Chapter 3-Awakening

Harumi felt nothing.

She floated in the infinite quiet, void of any and all sensation. No light, no sound. Nothing. She had no idea how long she had been here, for time was but a distant concept in a place like this.

It was heaven .

Which was why she wasn't all that surprised when it started slipping away from her (because how could someone like her have made it into heaven?). She merely frowned in annoyance as one by one, sensations began to trickle in, light behind her eyelids, the muffled sound of birdsong…

And pain.

Deep, aching, pain.

It radiated out from her chest in great waves, being held back by a stabilising pressure around her torso, her body felt like it was made of lead and her lungs struggled to take in air. Her head was killing her, she couldn't move one of her legs, both her arms felt restricted. What happened to her? She tried to open her eyes, but found she was too weak to manage even that .

The sensations started changing, she felt something push her into a sitting position. The comfortable pressure on her chest eased, letting her ribs shift in ways she had an inkling they shouldn’t, and she felt something wet and cold press up against the side of her ribcage, her nose invaded by a strong chemical scent. Then once again at the front and back of her stomach before the pressure returned, holding everything in place again.

She tried to open her eyes again, this time managing a faint twitch of her eyelids, ok, progress. There was the quiet ‘thud’ of feet on solid ground, the rustling of fabric, more thudding, a faint ripping sound and then the whisper-soft sensation of thin fabric being draped over her, her arms being gently manoeuvred before she was settled onto her back again. Whoever or whatever was here continued to poke and prod her, moving her arms, brushing hair away from her face, applying more medical-smelling substances to the aching parts of her body. Harumi felt their body heat radiating off of them as they leaned across her.

Then finally, finally, she mustered the strength to open her eyes .

And immediately wished she hadn’t.

Because standing there in all his stupid, bleeding-heart glory was one Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon. The Green ninja, her arch-nemesis.

And also, paradoxically, her first love.

They stared at each other for what felt like hours (but she knew couldn’t have been longer than a few minutes) until Harumi decided she had had enough of this silent stand-off and tried to get out of bed.

Only to immediately be brought low by an explosion of agony in her gut, she gasped and doubled over, which only made it worse . She was saved from toppling out of the bed completely by Lloyd rushing to her side (because of course he would, chivalrous bastard) and slowly helping her lay back onto her mound of pillows.

“What” she managed to gasp out. “Happened to me?”

“The building” Lloyd s voice was tight. “It… when you fell, I, I-” A choked sob broke on his teeth like waves on a cliff face. His grip tightened where it lay on her shoulders. “I thought I lost you”

Harumi looked down at Lloyd's hands and saw that his fingers were wrapped in gauze down to the second knuckle, crimson red bleeding through where his nails would be, she looked up at his face again, noting the exhaustion that seemed to blanket him like a cloak, the wild, desperate hope in his eyes, that, and the fact that she appeared to be in a bedroom instead of a prison hospital meant she had a pretty good idea of what happened.

“You dug me out” Her throat felt raw, like she had swallowed broken glass, but her heart felt rawer. “You came back for me”

Tears began to bead in Lloyd's eyes, and he made no move to stop them as they began to trickle down his face.

“I did”

“...Why?”

“Wh- Why? What do you mean ‘why’?”

Harumi shifted slightly so she was closer to eye-level with him. “I mean , that I ruined everything, I conquered Ninjago city, I forced you to live in squalor for months, I would have killed most of your little ninja friends if it weren't for that dumb magic tea, anyone else would have just let me die and face whatever punishment is waiting for me in the Underworld, so why didn’t you ?” It was getting hard to speak, but Harumi couldn’t stop the words from rushing out of her mouth.

Lloyd was silent for a moment. His eyes bored into hers, His expression unreadable, a rarity for an open book like him.

“I had too”

Harumi blinked. “What do you mean you ‘had too’?”

Lloyd shrugged. “I mean that after Garmadon was defeated I just had this feeling in my gut that I had to go back and get you. I didn’t even know if you were still alive at that point! But I had to go back for you. I know you have good inside of you! And even if you didn't, no one deserves to die like that, not you, not my father, no one and- an- and…” He stuttered, his shoulders slumped, his tears leaked anew, he looked defeated.

“I- I'm so tired Harumi, I'm so tired of losing people I care about, I lost my father, I lost the guys, I even lost my Element”

“For my entire life, destiny has taken things from me. I couldn't lose you too”

Harumi scoffed. “I didn’t realise I was yours to lose”

She let him stammer as she tried to sort through her thoughts. Her feelings about Lloyd were always complicated, well, no. That wasn’t quite right, her feelings about Lloyd were clear, it was her feelings about the Green Ninja that were complicated.

