Keep in mind while reading this chapter that Nya is struggling with herself. She may say two things that contradict each other, and at some parts it may seem that her personality has totally changed. The different parts of Nya are fighting. This chapter is almost entirely her train of thought.

"I can't. I can't kill you."

Words I said before I was even aware I meant them

        I thought the ring would be my savior, take away the clutter in my brain and give me the power to do whatever I wanted. Only now, as I try again to rip Cole's heart out, I find I'm incapable.

I can't do it.

           It's like there's some sort of force field holding me back. But there isn't. Only my own idiotic brain and my own foolhardy emotions. I don't want to feel anymore, and yet I still do.

         When I put on the ring, I thought it would make me free. But I don't feel free. Everything I do makes me more trapped. The demon is a spider, the ring its web, and now I see I'm just a tiny insect. A tiny insect, yes, but once with a chance of escape. I saw the web before I got stuck. I saw the truth before I killed Cole and lost myself to the Darkness completely.

I thought the ring was the most powerful thing in Ninjago.

I thought wrong.

Jay told me something in passing when he was explaining the origin of the demon. I didn't realize the enormity at the time, but now I see he was giving me the answer. He told me how to save us all and he didn't see it. I didn't see it.

"Love is the most powerful force in the world."

More powerful than a demon, or a ring, or hate. Love. That thing that causes more heartbreak, regret, fear, sadness, and anger than anything else. But also what gives joy, pleasure, life, beauty, and good to us all.

Love. What I try so hard to avoid because it brings me nothing but pain.

Love. The thing that comes crashing onto me like an ocean wave, bringing all my other emotions along with it.

I'm a monster. Inside the monster there is nothing but a broken girl swept away by a tsunami of tears and blood and hate, a girl named Nya.

I am Nya.

I have moved away from Cole and I'm back in the heart of my friends. In the very center, I stop. It hurts. I hurt. My head, my heart, my ring finger, all consumed with such pain.

I drop to my knees and I feel the impact, the way they scuff against the floor. I sob and I feel the hot tears streaming down my face. I feel. I feel. I feel.

"I can't kill you." I cry. "I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't!"

      I am alone, and it is dark, so dark, and all I can feel is the pain of my head and my heart and my finger paralyzed by the ring, yet another triangle, and I'm crying but I'm not supposed to feel it, no, I can't feel love, no, no, no, and my head fights my heart fights the ring and I can do nothing to stop it, I can do nothing to control myself anymore, and all I want is to not be alone anymore. My head tells me I should hate Cole and my heart tells me that I can't hate him, and the ring tells me to kill, just kill, to mutilate and destroy and kill kill kill kill kill kill kill.

No. No. No I will not do this.

"Why?" I scream. Why can I not let go? Why can I not kill Cole?

Love hate love hate love hate love. Love. I love. I love...

"I love you." Jay's last words, the thing I always knew but never saw.

"I love you." Cole's fragile truth, truth that I exploited.

I love you. Three words, three words in a pattern that it seems I can never say. Everyone I've said them to has died. I. Love. You. I couldn't say it to Jay. I wouldn't say it to Cole.

What do I want?

What is it that would make me happy more than anything else?

Part of me says to kill Cole, but that part sounds like a liar. Another voice says that all I want is to stop feeling, to die, to get away from this horror. But death brings relief, not happiness. Do I want to give in to the darkness? Do I want to have the world in the palm of my hand?

I want to kill I want to die I want to live.

I want to love.

      Through my haze my eyes scan the room. And I see it, past the destruction of the floor, the slaughtered corpses; Lloyd's bloodstained golden hair shining through the wreckage, along with the pale moon of my brother's face, the light reflecting dully off of his glassy eyes, the titanium of Zane and steel-copper alloy of Pixal, Skylor's bright-orange mission suit peppered with stains of dark red, and of course Cole thrown to the side, withered and gaunt and growing increasingly paler as the blood drains out of his body, through it all I see the answer.

I haven't looked directly at him this whole time because when I do it only hurts more. All I see is the way he used to be, the way it could be if Cole hadn't ruined it all.

         Jay is laughing and whatever caused it was funny enough to make him snort a little at the end and his nose crinkles up and there are little freckles all over his cheeks that stand out against his blush. Jay is smiling and his teeth are so straight because I know he had braces and there are those lines around his eyes that mean he's really happy, and his eyes are sparkly and bright, so full of life and so incredibly blue. Jay brushing up against me and I feel the charge, holding my hand, one arm around me, so nervous, so sweet. Hug, head on his shoulder, he smells like lemon and spearmint and gear oil and I want to stay like that all day. Always there, holding me and rocking back and forth and sitting on the floor and laying side-by-side. Jay with a blush so pink when I kiss his cheek. Jay who can electrocute me with his gaze. Jay who talks so much but is worth listening to.

      When the memories flood me it's almost as if I'm right there next to him again. I can see the smile in his eyes though they're empty. I can hear is voice though he will never make another sound. I can feel the static and the fast pitter-patter of my own heart whenever he's near even though he'll never be near again.

I can.

I can't kill.

I can love.

