I didn't know this was physically possible of me to do but... set after season 4, Tournament of Elements.

Can you believe this? My very first post-Rebooted fanfic where Nya and Jay are not together? I can't either. Enjoy!

Nya's arm jerked away when Jay's elbow lightly brushed against it, her skin immediately on fire and feeling every touch at once, goosebumps raised to the maximum. The Blue Ninja glared at her through a side-eye as he continued to reach for the salt that was in the center of the dining table.

Nya scoffed and looked back down at her food, lifted her fork, and placed a bite of macaroni covered in vegan cheese into her mouth.

The tension in the room intensified.

It had been like that for the majority of their interactions. None of them wanted to be in the presence of the other, but being a ninja and Samurai X, they could not really hide from each other.

The macaroni was blazingly hot, but that didn't deter Nya from chewing on without a single look of pain on her face, though her mouth was on fire.

"Ninja," Wu said, dabbing at the corner of his mouth with a paper towel. He cleared his throat. "I will be going on an exploration trip with Misako. I do not know when I will be back, but I will try to keep it as short as possible."

"What are you looking for?" Lloyd asked his uncle.

Wu placed the paper towel aside and looked at his nephew. "Misako thinks there is a way to combat vengestone without it disabling your powers when being exposed to it, but it is only a theory."

"Whoa." Kai and Cole exchanged amazed looks, and Jay's eyebrows rose in a surprised manner. Zane hummed, intrigued, and Lloyd's eyes widened.

Nya didn't really care since she had no part to take place in. She had no powers so the whole vengestone shtick didn't faze her.

"When will you go?" Cole wondered.

Wu stroked his beard. "Today, actually. Misako will meet me at the—"

"Incoming alert. I repeat: Incoming alert." Everyone stopped moving and listened to what Pixal had to say through the loudspeakers. "A criminal group has been seen vandalizing the city and terrorizing civilians. About twenty-five men. Weapons drawn. Last seen on Grandholm Street in NC. An elderly woman, who has been hit with a baseball bat but claims she does not have any lasting injuries, told me she has already called the police but they apparently didn't take her seriously so she's contacted us."

"Of course they didn't," Kai mumbled to the others, then turned back to the loudspeaker in the corner of the dining room. "We'll be there."

All six around the table stood up at the same time, but the only female stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the dominating male gender.

She hated that feeling. She also hated how they all looked at her, like they secretly didn't want her to come but couldn't tell her because she was, after all, still a part of them, ninja or not. She had proven that time and time again.

"I don't think Sam X is needed for this one, sis," Kai said. "We'll get you if we need you, though."

"And hey, a day off is great, isn't it?" Cole tried to lighten her mood with a smile and a shrug, but all he received was a glowering from her part.

Nya pursed her lips and sat back down, her eyes cast down at her plate. Raging and voicing her thoughts, raw and unfiltered, was enticing, but she knew now was not the time to do that. She needed to think rationally and professionally, and that meant she knew they had to go to the crime scene quickly to prevent bad things from happening further.

The guys filed out of the room without batting an eyelid, including Jay.

That ticked her off even more.

She muttered a farewell to Master Wu and exited the room a second after, her destination her bedroom. Her plan? Lie in bed and complain about life in a way that isn't a burden to her peers. Not that they were there to witness it anyway.

— — — —

A loud sound coming from outside her dim lit bedroom made the young Samurai X jump out of her skin. Her eyes popped open and darted around, looking for the source of her disturbance. She pulled the covers off of herself and jumped out of bed.

Her room was dark, eerie, cold. Not a single thing was displaced, everything looked exactly like she had left it.

So what caused her to wake up?

Nya rubbed her eyes. Maybe she was just making things up. Maybe something in the dream she couldn't remember happened, and it was so intense that it invaded her corporeal reality.

Her heartbeat decreased in its pace and the adrenaline left her system, her sleep coming back to her tenfold. With no apparent danger in sight, Nya got back into bed and groggily pulled the covers over her tired body.

Her eyes closed and the darkness consumed her once again, all thoughts and worries left her again, until...

KABOOM!

Nya flinched and jumped up, her covers pooling around her ankles. Her eyes were wide open and sleep was the farthest thing from her mind as she looked around her bedroom.

Again, nothing seemed to be wrong, but the faintest smell of smoke hit her nostrils and made her aware of a fire breaking out somewhere around her.