Ever since the Great Devourer swallowed her entire world, Harumi had been building up an image of the Green Ninja in her head. Prideful, arrogant, someone who saw his duty of protecting Ninjago as a game, someone she hated . And then she met Lloyd. Lloyd, who was a sweetheart, Lloyd who was trusting to the point of naivety, Lloyd who was, apparently, willing to dig her out of a collapsed building and hide her from the law.

For those few weeks on the Bounty while they were searching for the final Oni Mask she found herself struggling to reconcile the difference between the two, so she just… didn’t. The two lived as separate concepts in her mind. There was Lloyd, her sweet and gullible patsy and there was the Green Ninja, her hated enemy who she needed to destroy. And it was fine! She was fine.

But now it’s not.

Because now instead of just Dying like she was supposed to after her heel-face turn, she was alive! And that would have been fine too! She could just go rot in a little cell in Kryptarium, alone and undisturbed, fading into obscurity after everything she had worked so hard for crashed and burned around her. But nooooo~ Lloyd just HAD to play ‘hero’ and save his ‘princess’.

Harumi took a moment to lay all the facts out in her mind.

She had saved that kid from reliving her own trauma after her plans went belly-up, and in her final moments before the building gave out from under her, she and Lloyd had met eyes from across town and they held an entire conversation in the span of a glance (the way all people seem to be capable of doing in life-or-death scenarios).

But instead of dying and finally getting a break from the utter clusterfuck her life had become at that point, Destiny had decided that Harumi needed to suffer just a tiny bit more. So of course that meant Lloyd came back for her and dug her out like the sentimental fool that he was. (Harumi ignored the part of her that was deeply touched by Lloyd coming back for her, even after everything) And instead of turning her in or, y’know, at least taking her to the hospital like a normal person. Lloyd had dragged her all the way up a mountain. Which brought her to another thing:

“So how did you convince your ninja pals to let me stay here anyway?”

Lloyd stared at the ground like it was the most interesting thing in the room. “Well, uh, about that…”

~🩸~

“I cannot believe I lost to someone this stupid” Harumi pinched the bridge of her nose to try and relieve the tension headache she could feel building behind her eyes. Lloyd grumbled slightly from his spot next to her, they had both moved (well, more like shuffled slightly in Harumi’s case) to sitting on the stupidly gigantic bed, seriously, where did Lloyd get this? It was nicer than her bed back in the Palace!

“I'm not stupid…” He pouted.

“Stupidly impulsive, then” Harumi moved her hand up to comb her fingers through her bangs, they were knotted and full of dust, she could already tell that it would be an absolute pain to deal with later, if they were even salvageable. “I can’t believe you just brought me here thinking you could just stash me in your room the whole time”

“Well it’s not like i had a lot of time to consider my options” Harumi felt herself relax slightly as Lloyd frowned, they were arguing, and arguing with Lloyd was familiar territory, She had some semblance of control over the situation, finally. “Plus, you woke up way faster than you should have, I thought I had at least a few weeks to iron out the details”

Now it was Harumi’s turn to frown, Lloyd had a point, she should have been out for a lot longer than she was, and she seemed to be healing faster than a human should, she had a sneaking suspicion Lloyd had something to do with that.

Her frown deepened, she knew that if the other Ninja found Lloyd had stashed her here, it wouldn’t go well, the best case scenario was that her accelerated healing would make her well enough to leave before they found her, but that brought the inevitable question of what exactly she was meant to do once she left.

Turn herself in? While her guilty conscience found the idea tempting at first, the more she thought of the idea of spending the rest of her life in a tiny prison cell, the more she felt like there were bugs festering under her skin, desperate to gnaw their way out.

Run away? It seemed to be the only other choice for her, but the idea of changing her appearance and finding a small little town in the middle of nowhere and starting from scratch seemed a chore, plus, who knows how many SoG grunts had managed to scatter after her fall? If they found out she had survived, there was no way they wouldn’t blame her for everything going to shit, she would know, she’s the one who taught them to be as vicious as a pack of street dogs, after all.

Harumi groaned in frustration, kicking out her good leg (and ignored how the crust of dried blood on her pants leg cracked and peeled, ew ) before grabbing one of the unholy number of pillows from the mound behind her (seriously, why did he have so many , it was bordering on comedic) and chucking it at the back of Lloyd's head as hard as she could (which to her frustration, was not nearly as hard as she used to be able to).

