handle first.

To protect them?

His eyes are dark and there’s a danger there, but he has always been kind to you. Like a father when yours had vanished, warm smiles and encouraging words flashing across your eyes. Visions of fire and blood and death color your head along with it, superimposed on top of your friends and family. You’d do anything to protect the people you love, wouldn’t you?

The sword is a healthy weight in your palm.

---

Police tape surrounds a dilapidated old building, great yellow swathes of it wrapped down the sidewalk into the street and officers at each corner standing vigil over the body slumped half in the gutter and covered by a sheet. News vans line the street waiting for the opportunity to film once the coroner has packed away the gore and it’s mostly family-friendly for the afternoon broadcast. Flood lights and lamps are set up around the premise, little yellow evidence markers salting the earth down the doors of the warehouse and up to the body. Apparently deceptively unassuming, the Mechanics home base is filled to the brim with his lackeys and stolen tech- or, it was.

“I guess the Mechanic got tangled up with the wrong guy.” Kai says breathlessly, spooked as the camera pans over the overflowing body bags being loaded into the coroner's van.

The Commissioner taps the remote to his VCR on his leg anxiously, “You heard on the news already, i’m sure, but we suspect the unsub used a long blade of some kind,” He’s visibly shaken, “A sword, perhaps- the evidence was very…” he makes a slashing motion from his throat, miming blood striping the wall behind him.

A blood spattered window, the killing so brutal a heavy streak of gore laced up the glass, is still visible to the probing crime scene photographer.

The graying man slides a manila folder thick with printed pictures across the table and Jay pointedly pushes it away from himself, looking queasy. You reach out and pick it up with hands that seem to float endlessly away from your body, but you’ve felt like this since stumbling home two nights ago when the moon was full and no one else was awake. You don’t hesitate to open it, staring down at the first photo with mild surprise.

Cole jerks away before steeling himself and glancing back over. The picture shouldn’t surprise you, but it does anyway. It looks so messy. The body in the street can barely be recognized in the photo, too mutilated- the only identifying feature being the mechanical hand resistant to the blades of a sword. The mechanic had been reduced to mince meat, blood seeping up through shredded flesh and broken bones. Blood flows in a river down the stairs of the warehouse, down onto the sidewalk, flowing into the gutters.

“This seems… motivated.” Lloyd grimaces at the image but doesn’t look away.

“That’s certainly one word for it,” The commissioner huffs, “We’ve been calling it ‘unhinged.’”

You flip to the next image. Bodies piled on top of each other, strewn across the room, throats slit and bellies gutted and in one particularly horrific scene brain matter and skull fragments rendering a man unrecognizable.

Your memories of that night are fuzzy and nebulous.

Nya takes one of the photos, “Who would do something like this?”

“We were hoping you knew,” A beat- the man sighs, “The mechanic, he’s hard to keep tabs on. We didn’t really know who his enemies were other than those present, and you all had the most contact with him, but it’s too much to hope you have a lead for us, huh?”

He blows out an explosive breath, “Tell me, does the attack itself look familiar in any way? Anyone who comes to mind who has the capability to do something like that?”

You shake your head, blue boring holes into the eyes of a henchman who died trying to hold his intestines inside his gut, “No,” Your voice doesn't waver, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

---

Wu touches your shoulder firm and bruising but your skin cant purple under his nails anymore, “It gets easier.”

---

You stand in the threshold of the jail cell, the body in the room covered by a sheet. You had wondered if that really happened, bodies covered up by the police like in television dramas- this is the second time you’ve seen it. It won’t be the last. It’s interesting to know how fiction gets it right, sometimes. Kai distinctly can’t look, turned away, but you haven't been squeamish in a long time. You crouch low, reaching for the edge of the blanket to see, and Nya makes a disgusted noise in the back of her throat when you lift the sheet to look.

This death is far more refined than the massacre you’d investigated this month- A clean cut across his throat, blood coating his sleep shirt and dried to the corners of his mouth. Droplets of red sprinkle his face where he’d tried to breathe through the ruined hole of his throat, coughing a plume of blood into the air that rained down on him as he died. His skin is waxy and his eyes glazed and clouded, he’s been dead for hours- but you knew that already.

