Nya stiffened. Even though she had tried her best to avoid confronting this issue, Jay was still persistent with his offers to help. His dragon flew nearer as he extended his hand out to her, a giant smile on his face.

As much as she tried to repress it, the familiar fluttering in her heart she had felt since the day they met years ago returned. Nya quickly glanced around, looking for a different option, but Kai already had Skylor sitting, no, was it standing? behind him. Zane... it would be weird if she rode on the back of his dragon and she didn't even want to consider going onto Cole's. Looking back, she began to realize that she never actually liked him in that sense, it was just the stupid machine telling her that Cole was her perfect match and she, having normally prided herself for being smart, had stupidly believed it.

Nya didn't want to face Jay, positive that he would soon reject her once he realized what a mess she was.

"Nya?" he asked, his bright grin faltering slightly.

Her heart betrayed her and began wildly jumping like a rabbit when he said her name, and she quickly turned away from him, in fear that he would look into her eyes and figure her out in an instant.

But she couldn't ride on anyone else's dragon... Why couldn't Kai just be a good brother and let her ride on his?

The remaining Elemental Masters began thinning out as everyone hopped onto their dragons. Soon there would only be her left.

And Jay was still holding out his hand, the sweet, genuine look on his face making her heart melt. His bright blue eyes sparkled with electricity, and she wished she could go back in time, back before the crazy mess that was the love machine ruined their relationship. Back before she ruined their relationship.

All Nya wanted to do was go flying into his arms and never let go, but Jay would soon realize what a fake she was. So to make the inevitable separation as easy on herself as possible, she had to reject him first, as much as it broke her heart to do so.

But even then she continued to lead him on sometimes, just to see how he'd react. It gave Nya a sort of validation whenever she saw how excited he was to see her, just as she'd done back at the banquet, where Jay was the one she decided to alert of her presence first, instead of Kai.

Nya knew she was being very selfish. Not even her brother would do this.

But she didn't know what else to do, and besides, this way, Jay would soon realize she wasn't worth his time anyway. Then she could go and cry into a pillow to her heart's content.

"Um, Nya? It's just you left," Jay said quietly, pulling her out of her thoughts. Behind him, she could see some people giving them awkward looks. Nya flushed.

Then, throwing all her pride aside and praying that Jay wouldn't knock her off his dragon the minute she mounted, Nya took his hand. His face immediately lit up as he pulled her on while she tried her best to hide the blush that was no doubt spreading across her cheeks. Even though their hands only touched for several seconds, the feeling of warmth it gave her sent a surge of energy through her body, making her only crave it more.

Nya hated that feeling.

"Hold onto me," Jay instructed her, and a part of Nya wanted to shoot back some remark saying it was totally unnecessary, but then the dragon shook slightly and she threw her arms around his waist. She felt him tense a little, then relax.

It felt weird being this close to Jay after so long. She had kept her distance since the machine, and then after Zane had supposedly died, Nya hadn't even seen Jay for months. That hadn't stopped her from constantly thinking of him, wishing that he would show up at the door and say he missed her. Even though in her imagination, she would run up and kiss him, Nya knew that in reality, her insecurity would just cause her to shove him away.

She recalled spending most of her days mindlessly chatting about the stupid love triangle situation to Wu whenever they were alone, not that he could help or anything. Deep down, Nya knew she would choose Jay, but maybe she was just talking to fill in the silence or make it look like she was actually struggling with choosing.

Nya liked to appear complicated even if things were simple.

Sure, Cole was a lot handsomer than Jay in her opinion, since the Blue Ninja was more on the cute side, but Jay was just so sweet and literally the manifestation of joy into a boy...

Nya rapidly shook those thoughts out of her head.

"Wait!" Zane said suddenly, causing everyone to abruptly stop their dragons. "The workers on the island are still trapped. We need to figure out a way to get them out of here!"

"Zane's right," Lloyd said, reining back his dragon and facing it in the opposite direction, "We can't leave anyone behind."

"How?" Cole asked with a frown, "We destroyed all methods of transportation we found and Chen took the rest."

"Zane, could you send out the falcon and see if they can send a ferry over and take all these workers to the mainland or something?" Nya suggested, tightening her grip on Jay as he turned his dragon around as well.

The Titanium Ninja nodded and the silver bird took flight, vanishing from their view in a matter of seconds. Lloyd nodded back towards the direction of the island, and the remaining Elemental Masters followed in suit.

...

Nya stood a little off the side as she watched the factory workers file out of the main entrance to Chen's Palace one by one. Jay and Cole were talking to each other about something, and Kai was busy with Skylor, who Nya had to admit, looked quite scary at the moment, with her thick, scaly, purple skin, tail, and fangs. The fact that her brother could devote his entire attention to her even when she wasn't exactly attractive really showed how much he cared.

Wow, Nya was now more shallow than Kai.

She started feeling a bit guilty for always comparing herself to him, as if she thought he was the absolute worst or something. He could be genuinely a good person if the situation felt like it. Nya sighed and averted her gaze from them, not having the heart to ask him to let her ride on his dragon. After all, looking back at the sheer amount of times she'd chosen Jay over Kai, Nya would have to be a real jerk to request such a thing. Besides, whose dragon would Skylor ride on?

