Chapter Text
The first thing Morro noticed was that the ground was cold. Like, really, fucking cold. Like shitty diner ice cold.
Which was weird. Not the shitty part, Morro’s whole life was shitty, but the cold part. When you’re dead you normally don’t feel things. Other than self-loathing and regret, you’re pretty numb.
And Morro would know that, because he’s been dead since before being dead was cool. Since he was 15, actually. Never even got to have a proper emo phase.
Tragic, isn’t it?
But back to the floor. It was really cold, but it was solid too. It wasn’t like the mushy ground in the Cursed Realm, it was like something solid, like the floors in the monastery.
Morro breathed wrong. Wait-fuck-how the hell do you breath wrong if you don’t breathe?
It hit Morro like a train he jumped infront of.
He was alive.
Again.
For the third or fourth time. It was like the FSM couldn’t decide if he wanted Morro dead or not.
“If you don’t get up I will kick you so hard your parents will feel it.” The voice was sharp, female, and familiar, but Morro was too lazy to place it.
Morro muttered, “I don’t have those and neither do you.”
The reaction was violent and immediate.
She kicked him so hard in the ribs he thought he was genuinely going to throw up all the nonexistent food he never ate.
“Don’t fucking say that to me, dirt bag.”
Wheezing, Morro pulled himself up and opened his eyes. For a second he was completely and utterly stunned by the overwhelming brightness of the living world, before the pain in his rib brought him back to earth.
“What the hell, dude?” He groaned before looking up at his attacker.
She had lipstick(???) smeared across her eyes and forehead, and her long hair was white. She looked his age, so he doubted it was from age, but based on her ratty and torn black-purple gi, he didn’t think she could afford a wig.
“Don’t insult my parents.”
Morro bit back his sour reply and focused on getting up and relearning how to breathe. Relearning how to walk infront of some one you don’t know was a humbling experience, but a quick one, nonetheless. Once he could successfully do both of those things and he was less overwhelmed by the bombardment of senses, he turned to the girl.
He recognized her the second his brain turned on, which, to no one’s surprise, took far too long.
“ Harumi.” Morro said the word like he was trying out speech, like he was testing his new vocal cords.
“Ghost.” She responded, staring level and emotionless back. The only hint that she felt anything was the slight curiosity in her features. In the silence between them Morro glanced around, taking in their surroundings. It looked like modernized Ninjago City, but there was a dark tint to everything. And there were statues.
Statues of humans screaming.
They were silent, of course, but Morro could sense their terror. Their screams were just an octave higher. Just barely out of reach.
There was something else missing, Morro just couldn’t place it.
The black-purple fog seemed to clear, just slightly, and Morro turned back to Harumi. “Morro. Grandson of the FSM.”
She tilted her head in a cruel way, a knife-like smile splitting her pretty face.
“Lloyd told me about you. Said you were… Cruel. And had a tragic past. Never mentioned the FSM though. Strange. Wouldn’t that make you cousins?”
She had moved too close to Morro, and held her hand too close to his face.
He backed away, feeling like the same scared kid that had died all those lifetimes ago. He was missing something.
He couldn’t place it. What was he-
The wind.
Where was his wind?
He held an arm out, waiting for the familiar flutter that had stayed with him through life and death and possession and death again. He waited and waited, but it didn’t come.
He needed his wind. He needed his wind like he needed his anger.
Without his wind and his anger he really was just a scared, hungry kid.
He had promised himself never to become that kid again, but he couldn’t even keep a promise to himself. No wonder everyone seemed to break their promises to him when he couldn’t even keep one to himself.
“Morro.”
Morro flinched, he shouldn’t have, but Harumi sounded too much like The Mother. To much like her and her manipulation and her double truths and her lies.
“Morro.” She tried her voice softer, but it still sounded like The Mother. Morro could feel her tentacles, wrapping around his chest, around his mouth.
He couldn’t breathe.
But that meant he was alive and if he was alive-
He could stop obeying The Mother. He wanted to stay alive. He wanted to finally not fuck it up. He wanted to finally have one life he didn’t regret.
“Morro. Son of the FSM. What the fuck is happening with you?” It was enough to wake him up, to clear his head. He realized he was curled on the ground, hugging his knees like they would save him from screwing up again. Without a word he picked himself up, dusted off his filthy and ragged gi, and nodded at Harumi.
“I’m fine. He turned away and pretended not to hear Harumi’s, “Jeez, I guess Lloyd was right about the traumatic backstory, haven’t seen some one freak out like that since the Colossus…”
She went quiet.
A few minutes into walking through the dissipating fog Harumi asked, “ Where are we going?”
“ I don’t fucking know. I haven’t been to Ninjago City since I possessed Lloyd. And even then he was whining too much for me to absorb the scenery.”
“Never seen someone talk so casually about possessing a child.” Harumi muttered, “but whatever. I assume you don’t now what year it is?”
“Yeah, of course I do. Just ask the guy who was dead for fifty years to give you the date. Do you think I fucking know?”
Harumi stayed silent, and as they walked the last of the fog dispelled.
Something flashed nearby. Morro jump, silencing a scream. Harumi turned towards the flash, and her eyes lit up.
“Perfect.” She muttered, before running up to the bright screen. Morro followed her up to the screen, eyes widening. It was a map of the city, with directions to everywhere and a date in the bottom corner. August 21st 2029.
Morro tried not to wince at the realization that he’d been dead for a lot longer than he had thought.
“Ok so we’re here.” She muttered to herself, pointing at some pink section near something called Borg Towers, “and if we want to go… Where do we want to go?”
She glanced back at Morro.
“The monastery.”
She stared at him for a second, before mumbling to herself and studying the map.
“So we can take a bus to… to exit 67 and i guess we would have to walk… Walk, like, four miles, plus the stairs up, so 5 maybe… Can you do that?”
She gave him a once over before murlttering, “so that’s a no. Ok ummmm,”
“ Excuse me? Ex-fucking-cuse me? I am perfectly capable. I don’t give a shit about whatever the fuck-“
“-yeah yeah I know. We’ll need to get food… how the fuck are we supposed to do that? I’m to known and your…” she glanced at him, “your you.”
“What about those?” Morro pointed at the mechanical thing. Lloyd had called them cars, but that might just be ninja slang.
“A car? I guess. Check if it’s open.”
Morro walked over, and curiously pulled on the big red door. Nothing happened. He tried again, putting more force into it, and then with a ‘pop!’ The door clicked open.
“Ummm, Harumi? It worked.”
Harumi looked towards him, suprised, “Oh. It worked. Huh.” She ambled over to Morro and entered the car, grabbing a key he hadn’t seen.
The car roared.
Morro did not jump/screech/freak out. Morro was calm and collected and got in the car with a straight face.
He was not prepared for Harumi’s driving. But because she was going so fast he didn’t see the statues of people cracking, returning to skin and flesh.
Neither of them knew they had just witnessed the end of the Oni’s short command over Ninjago.
And because of Harumi’s driving he didn’t notice that when t he last statue cracked, his wind came back.