Kai couldn’t really focus on anything past his own feet. The tingling numbing sensation that had been crawling it’s way through his limbs had long-past settled in his bones. It allowed cold - dreadful awful cold - to seep into his skin.

His eyes itched. They were dry. Too dry. He couldn’t bring himself to cry, a single tear would lead into a torrent of sorrow and he didn’t want to have to cry for his little sister.

Not when she wasn’t gone.

Gone, gone, one with the sea-

Not his baby sister.

Risking a glance at the crowd gathered through the courtyard hurt, it hurt because they were all mourning her too. When they shouldn’t have to, shouldn’t have to mourn for the amazing water ninja Kai was so, so proud to call his little sister-

The strings of people led down the stairs, out past the cherry blossom tree, dragging into the distance.

Some brought small gifts, other words and looks of sorrow and assurance for the ninja. He hadn’t really taken too much notice.

Kai didn’t understand how a crowd this large was so silent, solemn in a way that was unnatural. Even the youngest children didn’t dare look up from their toes. Like a terrible thing was in the air, maybe there was.

The bowl in hands shuddered, tremors coursed freely through his fingers, something in him rattled.

The water trickled it’s way to the bottom of the vase, echoing along the way.

Kai was.

He was.

What was he?

He knew he was still stuck in a state of shock, he knew deep-down he was terrified, scared, longing for Nya to just please come back.

There were so many things they hadn’t done together, so many adventures to still go on. Kai wasn’t ready for her to leave, the harsh reality of everything was weighing down his shoulders.

Something fierce flashed in him.

He was angry.

FSM, angry wasn’t enough, wasn’t the right word, the feeling inside him couldn’t be amounted to anything less than furious and enraged.

Countless times one of them had been thought dead, Zane and the overlord, Cole in the fall, Lloyd against the Oni.

Infinite situations where they’d all cried because one of them had been wounded, waiting outside the med room, waiting, waiting, for it to end. For it all to have been a fluke, a mistake, they all came out fine. They always came out fine.

That didn’t mean the grief wasn’t there, the nightmares afterward.

And they weren’t out of this one yet. That was the problem, it was a problem because Nya wasn’t here.

Not next to him, flicking his head with a grin for something stupid he’d said. Not rolling her eyes from across a room, not grinning as she managed to fix her invention.

There was a little voice in the back of his mind, telling him to look for her. Look because she’s there, I promise, she’s there over there and over there and you need to tell her something so say it, you idiot.

A breath caught in his breath and he choked.

His finger’s burned with heat, the cool static in him receding, making way for a fiery inferno. A storm to never go against, to sweep him away and off his feet.

Distract him, to take his thoughts off of her dimpled smile when she laughed.

Take the sounds of Jay’s cries, Lloyd’s sobs, Cole’s labored breaths, Zane and PIXAL’s sniffling away.

Take everything away. Take it all away.

On impulse, he turned on his heel and stormed out of there, the ceremony - not funeral, never a funeral - was over anyway.

His family stood a little ways off to the side, waiting for the remaining dregs of people to filter back down the steps.

Their eyes bore holes into his core, he didn’t turn around.

Lloyd followed him first, not even half an hour later.

His fingertips kept lighting on fire and he didn’t have to have patience right now to put them out, same for the smoke coming off of his skin.

It was raining outside by the time Lloyd sat next to him, a heavy downpour, it made him feel sick.

They’d all clung to each other on the roof, a desperate attempt to forget. Afterwards they’d all been too distressed to do anything else. It hadn’t been forgotten, it hadn’t been a nightmare, it was real.

Lloyd kneeled next to Kai and wrapped his arms around his neck, squishing his face against his shoulder. Kai pulled the younger boy tighter to his chest, a feeling of helplessness rising in him.

Their sobs were an added noise to the cacophony of crashing raindrops through the monastery.

Nya, Nya, Nya-

He’d promised to protect her, hadn’t he?

She was his to protect. He was her older brother, the one who was supposed to be there for her but couldn’t do anything but watch through blurry eyes as she walked through Jay.

Kai gripped Lloyd’s shoulders and cried.

There were rivers of tears and his nose was all snotty and his heart ached, he was fairly certain Lloyd wasn’t too different.

The others filtered in one-by-one, Skylor was there too. They were all obscured by the salty water filling his eyes and the agony that ripped through his head, a reminder of the day.

And there they all were there again, wrecked and barely held together as they cried into another’s gi. This had happened before, but it had been alright in the end.

Why couldn’t it be alright right now?

Why wasn’t Nya here?

No one spoke, letting raindrops and tears fill the deafening silence. The empty Nya-shaped hole in the room was fresh and searing, like an open wound that you couldn’t forget.