She cast a quick glance at her window, making sure it was closed, before grabbing a katana and darting out of her room.

The hallway was covered in gray smoke, from the ceiling down to the waistband of her shorts. She immediately dropped down to her knees, aware that she needed to escape the smoke before it would infiltrate her lungs and take her down.

She crawled towards the end of the hallway. Since the fire was seeming to be consuming the front part of the monastery, including the entryway, the kitchen, and the dining area, Nya knew she had to get out through a back door.

As she fought her way through the dark clouds, with her blurry vision and lungs craving clear oxygen, Nya wondered where the guys were, and whether or not they were already in safety.

And if so, she was pissed.

Pissed that, if they were there and aware of the fire, they either forgot about her or just left her to fend for herself.

A nasty cough shook her body and caused her to stop in her tracks to wear it out. Her eyes closed shut and her head bowed down by reflex. Once she pulled herself together, she moved forward again, only to stop once again because of another cough attack. This one rattled her insides, making it feel like she had been a chain smoker of over six years.

She hated that analogy, but what she hated more was the fact that she knew she didn't have much time left before her body would succumb to the urge to fall asleep.

— — — —

The flight back home was better than they had expected it to go. After all, they did lose the battle.

Okay, losing the battle was a bit harsh, but they did manage to let the gang leader go, no matter how hard they'd tried to follow him and catch him. The guy, who had let his goons do all the dirty work for him, had jumped into a moving helicopter and escaped the scene as all five ninja were distracted by his low-level trainee criminals.

It was a bummer, but at least the citizens were no longer under distress. And they were sure Pixal would find the guy's whereabouts in a day's time anyway.

As the five elemental dragons approached the monastery, the flying beasts all stopped flying forward with heavy roars, their riders shocked at first.

"What's wrong?" Kai asked his dragon, clapping him on the sides to try and soothe his nerves.

Cole struggled to keep the reins in his grasp. "I don't know, but whatever it is, it's messing with all our dragons."

Jay stroked the rough, impermeable blue scales of his own dragon, his eyes darting into every direction to identify the source of the dragons' distress. "What's going on?"

"A fire," Lloyd breathed, a dark undertone in his voice.

Jay frowned. "In the sky?"

"No, the monastery!" Cole pointed forward, his eyes wide. "Look!"

All ninja faced the front and recognized the monastery, their home, currently going up in large, dangerous, hungry flames. There was no mercy when it came to what was being engulfed in the fire. Whatever it came across was immediately covered.

"No!" Lloyd exclaimed and sped past his teammates to make it to the monastery, his mind as hazy as the orangey-red paint decorating his home in a destructive way.

He was the first to jump off of his dragon. Then the others fell down right next to him on the courtyard, all landing on their feet.

"Zane, do something!" Lloyd ordered and watched as Zane's ice covered the front porch. The first few flames that came into contact with the ice were tedious to extinguish.

"Guys..." They all, except for Zane, who was concentrating on extinguishing as many flames as possible, turned to Kai, whose face was so pale that it looked like he was on the brink of plummeting to the ground and fainting. "We know Wu's not in there, but Nya..."

Now they all froze, not from the ice machine freezing every spare inch of the courtyard but from the possibility of Nya still being inside the place that was about to collapse in on itself.

"There's no way she's still in there..." Cole tried to sound optimistic, but even his statement sounded unsure and scared.

"Hello? Nya? Can you hear me?" Lloyd screamed into the air, his breath coming out strained. When nobody responded, he turned to his teammates. "Maybe she's saved herself. Maybe she's at the Sam X Cave."

"Or maybe she's still in there," Cole spat back. "I'm sure she would have contacted us if she knew there was a fire engulfing our monastery."

"Nya!" Kai screamed and made an attempt to advance towards the entryway, but Lloyd held him back. "What, Lloyd? If she's still in there, and on the First Spinjitzu Master's dusty, crusty ashes, if she is unconscious or incapable of coming out by herself, and we are losing precious time discussing our next moves—"

Lloyd shook his head, his hand still in front of Kai's chest to keep him back. "I'm not suggesting that. But I don't think it's smart to just run into a burning building willy-ni—"

At that exact time, before Lloyd could finish his sentence, a flash of blue sprinted past them and disappeared behind the burning doors.