Nya coughs, “Can you cover him up, please?”

You oblige, “I was trying to see what Information I could gather.” the sheet falls back over his face, hiding him away. There’s no reason to cover him up, the other inmates are locked in their cells until the investigation finishes and the body is removed. Privacy is a moot point, but maybe it’s about respect.

Lloyd turns away from where he’s shifting through the inmates belongings, “Well, anything?”

“He was killed hours ago. He’s been dead for a long while.” How much to say? “The murder weapon was a blade.”

“Same as the Mechanic.” Jay says from where he’s outside the cell and out of line of sight, the dead body and blood making him sick, “Did Fugi-Dove and him have any connections?”

“Not that we know of.” Nya frowns, crossing her arms over her chest and trying to convince everyone she’s unaffected by this, “Only us. It just seems so weird- He’s a small fry compared to the mechanic, why kill him? He’s harmless!”

“He broke Jay's elbow last week,” You remind her, “He was not harmless. Perhaps he had more secrets than we thought.”

“Who found him?” Cole murmurs, carefully keeping away from touching the crime scene.

“Eight AM guard round,” You answer him, standing up, “The four AM patrol missed him. Both officers were interrogated, but nothing came of it. It doesn’t appear to have been an inside job.”

“The culprit snuck into kryptarium prison, killed a man, and snuck out with none the wiser?” Nya snorts, “This place has gone to the dogs.”

Jay taps his foot impatiently and it echoes down the hallway, “Well, it’s not like Warden Noble runs a very tight ship around here, despite what he wants you to think. How many escaped convicts do we deal with on a weekly basis?”

“So what do we do about this?” Kai asks, frowning at the lump on the ground.

Fugi-dove was half slumped off his bed, his back flush to the ground and his legs still thrown over his bed and tangled up in his bedsheets. He’d been awake when he was attacked, his cheeks bitten to hell as if he’d attempted to scream through a hand sealed over his mouth that only let go once his vocal cords had been slashed through, and in his desperate attempt to stop from bleeding out or drowning in his own blood he’d thrashed himself right to the floor.

“We’ll look at the tapes and see what we can find.” Lloyd answers casually. Darkleys prepared him for death and gore, it didn’t bother him like it should.

“I thought officer Pey told us we were in a blind spot,” Cole points out, stepping out of the cell followed by Lloyd.

“Warden Noble used to be the principle of Darkleys,” the green ninja waits for you to join them on the other side of the cell. You feel cold all over, “And if there’s one thing I'm certain of, the man has eyes everywhere.”

“Does he?” You ask, fingers going numb.

Lloyd nods and locks the cell door behind you, “There will be tapes. He should be here any minute now, Officer Pey says he comes in at 10:00 on Saturdays.”

As if on cue, the Warden appears in a frenzy, tearing into the hallway and bee lining for the cell. He grimaces at the covered up body, “I leave Pey in charge for one night…” He sighs, pushing his glasses up to rub at his eyes, “Great.”

“Good morning, Warden.” Jay greets cheerfully.

“Says who?” The man replies darkly, “The media is gonna tear me a new one. This is going to lower our reputation even more.”

“Let us help you put the culprit behind these bars,” Lloyd offers, stepping forward with green ninja grace.

“I don’t think that’d do any good, he already got out once.” Kai mutters.

The warden graciously ignored Kai’s comment, “I haven't even had coffee yet.” He complains, running a rough hand over his mouth as he glares at the body.

“You had hidden cameras?” Lloyd pushes and the Warden nods, motioning to an inconspicuous looking fire alarm.

“It’s fake,” He tells him.

You walk towards it. A strange sense of doom washes over you, numbness following it. A camera. Evidence. How clearly would they be able to see the killer's face?

“Let me be of assistance,” You offer, casually making it to the alarm first. The moment you manage to open the glorified nanny cam and your fingers close around the USB, you focus a concentrated pulse of electromagnetic energy and wipe it clean. Anything saved to the storage space will have been obliterated, gone, corrupted and unsalvageable. You can feel your hands again.