It made contact, hitting squarely on the soft spot where the back of the skull met the spine, sending him tumbling forward on the mattress with an "oof" . He turned sharply to glare at her. “What was that for?”

“Existing,” she replied flatly. “Don’t you need to go spend some time with your ‘family’ so they don’t barge in here thinking you died?” The two of them had been sitting here ‘planning’ (AKA, bickering) for a few hours now, if the fading light filtering through the window was any indication. Lloyd opened his mouth to protest before a robotic voice filtered in from down the hall, saying something about dinner being ready. His jaw swung shut with an audible ‘click’ as Harumi put on her best innocent smile, batting her eyelashes to really rub it in. (God, she loved fucking with Lloyd, she could always count on him to react in a way she found funny).

Lloyd grumbled and scooted off the bed, looking back at her over his shoulder. “Do you want me to bring you back some leftovers? Do you think your stomach can handle solid food right now?”

Harumi mulled it over for a second, now that she was focusing on it, she could feel an undercurrent of nausea rolling about in her gut, the back of her throat tinged with the acidic taste of bile. She didn’t even feel hungry anyway with nutrients being given to her through her IV, so food didn’t really seem that appealing to her right now.

(Plus, if she ate, she would eventually need to go to the bathroom. Which she would probably need Lloyd’s help with considering she was too injured and weak to really move , and she wanted to avoid that humiliation for as long as she possibly could)

“Nah, I'm fine,” She answered, finally.

Lloyd nodded and made his way to the door, ducking out to the hallway and shutting it behind him quietly. Harumi sighed with relief as she heard his footsteps fade into the hallway, finally, some time to herself.

~🩸~

Lloyd stretched languidly as he set down the dishes on the counter top, dinner had left him sated and tired. Outside, the sky was black and studded with bright stars, just cold enough to make burrowing under your covers sound like heaven.

He wondered if Harumi was cold in bed, he hadn’t had the thickest blankets there when he’d laid her down, after all.

Lloyd made a mental note to grab his doona^[1] from where it was stored in the linen closet on the way back to his room.

Now that he was on the subject, Lloyd realised that now Harumi was awake, she would probably get bored cooped up in his room all day, and he knew from experience (namely, personal) that being bored too long made people do potentially stupid things in search of entertainment. And with that thought he banked left and found himself in the library.

He browsed the shelves, unsure of what Harumi would want to read. They didn't have much in terms of casual reading, their literature being mostly for research purposes, but there was one book that caught his eye.

Reaching up he pulled the thick leather-bound book from its place, the gilded title catching the evening light.

‘When Time was named: A collection of historical Myths, Legends and Folklore’

It was a book his mother had brought him shortly after they reunited, back when their relationship was still… Awkward to say the least. Not only was it a complete collection of myths, legends and similar things, it also recounted the historical context and inspirations behind them with exhaustive detail, to the point where it was more of a history textbook than a collection of stories. It was incredibly rare, he only knew of the Explorers Club and the Library of Domu having other copies. His mother had only gotten one herself because she had been consulted to help write it due to the knowledge she gained from her dig sites (and because most people were to wary of approaching his father and uncle for information directly so they used her as a middleman)

Lloyd considered the book, He knew Harumi must have gone through countless hours of research in order to learn as much about the Oni as she did, and he was pretty sure there was even a chapter dedicated to them somewhere in its pages. So she would probably like it, but then again, what if the mention of Oni brought up bad memories? He didn’t want to just assume, so he quickly grabbed two more books, flimsy paperback romance novels, the trashy kind that Kai secretly loved but would never admit it even if his life depended on it. She might not like the genre, but these were bad enough that she would probably find them funny.

With his arms full he quietly walked his way back to his room, he wasn’t too much of a book nerd, but he read enough that he didn’t look weird or suspicious. He quickly ducked over to the linen closet, grabbing his light green doona from where it was folded on the floor of the closet, tucking it under his elbow as he continued on his way

He toed the door open and quickly kicked it shut behind him as he stepped inside. Harumi was still on the bed, but she had sat herself up more on the pillows and seemed to be trying to untangle one of the mats in her hair, he winced sympathetically as her fingers got caught in it. They would really need to talk about what she wanted to do about that soon.

Harumi eyed the books in his arms curiously but said nothing, merely quirking an eyebrow at him.

