Chapter Text
“We’ll see you when we get down. I promise!”
That’s the last thing her mother ever says to her.
The elevator drops, and when it opens, everyone shoves her out of the way to get outside. It’s every person for themselves, in a mad rush to get out of the building before it collapses. Harumi gets knocked over in the chaos. By the time she gets up, everyone else has rushed out of the building. She makes it out the doors and stops to catch her breath, thinking she is safe. Too late, she looks up, to see a steel support beam crashing down on her.
So this is how she dies. She only wishes she could have died with her parents, not alone on the street. She closes her eyes and flinches, but the impact never comes.
She opens her eyes to see a hooded figure, not that much taller than her, holding the beam above their head. It looks impossible for someone that small to hold something that heavy. She wouldn’t have believed it if it weren’t for it happening in front of her. The hooded figure sets the beam down, and it makes a loud crash as it hits the ground.
“Y-you saved me,” she forces out, attempting to make sense of this. “Who are you? Are you a ninja?”
Instead of answering, they grab her hand and run, pulling her away from the building.
“Wait! What about my parents? They’re in that building!” Harumi screams, pulling as hard as she can but unable to break free of her mysterious savior’s grip.
The hooded figure, or Hoodie, as Harumi deems them, shakes their head. Harumi stares at the building that was once her home, reduced to a pile of rubble. Something clicks in her brain. Her parents are dead. Strangely, she doesn’t react to this.
More infrastructure crashes around her. She has nothing. With nowhere else to go, she follows Hoodie as they run through the street, clearing away rubble and pulling more people out of buildings.
Upon closer inspection, Hoodie definitely isn’t a ninja. They have a rib cage spray painted on their dirty hoodie that makes them look more like Lord Garmadon. She can’t see their face too well, as they keep turning away from her every time she looks, but she catches a glimpse of scarlet eyes. She has no idea who this is, but they just saved her, so they must be a good person. Hoodie starts walking away, so Harumi runs up and hugs them. “Thank you.”
Maybe she shouldn’t have done that. Dad always told her not to hug strangers. But dad was…
Hoodie wraps their arms around her, hugging her back. Harumi doesn’t know whether she should laugh or cry. She doesn’t do either, as if her emotions just decided to shut off. She should be feeling something. She should say something. “When I grow up, I wanna save people like you did.”
Hoodie finally looks her in the eyes, but doesn’t answer. She might have imagined it, but she thinks she sees their eyes momentarily flash from red to green and back to red. A strange tingly feeling comes over her. Then, Hoodie lets go of her.
“Did you feel that?” she asks, but of course, receiving no answer. Hoodie takes one last look at her and walks away, all without saying a word. “Is this… goodbye? You sure are a quiet one.”
￮ ☯ ￮
The next room Harumi enters is a massive cavern, lit by a skylight. Five bridges lead to a center platform. On that platform there is an altar, and on that altar there is a purple mask, engulfed in purple flame.
“The Mask of Hatred,” Lloyd states from behind her.
Harumi walks across the bridge, wary of traps, and Lloyd follows. Unfortunately, she isn’t as wary of where she puts her feet, and she slips off the edge, dropping the torch into the abyss below. Lloyd grabs her wrist, and effortlessly pulls her up. For a crown prince, he sure is strong.
Harumi steps up to the mask, and reaches out to take it. But the closer her hands get to the mask, the more a strange force pushes them back, like trying to put two magnets together with the same charge. How is she supposed to get the mask if there’s some kind of enchantment that repels her? She conjures a ball of green energy, hoping that would knock it out of place, but Lloyd gently puts his hand on her wrist.
“Wait,” he says. “Only someone with oni blood can take this mask.”
“Well, that’s neither of us, so…”
Lloyd only smiles, pushing Harumi aside and reaching for the mask himself. His fingers curl around it, and with a sighing sound, the violet flames around the mask disappear, and Lloyd pulls the mask away.
Harumi stares in shock. Her brain short-circuits. This doesn’t line up. “You’re part oni? But how?”
At that, Lloyd laughs, something much colder than the soft chuckles she’s used to. She wants more than anything for him to tell her this is a joke. She wants this new jaded expression to shift back into the soft wonder she’s used to. It does not. “I guess one of my parents must have been part oni too.”
“Lloyd, what are you saying?” Her world begins to spin as she realizes what’s happening, but even when faced with this, she can’t believe it. Not Lloyd. Not the gentle, pampered but kind prince that likes pillow mints and Fritz Donnegan. “Give me the mask.”
“I think I’ll hold onto it, actually. It compliments my eyes.”