“How could this have happened?” The warden asks, clicking through the empty USB over and over looking for footage that no longer exists.

Lloyd glances at you, but there’s no suspicion, “Was there anything weird about the camera? Had it been tampered with?”

You touch your chin and try not to let your hands shake, “No, but it was not a very complex mechanism. It could easily have been opened by someone familiar with this type of surveillance.”

“Someone from Darkleys?” Nya suggests.

Lloyd hums in thought, “I don’t know. It’s worth looking into.”

“When did we become detectives?” Jay complains, “Can’t you guys just call us when you need us to spinjitzu this guy?”

“Don’t be a baby.”

Jay pulls a face at that, “I’m a ninja! I shouldn’t have to put up with all this- this blood!”

“Do you know what a ninja is, historically?” you murmur.

No one hears you.

---

There are four more deaths the following month, both somewhat well-known villains with a penchant for collateral damage. The same slashing wounds as the last. Lloyd is the only person in the group who doesn’t look affected by the barrage of gore he’s being subjected to- other than you, of course. He’s reading over the newest police report that’d come their way with a hum, “He’s getting bolder.” He concludes, flipping through the crime scene pictures at the end.

“Bolder?” Cole questions, “It seems to me like he’s winding down. His first kill was the Mechanic and everyone working under him- 16 deaths on that one alone. Now he’s down to one.”

“The Mechanic was messy,” he examines the pictures, noting just how clean the newest death was. Not a drop of blood out of place other than the pool growing under the body, “He was surprised by all the people- he never intended to kill anyone other than their leader, that’s why that kill was so disorganized. It’s why the mechanic was nearly able to escape, before he caught him in the street. The bank barely needed to mop the floor for this one. He’s refined his skill.”

“He left Reflectras sidekick unharmed.” Kai pointed out, “What’s different between then and now?”

Lloyd flipped a picture his way- it’s a still from a grainy security camera. Reflectra is already dead in the photo, her blood turned black on the monochromatic footage. The teen girl she’d been toting around with her was cowering under the teller counter, and standing just outside the blood was a figure dressed in all black. From the girl's testimony, the gray toned lion's mask he wore was red and gold in person, lips drawn back in a snarl that showed off fangs, a thick head of coarse blonde hair coming out of the mask to hide any other possible identifying features.

“He is wearing a mask.” You say, peering down at the picture.

“He’s hiding his face.” Lloyd clarifies before banging out a few words into the computer's search engine, pulling up a street festival that happened two weeks ago and swiveling the computer screen around so everyone could see it, “And it's a new purchase.”

Staring back at them was a picture of downtown Ninjago filled with people, food stalls and other vendors lining the sidewalks as people milled about. Half the people walking the street were wearing the same exact lion mask as their killer, now in vivid technicolor. You could see the stalls selling them- masks lined wall to wall. It seemed everyone was buying them. It wouldn't have looked out of place at all for the murderer to buy it for himself and squirrel it away for his late night acts.

“He killed the Mechanics goons because they saw his face. He doesn’t want witnesses.” Nya connects, “Aimi was only spared because he has a way to kill anonymously.”

“And with a virtually untraceable origin. That mask is everywhere, now.” Jay continued with a frown.

“It’s not a total dead end. We can still talk to the stall owners, maybe see if they noticed anyone strange buying from them.” He navigates to the festival's website, opening up the vendor list.

There are twelve souvenir stalls in total, and five of them are solely dedicated to masks.

You make a surprised noise in the back of your throat, “Saori Sato. I recognize that name. I believe I taught her son when we were working at the school.” You comment, “I have a rapport with her, I should be able to get her to speak with me easily.”

Lloyd accepts your lie with a nod, “The rest of us will work on the others, then. Hopefully we’ll have some luck.”

You don’t go to see Saori Sato. You sit on the rooftop of her apartment complex and meditate. You try to meditate. There’s a peace that’s absent in you, now, that doesn’t let your mind slip into calm like it used to be able to. There’s always a buzzing under your skin, in your wires.