“I, uh, brought you some books” He laid them out next to her. “In case you get bored, I don’t really know what books you like so I just grabbed whatever, I got another blanket too cause it gets pretty cold up here at night”

“I see” Harumi's eyes lingered on his mother's book, a glimmer of curiosity peeking through before she smothered her expression into a bored neutrality, Lloyd inwardly cheered at his success. Harumi carefully gathered up the books and set them onto the so-tiny-and-short-he-had-forgotten-about-it night stand. Lloyd unfolded the doona and spread it out on the bed before starting to climb in, only for a sharp cough from Harumi to interrupt him.

“...what are you doing?”

“Getting into bed?”

“...while I'm in it!?”

“It’s MY bed!”

“That YOU decided to put me in! I - ugh, I'm too tired to fight with you on this just, gimme a sec”

Harumi grabbed some of the pillows and started laying them out on the bed, pestering Lloyd into helping her when she got tired, which was only after a couple seconds. By the end they had an impressive wall of pillows dividing two halves of the bed. “Ok, you stay on your half, I stay on mine, got it?”

Lloyd nodded. “Got it, G’night Rumi” he mumbled sleepily, burrowing under the blankets and hiking them up to his nose. Harumi watched as his breathing slowly evened out and his muscles went lax, he had actually fallen asleep next to her, while she was awake even, he really did have no self preservation instinct, did he?

(She quieted the traitorous part of her that found it endearing)

Harumi cast a glance at the pile of books. The romance would only be good for kindling as far as she was concerned, but the leather-bound one caught her eye, she had heard of it before, but never read it, which was surprising considering she could count the number of books she didn’t have access to as a Princess on one hand. Harumi had seriously considered having the Sons steal a copy or sneak her all the way to Domu back when she was still gathering information on the resurrection ritual, but she had decided that one book wasn’t worth the risk of exposing herself and left it at that. The fact that Lloyd had been able to guess her favourite reading material annoyed her greatly, but she wasn’t going to turn down the chance to finally read it out of sheer spite.

She knew that Garmadon’s wife had helped with writing the book, so anything in there about the Oni was probably factual, or at least not entirely made up to pad out the word count. Harumi felt something close to genuine excitement bubble up in her chest (or it could just be the painkillers, but tomato tomahto) at the thought.

The Oni had fascinated Harumi ever since she had began her quest for vengeance all those years ago, she had stumbled upon them while studying The Great Devourer and its relationship with her childhood hero, nothing more than a brief description of onyx-skinned, sharp tusked warriors that lurked in the shadows and levelled nations and a classical illustration of one bringing down a mighty club on a samurai. It had taken her breath away.

She was hooked, the idea of these unstoppable warriors who destroyed anything they wanted spoke to the childish part of her that just wanted to lash out and break things, she scoured the royal library for any information about them she could find, and when that well dried up she would send her handmaid's out to search for more (which was pretty much the only thing she could tell them to do, despite technically being their boss) before getting fed up and sneaking behind the Emperor and Empresses backs to hire bounty hunters and thieves to track down the knowledge and artefacts she craved, and then sending out her own lackeys once she had enough of them. Harumi had learned enough about them that she could be considered an expert, from their language to their biology to their culture, it felt like she understood them better than she understood most humans.

Harumi turned back to Lloyd, who was still asleep on his side of the bed. Technically speaking, he was an Oni. Harumi had studied his form closely when they were on the bounty, looking for any trace of his heritage, but aside from slightly sharpened canines, cat-like eyes and a faint metallic lustre to his hair he was frustratingly mundane in appearance, Harumi had wondered back then if that was simply his natural appearance or if he was using the Oni’s innate powers of shape-shifting to disguise himself. She still wondered about it now, honestly, but she didn’t let it take up too much space in her brain, it wasn’t like she could ever ask him now, anyway. (plus, he already took up way too much space in her brain as is).

A deep yawn worked its way out of her throat, Harumi’s head fell back onto the pillows, the wave of exhaustion that washed over her was so strong she couldn’t even hold it up, she slid down slightly, until her chin settled on the edge of the blankets, she couldn’t see Lloyd over the pillow wall any more, she wasn’t sure if she liked that or not. She felt her head start to fill with emotional static, the iron grip she had on her emotions slipping slightly, whether it was from the painkillers or the exhaustion, she couldn’t tell. All Harumi knew was that her eyelids felt like they weighed a thousand pounds.

She closed her eyes and let the exhaustion take her.

End notes

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