"Nya?" Jay's voice pulled her out of her thoughts once again. She looked up into his round face and those electric blue eyes, then quickly looked away before she would start blushing again.

"Yeah?"

Out of the corner of her eye she watched him start to chew on his bottom lip before talking. "I was thinking... um, tomorrow when we do actually go back to Ninjago..." Jay opened and closed his mouth several times before he continued, "Would you... would you wanna ride on me with my dra―wait no, I meant, would you want to ride on my dragon with me?" he gave a nervous laugh in the end, his cheeks flushing pink.

Nya began subconsciously pulling on strands of her short black hair, feeling conflicted. On the one hand, she wanted to refuse, but then whose dragon would she ride on? Suddenly she wished Skylor and someone other than her brother had a thing for each other. Then she felt terrible for wishing that.

"Sure," she mumbled quietly, and Jay's eyes widened in excitement.

"Really?" he said, his grin stretching from ear to ear.

"Yeah, thanks," Nya replied, beginning to twirl her hair around her finger.

There was an awkward silence.

"I guess I'll go," Jay said with a small chuckle before turning around.

"Wait, Jay," she said before she could stop herself, "I..." her voice faltered. Right now all Nya wanted to do was to apologize for everything she'd done, but she found herself at a loss for words. Jay looked at her expectantly, and she caught his longing gaze even if he tried his best to hide it. She felt her heart pick up pace and something was stuck in her throat.

"I... I," Nya choked out, desperate to keep Jay's attention. If she didn't say what she needed to say sooner, he might just leave. She knew how short of an attention span he had.

"Jay, I'm s―"

"Nya!" her brother shouted, running over. She and Jay turned towards Kai, and the Blue Ninja shrugged, a ghost of a smile flashing across his face.

"I guess I'll go," he said, and quickly hurried back to Cole. Nya reached out to stop him, but by the time she did he was out of reach, and for a few seconds her outstretched hand lingered in the air before she finally dropped it.

"Uh, was I interrupting anything?" Kai asked with a frown.

"No, go ahead," she said, trying her best to ignore the tightening in her chest.

"Well, I found out something really important," he said, running a hand through his extremely messy brown hair that resembled a mop more than anything. Kai liked to call it fashion, but Nya thought it looked like a nest that some bird had laid eggs in. But somehow his bad dating advice seemed to work for him so she wasn't judging.

"Go ahead," Nya said, folding her arms across her chest and raising an eyebrow.

"It's really important," Kai repeated.

"And are you telling me or not?"

"Basically I found out that Dad was the Master of Fire."

"And?"

"That's what I was gonna tell you."

"Oh... uh... that's, um... surprising?" Nya had been expecting something more.

"Well, I just thought you should know. Anyway, yeah, I'll go now and stop bothering you."

Nya sighed. If he had just waited for two more seconds...

...

"Okay, at least we have good food," Cole said cheerfully as they helped themselves to dinner in the chow house. The room buzzed with conversation; for once there was no tension nor animosity amongst the Elemental Masters. Everyone chatted with each other like old friends, and Nya soon found herself surrounded by factory workers who were bombarding her with questions about how it was like being a samurai.

She glanced over their heads to try and get a glimpse of one of the Ninja and saw Jay piling his plate with creamy biscuits. Even from across the room, Nya could see how his face lit up with excitement and a smile spread across her face.

Realizing that she had been temporarily distracted, Nya quickly turned her attention back to her current conversation, but the whole time her eyes kept drifting back to Jay. He caught her gaze and shot her a quick little smile, and it took the strength of every muscle in her body to stop herself from running to him. Nya took a deep breath in through her nose to try and calm down her beating heart. It was no use.

Every time she saw his face she wanted to blurt everything out, to set aside her pride and apologize for everything she'd done.

Nya wanted to say she was sorry, sorry for everything that had happened, sorry for letting him down, sorry for causing a rift in him and Cole's friendship. It was all her fault, and though she had admitted it to herself, she just couldn't force the words out in front of him. She couldn't bear the sight of his disappointed face when he would inevitably realize she wasn't worth it.

She needed to pretend nothing was there anymore and that the undeniable sparks flying between them didn't exist. That when Jay eventually fell out of love with her, he wouldn't realize her fraudulence.

And in order for that to happen, Nya needed to keep her distance.

She avoided Jay for the rest of the day. 

A/N: So this is my oneshot for Day 8 of Flumptober! I bEt YoU'lL nEvEr GuEsS wHiCh SeAsOn ThIs Is FrOm... 

I said that this oneshot book won't be all Kailor, so HERE'S SOME JAYA ANGST

I remember watching and being like hmm Nya isn't like totally in love with Jay in this season but she's also paying him more attention than the others so I figured why not give her some sort of reason to? I hope I was able to execute this well, so if there's any feedback from you guys that'd be great :D

Sidenote: I'm not saying the whole thing is Nya's fault, I personally think it was kinda everyone's fault, but since people have a tendency to blame themselves for stuff... Ya know

Thanks for reading!