You brought your sword, the one with the red blade.

You sharpen it until your mind stops racing. It’s like a razor blade now, and you imagine the sting it would cause as you run your metal fingers up the sharp side. You can perfectly imagine how blood would drip down it, now. You go home.

Everyone comes up empty, of course, because Saori Sato sold that mask, and you didn’t speak to her.

---

“You seem unphased with the murders.” You say to Lloyd, after the others have gone to bed and it’s just the two of you up, pouring over the case files. When Lloyd goes to bed, so will you.

He shrugs and sips at his coffee- filled to the brim with cream and sugar, “Darkleys wasn’t just about ruling the world in the big picture. They taught us the small stuff too, including desensitizing us to death.”

There’s nothing to say to that, so you don’t respond. You go back to looking over the papers again, pretending to search for an angle they hadn’t considered yet.

“You want to know something funny?” He says with a little laugh, staring down at the Mechanics' torn up body.

“What is it?” You ask.

A darkness settles over the room, thick and viscous. It seems to flood your mouth and fill your chest. Lloyd looks at you with bright eyes that pin you in place, “I checked your roster. I went through all the kids you taught at the school- and I didn’t find any Satos in the class.” he says with a lopsided smile, eyes burning your skin, assessing, searching for something, “Isn’t that weird?”

Your coolant has turned to ice in your limbs and your body feels numb, “Not at all,” You say cooly, “Sato is her maiden name. Her son has his fathers last name, Maeda.”

He finds something in your expression and- his shoulder slump, “Oh,” He says, blinking. “FSM, i’m sorry- I just-”

“It is alright, Lloyd.” You say graciously, “This has been stressful for us all, and you haven't been sleeping. Perhaps you should get some rest.” rising from your chair, you go to his side and help him to his feet. He allows you to walk him back to his room.

“Let’s start fresh tomorrow.”

“That sounds good.” Lloyd allows with an exhausted yawn. He disappears into his room.

---

Everything hurts.

Your eyes are blurred and blocked by another pop up- WARNING! WARNING! DAMAGE- you dismiss the banner as quickly as it arrives, but that doesn’t stop you from miscounting a step and slamming into the stone staircase, all your weight cracking down on the pointed edges. You scramble to hold onto the steps with your working arm before you can go tumbling back down to the bottom, taking a few breaths that you don’t need to take to help center yourself.

Clambering back to your feet, you check you haven't splattered coolant or oil on the stairwell before you continue up. Clean.

Reaching the monastery, you avoid the main gate. Instead, you shimmy up the courtyard wall and slink silently across the roof until you’re standing above your room. It’s easier with two hands, but you manage to swing yourself off the roof by the tiles and onto the window ledge, barely finessing your way inside without causing a commotion or accidentally falling off the cliff face. You don’t collapse no matter how badly you want to.

First things first- you pry up the loose floorboard under your nightstand and stuff the sword and mask inside, sliding the stand on top of the hiding place. You strip the bloody clothes off and grit your teeth as you peel it away from the mess of your left arm, refusing to scream. Not even allowing a whimper. You’ve had worse- this- this is nothing. Loose pants, loose shirt- long sleeve, of course, just in case anyone was up late getting a glass of water.

It’s late enough that even Jay should be asleep, and the empty garage confirms it.

It takes you two hours to knit the delicate machinery in your arm back together, and another hour fitting a new plate cover so nothing would seem amiss. You take the ravaged pieces of your arm up stairs and pack it under your nightstand too, so there’s no chance of evidence possibly being found.

You collapse now, face first on the bed, and not three hours after that you’re shaken awake.

Nya looks grim, “There’s been another murder.”

In your exhausted, near delirious state, you barely manage to catch yourself before you say I Know.

---

It’s cold this time of year, and it shows. The others are bundled up against the incoming chill of the season, coats and scarves worn on top of their ninja suits. You’re wearing a sweater too, but there’s a cold in you that will never be warm. You’re all behind Laughys Karaoke bar deep in the alley while the police guard the mouth of it, refusing to let reporters or curious civilians get a look.

There’s a detective with you, hanging back and allowing you all to examine the scene.