At this moment, Harumi realizes Lloyd isn’t the person she thought he was. She doesn’t know him at all. She shoots a blast of green at him, forcing him to step back. Things start to click into place. The best villain is the one you never knew was there. “I don’t wanna believe it. You’re the Quiet One.”
“Took you long enough. A couple times I thought you had me, when you saw my ears and when I fumbled about my parents. But no, you had fallen for me so hard that you ignored those little slip-ups. I knew to keep you close.”
Her mind begins to make connections. Too many connections. Part oni, sons of Garmadon, the pointed ears…the First Spinjitzu Master was part oni. Lloyd had said the pointed ears were a genetic defect, but know that she thinks of it, the only other person she knows with that defect is… Garmadon. She remembers now. The times between the Final Battle and the tournament, when Sensei Garmadon disappeared for months on end. Both Wu and Garmadon always dodged the question when she asked why, but she figured out Garmadon was looking for his lost son. It’s so terribly fitting that the leader of the sons of Garmadon is Garmadon’s actual son. “You’re Garmadon’s lost child. Lloyd Garmadon.”
He laughs again. “You’re realizing this now? I thought it was dead obvious, with the whole… you know… Sons of Garmadon. They also call me the True Son.”
“I don’t understand. You’re the one that ordered the palace to be blown up while you were in it. You caused the crash while you were on the ship.” Harumi steps towards him, looking for an opportunity to get the mask out of his hands.
“Calculated risks! My bloodline offers a certain… resistance… to those kinds of things. I couldn’t have you ninja catching on too quickly.”
“Feeding the poor, acting scared, your feelings for me? Was it really all an act?”
“I assure you, every moment we shared was fake.” Unfortunately for Lloyd, he gets a little too complacent, letting Harumi get inches away from him. Harumi kicks him backward, causing him to let go of the mask. It lands between the two.
Before he can make a move for the mask, Harumi barrels into Lloyd, knocking him over and pinning him to the ground. “Why? Why are you doing this?”
“Why.” He knees her in the gut, pushing her off. He gets to his feet, falling into a battle stance that mimics Harumi’s. “Because I have nothing to lose. In all my life, only one person truly cared for me. My father. But he was banished by my uncle, and my mother abandoned me.”
“And what about the royal family? You had it all in that palace. The Emperor and Empress loved you like one of your own.”
“They were never my parents!” He shouts, his eyes flashing purple. “The royal family only saw me as a vulnerable worthless child to dump all their responsibilities on. They never saw me as their son. Besides, it would have been game over if they saw this.”
Lloyd gestures to his face. His eyes have cycled through all sorts of colors now, from the grey she’s used to into violet, and now they settle on a bright red. He can change his eye color? In the moment Harumi is distracted, Lloyd rolls towards the oni mask. Harumi shoots a weak energy blast at it, not enough to destroy it, but enough to knock it out of the way. It skids towards the edge of the platform, nearly falling into the pit below. Come to think of it, maybe it isn’t the worst idea to let it fall into that pit.
“So I waited, holding onto the hope that my real father would return for me. But when he did, you fought him.”
“He survived that battle; I cured him of the Great Devourer’s venom! He wouldn’t want you to do this.”
“What do you know of my father?” He falters.
Harumi holds her hands out, approaching peacefully. She’s always had a way with words. No one has to get hurt if she can convince him to stop. “Oh, I knew him. He taught me how to fight without fighting, and how to use my golden power to move mountains. As a Sensei, he was a peaceful man.”
“Did he… say anything about me?”
“He never told me much, but he always seemed sad. He… he looked for you. I know that.” Harumi puts her hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to do this. That ritual is dangerous. The man you bring back may not be your father at all.”
Lloyd is as still as stone, and Harumi is completely lost at reading him. Has she gotten to him? Please, listen. She thinks she sees his expression soften, but it hardens just as quickly. His eyes shift to a purple glow again. Considering what she’s seen in this temple, she’s beginning to associate that color with oni. Something’s wrong.
She looks down just in time to see violet energy shine in Lloyd’s fist. In that instant, he throws it at her, giving her hardly enough time to dodge. The blast hits an unsuspecting stalactite instead, which is cut in half, and the lower half falls into the darkness. It’s startlingly similar to her power, but more destructive. “You have power?”
“Part oni, remember? You could say I learned a thing or two from my ancestors.” Lloyd fires his power at the same time Harumi does hers, and they explode in the middle, cancelling each other out. “Of course my father looked for me. But before he had time to find me… you took him away from me. Don’t think I didn’t hear about the Cursed Realm. Why didn’t you save him? Why did you leave him to die?”
“I tried to save him, I did everything I could!”
“Well you didn’t try hard enough.” She doesn’t react fast enough to Lloyd’s next attack, and it sends her crashing into the center altar. The impact knocks the wind out of her.
