Ninjago: Where Heroes Come From

Chapter Five: This Day

Kanomo awoke to find her hands untied, her gag ripped free, and the skin of her wrists torn and bloodied. She moaned, rolling onto her back and lifting her hands to her face. The skin was all but gone, stained with dry blood and mangled horribly. Her fingers themselves were fine aside from a few scrapes, but her wrist, especially along the bone, was shredded and burned with pain. She sighed, sitting up slowly and looking around her cell.

The ropes lay in a pile beside her foot, frayed and useless. She must have passed out shortly after freeing herself. The ground was stained lightly with her blood, but she didn't appear to have lost too much, and besides, she wasn't feeling lightheaded or dizzy, which was a good sign.

"Awake, I see," came a voice from outside the bars, and Kanomo looked up, startled. There, half-shrouded in shadow, leaning against the wall with her sword hanging loosely from one hand, the tip scraping the ground, stood Vi.

"I am." Kanomo backed against the wall slowly, eyeing Vi nervously. In the low lighting, up so close, she looked even more intimidating than she had last night.

"Glad to see it." Vi stepped closer, dropping to her knees and pressing her face up against the bars. The gaps in between them weren't big enough for her to reach through, for which Kanomo was thankful. "I need to talk to you."

Kanomo shifted positions, her back scraping against the rough wall. "About what? I don't even know who you are."

"You know about what," Vi snapped, "about him." Her eyes flickered downwards, and for a moment, she looked scared. "About Garmadon."

"Garmadon?" Kanomo said the name carefully, like she thought it might explode. "I don't understand-- why would you want me to talk about him?"

"Because," Vi said impatiently, "you knew him." She narrowed her eyes and wrapped her long, slender fingers around the bars. Kanomo tensed. "Don't try to lie to me. Don't make things worse for yourself."

"I don't-- I don't understand," Kanomo said, her voice shaking slightly, "Garmadon-- he was a killer! He-- he was possessed by the Oni and went mad--"

"Yes," Vi said eagerly, her eyes lighting up with a kind of feverish joy, "yes, yes, he did-- and then-- then what? Where did he go?"

Kanomo paused. "He-- nobody knows," she said carefully, "he vanished--"

"STOP PLAYING DUMB!" Vi screamed, slamming her fist against the bars hard enough to rattle them. Kanomo gasped, pushing against the wall behind her and staring at Vi in horror. Her eyes were ablaze with fury and there was foam forming in the corners of her mouth. "I KNOW WHO YOU ARE! I KNOW YOU KNOW SOMETHING!"

"I don't," Kanomo whispered.

Vi glared at her, and without breaking eye contact, reached for the door and opened it.

Kanomo shook her head wordlessly, her heart hammering. Vi was going to kill her. She was going to murder her right here on the spot and no one was going to know. They would find her rotting body, nothing but hot, wet remains, organs and splatters of blood on the walls. That sword was going to carve her up. That sword was going to spear her heart clean in two.

"Tell me," Vi hissed, her voice low and choked, looming over Kanomo. She knelt before her, pressing her forehead against hers, her breath warm and raw, the stench of blood still on it, raw and bitter, strong enough to make Kanomo gag.

"Tell me," she whispered again, lifting the sword and running it along Kanomo's leg. She sliced open the fabric of her pants, exposing bare, pale skin, leaving a trickle of blood along it that stained it all crimson. Kanomo bit back a gasp of pain.