“Who is this guy?” Cole eventually asks, resisting the urge to nudge his face into view.

The detective steps forward, “His name is Killow. Ninjago PD have had their eye on him for a while- he’s been arrested for petty crimes in the past, but from the intel they’d begun to gather he’d joined an up and coming gang and had climbed pretty high in the ranks. They called him the Big Man.”

‘Big” was an understatement. The man was a brick house, every muscle worked until it bulged. It seems his gym habits had helped a little, even if the end result was still the same.

Lloyd examines his throat, “The first cut didn’t go deep enough.” He comments. There's blood splattered all over the alley, obvious signs of a struggle. Trash was everywhere, torn open bags and the big blue dumpster was dented from Killow slamming the assailant into the metal, more chipped bricks and dented cans revealed just how close Killow had come to walking away from this attempt on his life.

That same dumpster with the largest dent was where Killow had dug his fingers into the murderer's arm and torn through it, spraying metal and wiring across the ground with barely a flick of his wrist. No one knew that but you, and you didn’t share it. The area had been scrupulously cleaned.

“He got him.” Kai commented, “He hurt him pretty bad.”

“How do you know that?” Nya questioned.

Kai gestures to his hands, “Look at his nails. He scratched him, and no one is walking away from that unscathed.” Killows nails were broken and bleeding, torn and snapped off nearly at the cuticle with how hard he’d fought.

“It didn’t help him enough,” Lloyd sighs, standing up, “The second cut was vertical, sliced right through the artery from cheek to chest. He bled out."

“Poor guy.” Jay commented, slowly getting used to the sight of death as he frowned down at the man.

They didn’t know who he was, or what gang he was in- if they did, they’d understand why he had to be put down. The Sons of Garmadon was new and already it was strong, the ranks thick with people who didn’t care about harming others if it furthered their own goals. They were excellent at keeping a low profile while they gained power. It doesn’t escape your notice that the detective avoided naming the gang he was part of. Killow was a bigger cog in that machine, but he wasn’t the only leader the gang members looked to. Your research and surveillance had revealed three of the four ringleaders to you- Killow, Ultraviolet, and, a man you had never seen but had heard referenced several times, Mr. E. They reported to the highest ranking member of the gang, the Quiet One. All you knew about her was that she was a woman.

You stare down at his body and feel no sympathy.

---

“Is there a reason you don’t want me in your head?” Pixal asks bluntly one day, once you’ve gone to visit her at Borg Tower.

Once you’d gotten back to Ninjago City proper, you’d dropped her off with her father with every intention of picking her up later. She’d offered to stick around in your mind for a while, and you’d been happy at the idea- but then Master Wu gave you that sword, and things got more complicated. She hadn’t brought it up for the past few months, but each time you left her without a hint of bringing her along, she had certainly noticed. Now it was her breaking point. She stopped you in the doorway with her words, on your way out.

Your heart had turned numb the moment you took the sword from Wu. In another life, you could have loved her like she deserved.

“My feelings for you…” You turn back to the room, to the screen she's projected her image to so she can look you in the eyes, “…Have changed.” you finish hollowly.

She blinks. She’s perfectly still, “I see.”

“Thank you.” You say softly, “For everything.”

There’s a pause as she studies you, “Is this the end? Will you no longer come to see me?”

The part of you that wants her in your life twinges in pain, the first emotion you’d felt in days, “I believe that is for the best.”

You won’t take her down this path with you.

“Goodbye, Pixal.”

“I will respect your wishes,” She folds her hands in front of her, the perfect picture of poise, “Goodbye, Zane.”

---

Humans are so fragile. Ultraviolet liked to pretend she was tough, like she could take hits others couldn’t- but when it came down to it, her throat sliced just as easily as any others. Her hands were coated in her own blood from where she’s grabbed at her throat, but it was too late, and the slice was too technically perfect. Her knees had hit the ground first and she’d tried to twist, searching for something, eyes wild and mouth gurgling with words that couldn’t form around the blood in her mouth. She fell sideways, skin turning even paler than it already was, and then everything had stopped. The sprinkling rain washed the blood off her lips and diluted the river flowing from her neck. She almost looked like she was sleeping.

