((Okay guys. From now on there is going to be mild-extreme swearing and/or gore in almost every chapter. Just a heads up ~Opal))

Nya turned to the nightstand and cursed under her breath. After taking a few deep breaths, she began soaking a washcloth in a clear bowl of water. Once she submerged it completely, she gently wrung out most of the water back into the bowl and turned to Jay. His dark-eyed princess lightly dabbed his face with the cold, damp washcloth. It was the most soothing thing that could ever happen to the lightning ninja.

"More?" She asked him with a relaxed smile.

Jay nodded, "Yes, please." She repeated the same process on him until he told her he was fine. Nya stoked her boyfriend's sweaty, frizzy curls and gave a light kiss to where he had hit his head. Jay blushed and kept his eyes down, secretly doing a little victory dance in his head.

A wide grin appeared on Nya's crimson lips, her dimples appearing around them. "Did a kiss make it better?" She asks. Jay nodded and they both cracked up.

As Nya left to go make some tea and buttered toast for the suddenly hungry Jay, Jay recalled the events that had happened lately. He wondered if the voices and the visions were all just something out of his wild inventor's imagination, and that a shampoo bottle or something hit him on the head. But that still didn't explain how he could survive through all that loss of blood. And he could have sworn that he heard someone say quietly "But Zane, didn't you say his heart stopped?" as the ninja were discussing Jay's fall. Had he really died, in all of that? Had something overcome him? Had the darkness overcome him without a trial?

Jay shook the feeling from his brain and sat up when Nya returned from the kitchen with a tray of toast, English breakfast tea with extra cream, a dosage of Advil (Yuck. He hated pills), orange juice, and a little bar of dark chocolate.

Jay laughed as Nya placed the tray next to him. "Damn, it's a feast up in here. What's the chocolate for?"

Nya smiled and popped a piece in her mouth. "I heard it helps when you need a little pick-me-up." She sighed and sucked on her piece. "Lord knows I need it, with all the shit I've been through."

Jay took his pills and slowly sipped his tea. "Nya, if you don't mind me asking, what happened to your parents?"

Nya froze in her place as her dark, glassy pools became clouded and faded.

"Sorry, that was really rude of me." Jay sighed. "Damn, I hope I didn't bring anything up. I'm so sorry Ny-"

"No. No it's fine to ask. You need to know. You're my boyfriend, and you deserve to know all about me, if we're going to spend our lives together, until the end." She gave a small smile and turned to him. "It was hard, to see them die. It was even harder to make ends meet when Kai and I were left alone, responsible for everything..."

~

"Kai! Slow down!"

Nya laughed as she raced to tag her brother in their game. Hide and seek tag. Such an innocent game for little souls oblivious to the cruel world around them.

Kai grinned and smacked one of the posts that held the water tower up. "BASE! And by the way, I'll never slow down to you, Nya, since all you ever do is beat me!"

"Well maybe if you didn't make so many bases, it would be easier for you to escape me!"

"Oh yeah? I'd like to see ya keep up with mistah fiyahhhh powaaaa!!"

Nya rolled her eyes at her older brother. "Whatever. I could run all day without even getting tired. It's about endurance, not speed."

"What's endooranch?"

"It's... never mind. Come on, I think mom's calling us in."

Their father had gone away, trying to earn a little extra cash by going into some big trade shows in the city, attempting to sell some artisan armor. Even the tiniest extra would give them a week's worth of rice. Bread was too expensive, and since they had a shop and two growing children to feed, they needed to think smart, which was usually "What is the cheapest deal we can find?", or "How long do you think this will last us?" It seemed easier, but it resulted in the father always being absent from their family.

Nya's mother was an honest, hardworking woman, who also happened to have a wicked sense of humor. She was the light in her family's life when things got tough, and she always helped her husband out with smithing whenever he was ill or injured.

The day she died was a horrid occasion.

Word had spread that bandits were invading Ignacia and Jamanakai Village, and had a strange, supernatural way of killing anything that stood in their way. The mother of the two children heard of the invasions and quickly shooed Kai and Nya into the house. Nya watched as her mother grabbed their bowls of rice from the dinner table, shoved them into her children's hands, and rushed them upstairs. Pulling down a ladder, their mother hurried the young ones into the attic.

"Stay in here. Hide as much as you can. Conceal yourself in the darkness, then eat your rice. I took extra special care making it, so enjoy!"

"Mommy, why are we in here? What's going on?" Kai's worried expression made his mother grow serious.

"Bad people are invading villages, and rumor has it that they are raiding Ignacia, our home. If you stay in here, you will be safe from what's going on out there. You must keep quiet as I stand guard of the house. Daddy should come home in a few hours, okay? I love you two so much, and Kai, if anything were to happen, you must protect Nya at all costs."

After kissing them both on the head, the mother shut the attic door, and their world became dark.

Silence.

Hours passed, and nothing.

All of a sudden, low mumbles could be heard from the bottom floor. "Daddy? Is he home? Is he talking to mom?" Nya's worried voice shook with fear.

Kai whipped his head towards Nya. "Shh. We don't know for certai-"

The loud ricochet of metal interrupted him. A man's scream. Another. And once more. Loud thumps indicated some had fallen... But who?

"Dammit, you crazy bitch! Don't you understand what you've done?! You've killed them!" A man hollered from downstairs.

Their mother's quiet taunts were barely audible.

"Oh you want more, huh, you bloodthirsty whore! Well, sweetheart, where I come from, things don't work that way. I always get what I want, through my secret weapon- I know everything about you, your family, your children hiding upstairs in the attic, the rice they're eating, how your husband is away. I know it all. Now, let's have a taste, shall we?"

Loud roars, hisses, and scratching against metal echoed throughout the house. All of a sudden, a sickening *crunch* silenced the fighting. The loud sound of slurping and sucking entered the attic, haunting the children. After this, they knew their mother was gone, as a small thump filled their ears.

Then, an unearthly scream came from the creature that killed their mother. "Damn... Mortals!! You- you killed me... No..!.. .... You... Shall BOOOOOOWWWWWWWWwwwwwww....."

The final breaths escaped the creature and the house remained still. Hours passed, and all the siblings could hear were a man's quiet sobs, barely audible but still there.

Then came a weary "Kai! Nya! Where are you? It's-it's dad! Please, you two! Come- come out! You can't be dead! No! Your mother had to be smarter than th-that. She had to keep you safe!"

Kai exited the attic, with Nya following close behind, coming face-to-face with their father, covered in dark red blood and sobbing.

For the next four years, Kai and Nya worked with their father, who then died in the following fifth year after of a broken heart and stress.

Kai and Nya worked their hardest to make ends meet, before they joined Sensei Wu.

Still, they had never seen the body of the creature that had attacked their mother, or any of the bandits with it.

Although Nya learned to forgive and forget, Kai vowed that he would kill any monster, human, anything that resembled the creature's appearance, as described by his father.

~