The three looked at each other, their mouths open. "Did Jay just—" Lloyd guffawed.

"He's got a death wish, man." Cole stared after Jay's disappeared form.

"And you were about to give me a talk about running into burning buildings, Lloyd." Kai humphed.

— — — —

Jay's lungs were on fire.

Not literally (not yet, at least), but in the sense that the thick, dark clouds in the narrow hallway infiltrated his body and shoved out any clean oxygen.

He covered his mouth and nose with his mask, knowing that that was not the solution to his problem. Still, he did it to trick his mind into thinking it was helping.

She was neither in the kitchen nor in the dining area, though those places were already gone by the looks of it, entirely burnt up in flames. Then, the further he sprinted down the hallway, he tried to look through each room he came across as best as he could, as much as the flames allowed him to.

"Nya!" he screamed, his voice scratchy and begging for water.

No response.

As he came to the end of the hallway, he had to make a decision: he would either have to go left or go right. It was a split hallway.

He tried to think as rationally as possible. To the left were the games room, the living room, and the small bathroom. To the right were all the bedrooms, including another, larger bathroom.

Jay decided to go for the right corridor. She might still be in her bedroom, stuck and unable to get out. But then again; he didn't know where she'd been before the fire had broken out. She might have been watching TV, or playing a video game, or using the smaller bathroom.

Before any of those thoughts could plague his mind any further, a gut-wrenching sound coming from above him made him look up. His eyes widened.

The ceiling was massively cracked, and a board came crashing down, followed by several more. Then the pillars holding up each sides gave in. They piled on the debris, making it impossible for Jay to get through.

There was no way for him to get to the bedrooms.

With a heavy heart beating in his chest, he turned around and went the left way, hoping it would be the right one, the correct one, the one that led him to Nya, who was hopefully okay. She needed to be okay.

His ears picked up on the other guys screaming at him to get out, but he had no intention of leaving without Nya.

He ran across the trembling floor, dodging out of the way of falling debris. His vision was blurred by both his tears and the smoke, but there was no way he would walk out of the building without her.

— — — —

"Zane!" Lloyd screamed, coughing, his hand placed tightly against his mouth. "Do you see anything?"

"Negative," Zane answered. He was leading the way inside the monastery, looking for any signs of life with his heat sensors.

The only issue? The entire building was so hot that it messed with his circuits. So he needed to distinguish between his friends and his surroundings.

The four ninja stormed inside the building right after Jay, but they lost him almost immediately. Against their better judgment, they ran into a burning building, their only way of protection being Zane's ice powers clearing out their way and Kai's fire powers drawing the flames away from them. The only problem they couldn't deal with was the smoke, which was the reason why Cole, Lloyd, and Kai were more behind than Zane, who was not affected by the dark, intoxicating clouds.

"Nya!" Kai screamed over the flames, his throat scratchy. "Nya, are you here?"

"This is useless!" Cole coughed. "We can barely see our own hands in front of our faces, how are we supposed to find her? And Jay?"

The ceiling cracked, loud sounds coming from above, one after the other, and the four guys looked up in horror. "Look out!" Lloyd screamed, as they all scrambled to get out of the way of the falling debris.

— — — —

"Nya! Plea-ease." Jay's voice trembled, his eyes no longer able to see anything because of the smoke. "Can you hear me? Nya!"

Jay came to stand at the end of the hallway, where the flames had barely grazed the walls yet. But the fire was advancing towards him, and fast. He only had the bathroom to check. If Nya wasn't in there, it meant she was either already in safety, or in another part of the monastery where Jay couldn't reach her.

He hoped it was the former. He prayed she was in safety. She needed to be.

She had broken his heart in more ways than one, ripped it out of his chest, stomped on it, spat on it—and even after all of that, Jay never stopped loving her. That did not mean he would forgive her, but he still cared about her safety and well-being. He would never forgive himself if she were to die in the very home he had built with her, together with the others.

"Nya." He sobbed, opening the bathroom door and looking inside. Then he gasped. "Nya!"

Closing the door after entering, Jay felt incredible relief wash over him when he found her there, in the shower, underneath a heavy stream of water. The water had soaked up every inch of her body, which was sitting on the shower floor and leaning against the tiled wall.

Jay dropped down to his knees and got under the water, the wetness immediately soaking up his clothes as well. He felt refreshed now, and the blurriness of his eyes slowly vanished as the water washed over his face.