You stand over her motionlessly.

“Hey!” A voice cracks across the cool night air, and you turn to the side. You’re on the sidewalk in front of a motorcycle store that Ultraviolet had been intending on robbing, in plain sight. Across the street, up the road, is Nya. She’s not dressed in her ninja suit and her hair is down loose, the wet jeans and soaked hair hindering her sprint as she tears down the road to get to you.

You’re moving before you can think, clambering up the front of the store and up to the roof in record time, purposefully doing something that would be nearly impossible in skinny jeans to deter her. You don’t hesitate to race across the roof and leap to the next, jumping down the fire escape to the next alley and slipping through a thin corridor between two buildings. The sounds of the chase fade to nothing as you outpace her, weaving through back alleys and neighborhoods you’d become intimately familiar with that she didn’t know. After ten more minutes of running, you spin around and head straight for the monastery.

Nya wasn’t expecting to see you, or be witness to the next murder- it was raining- she wouldn't have her phone. That’s your only salvation. She didn’t have her phone.

You take all the shortcuts you know, running until your screen flashes with warnings. You recover from any stumbles in a millisecond. You get home in record time, basically throwing yourself into your room and ripping the mask off. Flinging your mask and sword into your closet and stripping off your wet turtleneck, you close the closet door and dive into bed. The blankets get yanked up to your shoulder and you close your eyes, feigning sleep, and wait.

Android stamina will always outpace humans. You beat Nya home.

She shouts for you all the moment she's through the door, throwing open your doors in her haste to get you up and mobilize after the murderer. She opens your door to you sitting up in bed, clearly woken up from sleep and giving her an openly bewildered expression.

You jump out of bed and throw on your ninja suit, joining the others on the porch as you all gear up.

---

You don’t find the murderer. No one else does either.

Kai looks at you, once you’re all home and exhausted after the all night search. Everyone is soaked and ready to go to bed, dispersing with low spirits and tired eyes. Kai stands in the entryway, dripping wet, and he really looks at you.

You give him a questioning eyebrow raise.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” He says finally, “I won’t judge you.”

“…I know.”

He stares at you, eyes smoldering. He’s in pain. “There’s blood on your collar.” He says finally.

You look down at it- it’s barely noticeable. There must have been a few droplets on your chin that ran down with the water. If you’d been wearing black, he wouldn’t have been able to tell. Your ninja suit is white.

“It’s oil.” You say softly, the patch is just old and watered down enough that you could pass it off for brown.

“Okay.” Kai says. He looks like he’s going to cry.

He looks like he’s afraid of you.

---

Mr.E vanishes after Ultraviolets assassination. You look for him during SoG meetings and you keep an ear out, but he’s nowhere to be seen or heard. The gang is falling apart, half the newer members jumping ship- chances are Mr.E saw the writing on the wall and got out before his neck was next. You could respect that. You might even thank him for it, because if he hadn’t abandoned his post there’s a chance you would have never found out who the quiet one was.

There’s three totally unqualified people at this meeting so far, the members that had ranked directly below the previous three. Their skills were lacking, but their loyalty was rock solid. That was the Quiet Ones main priority after Mr.E’s Irish goodbye. The three were clearly nervous even though they were trying to appear tough- the taller girl even attempting to do tricks with her butterfly knife to appear cool and intimidating. It might have worked if she didn’t drop the blade every other trick.

A door opens and shuts in the silence, the black night outside offering no clue to the newcomers identity. She doesn’t leave them in suspense, though, striding into the light with a stormy expression. She starts talking immediately, taking their names and offering her own.

“You may call me the Quiet One.” She instructs them.

“You’re really the quiet one?” The man says, eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Yes. Is there an issue?”

“None at all, ma’am.” He responds gruffly, dipping his head.

That’s all the confirmation you need. You slide to the edge of the exposed beam you’re sitting on, swinging down by your arms before you drop straight into the middle of the group. Your feet slam onto the table and the things tilts- you hadn’t anticipated it, so you end up going left instead of right. Instead of the single clean kill you came here for, you’re thrown into butterfly knife girl and the scene becomes a lot more grisly. Your stumble gave them time to process your intentions- you relied on surprise. Now this would get messy.

