The Imperial Battle II: The Emperor of Ninjago

Chapter 15. Deception

Now you can hate James again if you want. You might want to. That's all. Enjoy :)

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Kai could hardly believe his eyes. After climbing for days, battling deadly storms, getting wiped out by an avalanche and tackling an unbelievable journey, he could finally see it. It was finally in sight, as unbelievable and surreal as it felt.

The Hanging Temple.

The temple was big and old, but not as majestic as Kai had expected. It was entirely made of wood and had clearly seen a few too many storms, having become more fragile and damaged. But all the same, it was exactly what they had come all this way for, so its appearance did not matter one bit. Only what lay inside it mattered.

It honestly felt unreal that after all of that struggle, they were finally here. They were no longer far away from completing the more important half of their mission. They were only a short journey away from finally getting their hands on the Mask of Deception. There were still some quite steep cliffs to climb up, but after such a long way, it felt like nothing.

Walking silently behind everyone, Kai could not stop staring at the temple in the distance. He tried to get his mind to realize that this was really happening. They were nearing the Hanging Temple. However, as amazing as the achievement was and as much as he wanted to savor the moment, something else had taken place just the previous night. Something that left the summit of the Wailing Alps in its large shadow.

Kai glanced to his right, his amber eyes landing on Nya. The ravenette had been equally silent the rest of the way up the mountain, probably just as sunken in her ocean of thoughts as her brother.

Her brother.

Brother.

Kai could still not wrap his head around it. His sister was alive. His sister was right there. His sister was Nya. Nya was his sister. He had already known his sister for over a year, but discovered the truth just now. How had that even happened? How had he not realized sooner? Now that he knew Nya was his sister, it all seemed so obvious. She was a spitting image of his mother — or their mother. The only difference they had was their skin tone, which Nya had inherited from their father. So, why had this not dawned on him earlier? All this time he could've known about the connection they shared, known he had a family after all. He was not alone, unlike he'd thought for years.

There were so many things Kai would've loved to talk about with his sister; so many things he was dying to ask. Yet he was not able to say a word to her. They had not spoken at all since the revelation. They'd hardly even made eye contact, for that matter. Obviously they were both in a shocked state and all, but Kai felt like he was doing something wrong not talking to her. Was Nya thinking about the same? Did she feel like talking? Did she want to talk to him ever again? Did she like the fact that she had a brother? What was she thinking? And what—

"Kai."

Kai nearly jumped out of his skin when Nya suddenly turned around and spoke to him. He suddenly found himself unable to produce a single sensible word and ended up muttering something weird.

Nya didn't seem to care. She marched over to him and stood firmly in front of him, which only highlighted their significant height difference. "Okay, Kai, we need to talk. We need to talk a lot because I have about a thousand questions for you, but let's do it later. Now we must focus on the mission."

Kai nodded. "Okay." Those hundreds of questions he had been torturing himself over had been answered satisfactorily, and he was more than ready to postpone the important conversation to a better time.

"We'll talk once we've gotten the mask and met up with the others," Nya added, giving him a calm but somehow restless look. "Once things are a bit better."