She’s beginning to realize he’s beyond reason at this point, but she tries anyway. She’s starting to fear that, despite everything, she might lose. Lloyd is evenly matched to her. He has a power that is exactly her opposite. Harumi gets to her feet. “Listen. Losing a parent is a kind of hurt that never goes away. I would know. I lost both of my parents in a building collapse.”
They begin to circle each other. It’s only a matter of who makes a mistake first. “Oh, I know about the building collapse.”
“What?”
“You’re so oblivious it’s funny. Don’t you remember that oh-so-mysterious hooded figure that saved your life when the building collapsed?”
“That was you?” Hoodie’s appearance had been like a dream. As she got older, Harumi began to theorize that they weren’t a real person, more of a physical manifestation of destiny. Because that was the day everything changed, and in the days following her interaction with Hoodie, her powers began to kick in.
“Have you ever wondered where your powers came from? Why you, a lowly orphan girl, were chosen to be the destined Green Ninja?” He laughs callously, nearly doubling over. “Destiny didn’t choose you. I did.”
The realization hits her like a truck, but even as she is left reeling, she can’t make sense of it. Some part of her brain refuses to accept that it was all a coincidence. There has to be a reason she was chosen as the Green Ninja. There has to be a reason she lost her parents, and the fate of the world was placed on a young child’s shoulders. She is the Green Ninja. She has always been. “How?”
“I was always going to be the Green Ninja, and I knew it. It’s just genetics. Of course the golden weapons would react for the grandson of the guy that used them to create Ninjago. Of course I’d be able to wield the power of creation in its purest form, golden power. I’m part dragon too, after all. But I never asked to be the Green Ninja. I didn’t want any part of that.”
“So many have wanted to be the Green Ninja. And you’re trying to tell me you gave that away? To… me? Why?”
“I didn’t feel like saving the world. Because frankly, there wasn’t a single thing worth saving. Other than my father, of course, but he was the one the Green Ninja was supposed to fight. So I gave my power to a random helpless child, in hopes Master Wu would never be able to find her, and the Final Battle would never be allowed to take place. And if it did, well, I sure expected my father to win. In a way, I was right. You didn’t defeat the Overlord. I hear your robot friend filled that role instead.”
“You couldn’t have just given away your destiny. That can’t be possible.”
“Oh, but it is. I made you, Harumi. The only reason I’ve kept you alive so far is because now, I’d like to take the power that’s rightfully mine back!”
She casts the millions of emotions this brings up to the back of her mind. He’s trying to get her to drop her guard. She needs to stay strong, if she wants any chance of getting out of this alive.
Lloyd runs at her. She enters a spinjitzu form, using the speed it grants her to whip around him. Well, she does have that over him. Surely nobody taught him spinjitzu. But if Lloyd’s father is Lord Garmadon… that means he’s the grandson of the First Spinjitzu Master. Does that alone mean he knows it? It seems it does not, because she hits him, and he is knocked to the other side of the platform. “
No takebacks, Lloyd. If you want my power, you’ll have to come and get it!”
“I think I will.”
To Harumi’s horror, Lloyd reveals the Mask of Hatred from behind his back. He must have snatched it while Harumi was distracted. He puts it on before Harumi can charge up an energy beam. Lloyd’s skin morphs into stone, and he towers over her as he approaches. She kicks him, and he doesn’t even flinch. She tries spinjitzu again, and he knocks her out of it. He counters any of her green attacks with his own power. She can’t touch him. This really is hopeless.
Lloyd grabs her with a single cold hand, and brings her to the edge of the platform. He holds her over the dark abyss. “Now, I understand how much your mind must be spinning, and how confusing this all must be for you, so I’ll make this simple. Give me the green power, or I drop you.”
Her life has been threatened so many times that it hardly means anything. A smile forms on her lips. “Do it, then. If I die, my precious power dies with me.”
“The power should return to its original owner, me.”
“But you don’t know that. How much are you going to bet—”
His grip tightens. “I’m offering you a chance to live! Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
“I will never give you my power. Even if I die for it.”
Lloyd screams in anger, turns around, and throws her. She lands on the opposite edge of the platform, her back skidding against the stone. “The green power will be mine soon enough. Until then, I already have what I need. Goodbye, Harumi.”
“I won’t let you get away with this!”
“It’s a little too late for that, don’t you think? I’m already two steps ahead.” Lloyd runs out of the room, and she imagines him sneering under the mask. Harumi chases after him, but She hears a loud tumbling sound, then the rushing of water. She has a moment to realize that Lloyd has broken the trapped wall, then a wall of water rushes toward her.
Where’s Nya when you need her?