Knife girl stabs you in the chest. Her knife gets stuck. While she’s trying to rip it out of your skin, you sever her hands at the wrist. She screams and doesn’t stop.

The bigger male lunges for your throat and you hold your sword up so it plunges straight through his chest, his own momentum forcing it through muscle and the delicate capillaries in his lungs. That doesn’t stop him and his hands are on your throat- it doesn't do anything, of course, because you don't need to breathe. He keeps squeezing, and your neck strains. He could pop your head off if he tried. Your sword is buried in his chest and you can’t back up enough to get the space to pull it out.

You reach up and fumble for the butterfly knife, ripping it out of your chest and whipping it around to slam it directly into his ear. He howls in pain, releasing your neck to scrabble at his head before you use the knife to slice him from ear to collarbone. He collapses and the sword slides out of his body.

Knife girl has gone silent, bleeding to death from the ruined arteries in her wrists.

The other woman throws something the moment her shot is clear and on reflex you catch it. It’s a throwing knife and dangling from the handle-

You dart it back at her before you can finish understanding the word bomb. She’s not expecting such fast reflexes, so she’s not prepared for the knife to bury itself in her chest.

Then it explodes.

You spin around, preparing for the Quiet One to attack you next-

The door is open, and she’s gone.

The worst part about all of this is that you didn’t recognize her. Running her face through your facial recognition software came up empty too- so did cross checking any and every news outlet, hoping to see her face maybe in the back of a crowd. Nothing.

That could have been your only chance.

---

“I have been in your shoes before, I know this is hard. You must be prepared to do everything to protect them.” Master Wu had said after you had vomited up your dinner the night of the Mechanics murder, “This path will cost you everything.”

“Everything?” You questioned, staring down at the toilet bowl.

“But they will be safe.” He reassures you, gripping your shoulder tightly.

---

You don’t let the two parts of your life overlap. You don’t. The nights you go out, you are a serial killer. The next morning you are Zane, elemental master of ice, the titanium ninja. Zane is not tainted by all the blood and death and gore. Zane is not a murderer. You don’t ever use your sword as Zane, and you never use your shurikens as the serial killer. Everything would fall apart if you couldn’t keep them separate.

As you stand in the palace and the emperor introduces his daughter, your hands twitch for your sword the moment she opens her mouth. The face paint. You weren't able to discover her identity because of the face paint. Caked on so thick that her bare face looked like a completely different woman-

The emperor's daughter Harumi, and the Quiet One. Two parts of her life that aren't supposed to overlap.

“-Zane: The cold and calculating android.” She names you sweetly, voice honey thick. There’s a manic, wild edge to her eyes that the face paint can’t hide.

It makes sense. Her three most trusted advisors were murdered or abandoned her, and their replacements were slaughtered immediately after. The Sons of Garmadon had begun to collapse, fractioning off into smaller gangs with their own leaders. The main faction still had a substantial number of die-hard loyalists who were growing more and more extreme by the day. Robbery, assault, murder- they were wreaking havoc on Ninjago. They even managed to steal the Oni Mask of Vengeance. Now, her eyes slid over to Lloyd and locked onto him. She slipped a new mask on, one that was shy and flirtatious. The Quiet One wanted Lloyd wrapped around her finger.

But Harumi and the Quiet One weren’t supposed to exist at the same time.

Neither were Zane and the serial killer.

Inevitably, though, two worlds will always collide. Maybe the two parts of her and you were never supposed to live separate forever. Maybe you shouldn’t have taken that sword from Wu. Maybe you should have brought it with you so that Zane didn’t have to use his shuriken.

“Thank you for this opportunity,” You say clearly into the cold, cold room. Or maybe you’re the cold one, “I will not let it pass me by.”

There’s blood on your shuriken.

You collect your mask and your sword from underneath the floorboards in your bedroom and run.

They’re safe. They’ll always be safe.