All I want, really, is to have them back. Lloyd, Zane, Pixal, Skylor, Kai.

Jay. All the people I loved. Love.

I won't deny that I want Cole back too. I won't lie to myself anymore.

         The ring still tells me to kill. My brain still tells me to die. It's my heart that fights now, and it's fighting as hard as it can. I don't want to kill anyone. I don't want to die, either.

       What I want is the only thing I can't have. The power of the ring enables me to do almost anything. But nothing can bring a person back to life. Nothing is powerful enough to reverse death.

And then it hits me.

Reverse.

"The best thing in the book what's called the reversal spell, kind of like 'control Z' on a computer."

"An undo button?"

"Yes. It can heal any wound, and bring anyone back to life. It requires immense power, though, which is why we need to get some of the demon's power to perform the spell."

I have immense power. I don't have the spell book.

But somehow, though I only looked over the reversal spell once, I can see it, I can hear it, I can feel it.

I can do it.

The power of positive thinking!

Is back.

      The ring wants to bring death. I'm going to use it to bring life. I can have all I want, I can be okay again, I can be Nya, I don't have to be a monster any more.

       I was on my knees, but now I stand. I am strong. I am stronger than the rest of them, stronger than Cole, stronger than the ring. I am Nya Smith, and I can save them. I couldn't save myself, but at least I can save them.

        The words of the reversal spell are wired into my brain. I barely have to think as I say them out loud, and so instead I focus on pouring every ounce of power I can into the space all around me.

"Life for life, death for death,

Bring me to my final breath.

Life for death and death for life,

Through the storm and through the strife.

Take my essence, take my heart,

Bring the story to the start.

Take my power, take my head,

Though at the end I'll end up dead.

Take me instead.

Take me instead."

      It isn't like the release spell, no, that was painful. This is beautiful. I chant the words like they've been sung to me for years, like I've known them from childhood though I only read the spell once. The ring is pulling, pulling, pulling at me, pulling me into the dark smoke that seems to be leaving everyone else, and I know the mist has to go somewhere, and it does, it goes into the ring. I'm being consumed, but I don't feel weakened. It's like when I transformed, and that black mist is so alluring, and I know it shouldn't be, because what's leaving my friends is death.

"Reverse the evil, hurt, and pain

Give them to me, make me insane.

Let me bear the weight of the dark,

All left on the others a singular mark.

Turn back the clock, reverse the hour,

Take away my greatest power.

Take my power, take my head,

Though at the end I'll end up dead."

     The dark mist dances, a dance of agony, and through it I see Cole, staring at me like I myself am dying. I'm not, I've never been so alive. There's a numb sensation on my skin and the ring can give me everything, it can give me nothing. It's so strange, how it feels when your power is being sucked out of you so fast you can feel the molecules in your own body changing.

Cole's gaze is mournful, and I am taken aback. He said he was sorry for what he did. Why doesn't he want me to reverse it?

"Nya," he says, and I can hear it though there's a great rushing noise all around me. "Think of the consequences. Listen to what you're saying! What will this do?"

"It will save them!" I say, and my voice is hollow. I don't remember it being so far away.

"But what will it do to you?" Cole asks. He doesn't say anything else because he doubles over as if in pain. Before my eyes, the cuts on his arms from my talons begin to close.

It's working.

        All around me, the bodies begin to reassemble themselves. It's like watching a movie backwards, the blood oozing back into cuts, the broken bones forming back together, the hearts being carried back into the chests of their rightful owners. Reversal.

"Take me instead."

    The last line of the reversal spell dies in my mouth because I'm floating again. Floating and being torn apart. The mist curls around my fingers, the darkness touches my heart, and I can feel the power being wrenched out of my very being. I give it all, I give myself, because this is how it needs to be.

Death cannot be reversed. I am doing the impossible.

But I don't have enough.

The ring is not enough.

I know what I have to do.

Can I?

    I look down at the now-intact bodies of my team, my friends, my family. They are all whole again, but nobody is alive. Life comes from love. Love is the most powerful force in the world.

I say to them, though they can't hear, "I love you."

I turn my head to look at Jay, "I love you."

I look deep into Cole's eyes and he stares back. He killed them. I couldn't kill him.

"I love you."

I've lived a nightmare for far too long. It's time to wake up.

     My right hand closes around the bone surface of the ring. Jay's bone, made by Cole, received by me. A dark triangle, holding death. Nothing but the death and the darkness.

I pull the ring off of my finger.

The world freezes. The bone triangle drops to the ground, clattering at my feet.

"I love you." I say one more time.

I close my eyes, and I know they aren't black anymore. I know that I am Nya Smith, and I know that my family is going to live.

"Take me instead." I whisper.

      The Darkness closes around me, wrapping me up like a blanket. So cold, cold, cold, and bad and it's anything but love.

   The last thing I hear is the voice, more like thousands of tiny voices at once, really, breathing just into my ear,

"Happy to oblige."

AAAAAAH! Nya! Cole! Jay! Nyaaaaaaaaa!

What do you think is going to happen? Tell me in the comments.

What do you hope is going to happen? Also tell me in the comments.

Love you! :)