A compilation of Ninjago one-shots, because only chaos can come out of the mix with the team rampaging through the city together.
Or, all the lost moments throughout the series, including completely random AU's made up by yours truly in the spur of...
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[Harumi thinks about her past while the world burns away around her.]
• • •
Harumi doesn't regret.
At least, that's what she'll tell anyone if they ask.
But alone, she knows the few things she regrets, the few things she'd turn back time to fix if she could.
One. Letting her parents push her into the elevator, eyes glassy with unshed tears. She hadn't known the meaning at the time, only watched as the lift doors slid close, her dad mouthing I love you, the barrier between them that would last a lot longer than she thought.
She remembers stumbling out of the elevator, pushed out of the building by the rioting crowd, and watching it crumble into itself only moments after. The cold autumn wind tugs at her blonde locks, drawing tears down her cheeks.
Ashes float out of the fiery rubble, crimson bricks melting into blurry shapes in her vision. The scent of thick smoke fill her lungs, and she chokes on her tears.
Harumi turns and runs, runs away from what she doesn't understand but is scared of anyway.
Some part of her understands what just happened, the unchangeable tragedy that just happened to much too many people still in that building.
The other, more insistent part of her though, drags her through the crowd, peering through masses of faces to find familiar ones. She sees her neighbor, collapses on the ground in a pool of red, and subverts her graze before she can think a little too closely about it.
Cowardly? Maybe, but she was eight. Scared, lost, and terribly, terribly, alone.
Later, a kind nurse takes her hand and leads her back to the building that fell, chattering on lightly about something about grazes and treating and parents.
She talks bout how quiet Harumi is while she treats her, and about snakes and ninja and Garmadon, a name she doesn't recognize now but will learn to respect and honor.
Later there's other words, cold, ugly words digging into her chest, like dead, and alone, and orphan. There's lighter ones, like princess and new beginning and foster, but alone is still engraved into her thoughts.
She's alone, from the second her parents gazes were cut off by the metallic doors, the second she steps into the palace, her new home, and she's still alone when she meets the green ninja.
Her second regret.
He's bright and cheerful and sweet, everything she used to be before it was torn out of her in a hurricane of falling dust and crashing buildings. His eyes are a bright jade, like his name, and she compares it to her title, the Jade Princess, in a moment of irony. It's a fake title, unlike his, and she'll never own it the way he does.
Slowly, he falls in love with her.
And slowly, she falls in love with him.
He falls in love with her sass and wit and small secret smiles, and hidden courage in the midst of losing everything, and maybe he wants someone to share his tragic backstory with, too, but he remembers his past and tries not to give his heart away so fast.
She falls in love with his trust and soft gazes and desire to love, to take advantage of life as it is, and maybe carrying out the plan takes a little more than she expected, but she holds on to the need for revenge and does it with gritted teeth.
In the end, she regrets not loving him, and he regrets loving her.
Her third and final regret, is holding on to the past.
She lies in the rubble she remembers from so long ago, sharp edges sinking into her bones and trying to stop the blood flow halfheartedly.
There's burning bricks, fire illuminating the darkness around her, and she thinks about him before she dies.
Their trembling gazes, held across rooftops. She can tell he still loves her, and some part of her wants to beg him not too.
Some people can't be put back together, when they keep smashing themselves apart.
She still loves him, too, and she regrets not living.
She regrets not spending more time, real time, with him and everyone else. Not taking the better choice, or watching the sunset just once. She regrets not convincing her parents into the elevator with her, and killing innocent people just like them.
She had it all in her hands, and threw it all away smiling.
The ruins above her shakes again, once, twice, and Harumi leans her head against the wall, pulling bloodied hands away from her chest.
She thinks about her parent's smiles and his green eyes, until darkness stains into her vision, and drowns the world out.