"Nya," he said, bringing his hands up to her face to brush her hair out of her eyes.

The second she slowly opened her eyes, barely but still noticeable, Jay's heartbeat slowed down, dread and anguish leaving his system. She was awake.

Nya's mouth opened slowly. "Jay?"

"Yes." Jay nodded, smiling. But the raspiness of her voice did tug at his heartstrings. "Yes, I'm here. We need to get you out of here." He turned back to the door, his smile fading. The flames would reach the bathroom any moment. Their time was running out.

He turned back to her. "Can you walk?"

Nya's head turned to the front, her eyes closing and opening very slowly. "I'm...tired."

"No, no, you cannot be tired, Nya. Not now, not ever." Jay knew he was losing precious time doing nothing. And Nya was moments away from passing out, so he needed to act quickly.

He thought about the layout of the monastery, particularly the back. It was on top of a mountain, but the ground was still developed enough to ensure they wouldn't plummet to their deaths when they got out the back. But the flames...

Standing up, Jay rushed back to the door and opened it, heaving a sigh as he realized the fire had not reached the end of the hallway yet.

But that was the thing; the end of the hallway only had one door, and that was the bathroom door. There was nothing to the left or right.

Jay tried his utmost best to think about what to do, but they were sitting ducks. Their only exit was through the open, wild flames, and that was a clear death sentence.

Biting his lip, Jay pressed his hands against the wall to his right, where there was freedom on the other side. He touched the hot surface, felt around, looked for a chance to break down the wall to flee.

Since the monastery was already done for, Jay didn't care about the fact that he would destroy that wall. With the immense heat all around, the walls had become easier to break down.

And so Jay took a few steps back and slammed the side of his body against the wall. It took him a couple of tries, but at the end, when the wall cracked, he stopped running against it—since he didn't want to accidentally run through the wall and fall down the mountain—and instead lifted his foot and pushed it through the wall. Then he quickly removed larger bits and pieces to make sure he and Nya could get through.

"Nya, I did it!"

Jay ran back to the bathroom and knelt down next to her. "Nya?" His eyes widened when she did not respond, not even by moving a muscle in her body. "Nya!" He grabbed her shoulders and shook her body vigorously.

As he did so, her eyes slowly opened again, looking at him dazed and confused. But Jay had no time to talk. He hooked his arms under her knees and behind her back and lifted her up, carrying her out of the bathroom and right through the broken wall.

The moment his feet grazed over the untamed grass, Jay cried tears of joy. He sat down a few more feet away from the burning monastery and set his ex-girlfriend down, her head resting against his thigh.

He brushed the wet hair out of her face and looked at her. Really looked at her. At her face, which was pale but still as beautiful as ever. At her eyes, which were closed but the rising and falling of her chest indicated she was still there, with him. Her beauty never ceased to amaze him. With each passing day, each passing night, he was sure her beauty multiplied, and he was nothing but a longing man.

"Nya, open your eyes," he whispered, letting his thumb graze over her cheek. "Come on. You're okay now. Open your eyes."

Nya groaned and turned her head to the side, but a nasty cough shook her body. The coughing didn't seem to end, and Jay could not do anything about it as he watched her fight the cough.

"It's okay, Nya. Everything's okay now."

Is it, though?

Jay didn't know. But they were no longer surrounded by fire, so that was one good thing.

Hearing loud flaps of wings breaking through the air, Jay looked up, meeting the concerned eyes of Lloyd, who screamed, "Jay! Nya!" and flew back to the front of the monastery. Jay guessed to alert the others.

Sure enough, a few seconds later, the flapping of multiple dragons' wings alerted Jay of his friends' presence. Tears clouded his eyes as he watched his friends deform their dragons and jump onto the grass. They all ran towards him and Nya.

And as Kai gripped on to his sister for dear life, and as the other three boys stood around them, Jay knew he did it.

He saved Nya just in time, and even if he did not like her at the moment, he was sure he would have saved her any other day as well.

A/N: Honestly, I was very skeptical about writing this oneshot at first, since this is way out of my element, but I do kind of like how it went 🤭. Still, I don't think I'll write anything pre-Skybound anymore because I do like my Jaya as a couple. But then again, there are a few enemies-to-lovers type of ideas...