Forgotten Souls [ninjago]

26 | Sounds like a family

Of course.

Of freaking course.

I wasn't even surprised at that point. Kai, on the other hand, was standing there with his mouth wide open.

"Our... parents?" he asked quietly. "Those are... our parents?"

He pushed Jay and Cole, who were standing in his way, out of his way as he rushed over to Wu and took the locket out of his hand.

Looking down at it, Kai's breathing halted. "That's our parents? What did you say they're called? Ray and Maya?" He looked at Wu, who nodded.

Ray... Maya... Kai... Nya...

Sounds like a family.

I watched as Kai's eyes widened. He pointed at the other picture and looked at Wu. "Is that..."

A small smile graced Wu's lips, his eyes softening. "Yes, that is you holding your sister."

It was then that I realized what that meant. The child holding the baby was Kai holding... me.

Slowly, Kai strode over to me, his eyes glued to the picture. He stopped to my right and slung his arm around my shoulders, squeezing me into his side. He held the open locket in front of the both of us.

"Look at us, sis," he whispered, and it sounded like he was going to burst into tears any second. He was probably trying to hold himself together because the others were there with us.

I looked down at the same picture I had held in my hands multiple times, but now was different. Now I knew who those children were, and now I knew who those adults were.

It was a two-part family portrait of my own family.

Tears brimmed the corners of my eyes, and I did my best to keep them from falling down. Luckily for me, I had always been good at repressing my tears.

"You looked so cute as a baby," Kai cooed, squeezing me tighter as a form of affection, I guessed.

I gave him a weird look. "I was a baby. I literally looked like any other baby at that age. How old was I, anyway?"

"You were only a few months old, Nya," Wu answered my question. "And Kai had just turned two years old."

"How would you know that?" Cole asked him.

I felt as he and the other three surrounded Kai and me to take a look inside the locket as well.

Wu sighed softly. "I remember when that picture was taken."

"You were there?" Lloyd wondered, and suddenly I did as well.

But the old man shook his head. "I was shown those pictures a couple of days after they were taken."

Kai finally looked up from the picture to glance at him. "What happened to them? And don't you dare deflect from the question. You can't get away from answering me now, Wu."

All eyes turned to Wu. Whatever Kai meant seemed to discourage him from speaking freely, like he always did. It looked like he hesitated, like he was having an internal debate as to wether he should tell Kai whatever the topic was or not.

He moistened his lips with his tongue before he cleared his throat, looking down at the table. "Your parents and I used to be great friends. But not just that. As you already know, the battle between humans and Elemental Masters was an everlasting one, so they used to be great warriors as well."

Whatever last piece of hope I had vanished with those words. Used to be.

"And I have already told you how each Elemental Master needed to give their children away to protect them, but what I haven't told you is that Ray and Maya refused to do that."