When I woke up, it was early in the morning of who-knows-what day. Even though it was obvious that I had been out for a very long time, I didn’t feel refreshed. Something was off. Maybe it was the soreness pulsing through every muscle in my body? Or the stabbing hunger pains which were now impossible to ignore? I guessed working ninety-six hours straight would do that to you. The sound of soft footsteps emanated from the forge, telling me that Nya must be up. I closed my eyes, not wanting to wake up quite yet. But then I remembered.
I sat bolt upright, ignoring the pain in my limbs and back. Every morning, Nya goes out to draw water from the well in the middle of the village. That wasn’t her in the shop. And when I listened more closely, I could tell that there were multiple pairs of quietly padding feet. Someone had broken in.
I sprang out of bed and burst through the door to the shop, my sudden energy only explainable by adrenaline. “GET OUT!” I screamed before I even registered the three teenage boys standing in the shop and the shattered window they must have broken to get in. They were dressed in black jeans and hoodies, indicating that they must be from Ninjago city. They were just common thieves, but all of them looked to be at least three years older than me and twice as big. I grabbed one of the better daggers I had forged from its mount on the wall.
Of course, none of them took a malnourished 15-year-old seriously. One of the thieves turned towards me, the hair peeking from under his hood obviously bleached blond, and took up a mocking tone to address me. “Look, kid, why don’t you put down that shiny toy and get your daddy to take care of us for you?”
The mention of my father sent me over. I yelled and lunged wildly at the older teen. I savored the brief flash surprise and fear in his eyes. He obviously wasn’t expecting me to attack since I was so much smaller than him. But one of his buddies grabbed me before I could reach the bleach-haired guy. He yanked my wrist, causing me to yelp and drop my dagger. He snaked his arm around my chest and arms, quickly immobilizing me, and wrapped his other arm around my neck. I kicked and yelled, trying to break free, but the teen holding me was too strong.
“Someone shut him up!” Bleach-Hair hissed, and the thief restraining me tightened his arm around my neck. Not enough to choke me, but enough to heavily reduce my breath. I gasped for air, realizing that yelling would only be a waste of my limited oxygen.
I finally noticed what the third crook, who looked like he had two black eyes, was holding. I stared in horror at the open drawer, and then the bulging velvet bag in Black Eyes’ hand. The bag of coins that I had worked four long days to earn. The coins that would support me, and much more importantly, Nya.
I struggled again, but I knew it was useless.
“Let’s get outta here,” the guy holding me said.
“No, please!” I gasped, now desperate enough to beg. “Take anything you want! Just not the money, please! It’s all my sister and I have to live off of!”
Black Eyes’s expression was the coldest I’d ever seen. “None of this stuff is worth selling, and I couldn’t care less about you or your stupid sister.”
Rage, pure, hot, seething rage reddened the rims of my vision. Heat like I had never felt before burned through my veins. I acted purely on an instinct I didn’t know I possessed, and let the blazing feeling explode outwards. Some sort of reddish-orange light seemed to engulf me. My captor suddenly cried out and released me, and I turned and grabbed his arm with my hand.
My flaming hand. The thief cried out as the flames crawled up his sleeve. He scrambled to the water basin to relieve his burning skin.
I lunged straight for Black Eyes, his cold expression replaced with one of panic. I wildly punched at his face, inflicting burns to accompany the bruised skin around his eyes. He threw up his hands to protect his face, but not before I had also given him a bloody nose. I didn’t realize he’d been kicking blindly until his foot connected with my stomach, knocking the wind out of me and sending me across the room. I gasped in pain and my flames suddenly went out.
Bleach-Hair was on me as soon as the danger of getting burned was gone. He had grabbed the dagger I dropped earlier and brought it down where my head had been just a split second earlier. I tackled him by the neck before he could recover his balance, making him fall backwards with me on top of him. He let out a growl of pain as his head collided with the floor, and I grabbed the hand that held the dagger, trying to disarm him. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the thief who had restrained me earlier had extinguished his sleeve and was a threat again. I wrenched the dagger from Bleach-Hair’s fist and turned to face the other crook when cold metal forcefully stabbed into my left knee.
I screamed at the sudden, blinding pain and dropped my dagger. Turns out, Bleach-Hair was hiding a short pocketknife in his hoodie, which was what he had violently driven my knee. Bile rose up in my throat as I felt an alarming amount of something warm and wet slide down my leg. The impact of a fist slammed into the back of my head and I fell to the floor, defenseless and wounded.
Black Eyes stood over me with the dagger in hand. I snapped my eyes shut and waited for him to finish me. Suddenly, the sound of a cart on the road rang out. The thieves looked at each other for a second, then ran. Carefully, though, not wanting to worsen any damage I did to them.
I just took deep breaths as the last of the adrenaline seeped out of my body. The noise of the cart of some random passerby who unknowingly just saved my life faded, leaving me to lay on the floor of the shop, blood flowing freely from my knee and throbbing waves of pain beating through my head.
But the physical pain was nothing compared to what my mind was going through. They had taken the money I’d earned from forging the katana. All of it. I had nothing to support my one living family member but the meager savings I had before making that sword. The savings that would support her for two weeks at best. Two weeks before she would starve, and less than that before I would.
Tears spilled from my eyes, no doubt leaving streaks on my dirty face. I’m sorry, Nya.
I remembered Ren’s words about the guard. The one who protected his loved ones no matter the cost.
I’m so sorry. I failed at being the guard.
“Kai? Kai, where are you?”
I looked up. Nya was back.
I sat up, clenched my jaw, and yanked the pocketknife from my knee. My vision whited out from the pain and it took all my self-control not to scream in agony as the wound started to bleed even heavier.
“Kai!” Nya cried, finally finding me.
I lowered my gaze again, not wanting to look her in the eyes.
She didn’t speak for a second, taking in my bruised and bloody appearance. “What happened?” Her voice was calm, but I knew better. This was the voice she used when she was preparing herself for bad news.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. When she realized I wasn’t going to talk, she slipped her shoulder under my arm to help me up. She made me sit down in a chair, then rolled up my blood-soaked pant leg to assess the damage to my knee. I knew it was bad, but Nya indicated that it was worse than I thought when she let out a small gasp. I forced myself to look.
The cut in the side of my knee was deep enough to reach the bone, and the amount of blood it was letting loose would have made me hurl if my stomach wasn’t already empty. Nya used a clean rag to wipe away the blood. Even though she was gentle, it felt like tiny bolts of lightning were shooting through my knee every time she touched it. Disinfecting it was even worse. After the sickening stabs of agony subsided, Nya felt my knee again, and frowned.
“The bone’s chipped,” she said. “Kai, you have to see a doctor or someth—”
“We can’t afford it,” I interrupted, finally speaking to her. Saying those four words out loud seemed to transform our nightmare of a situation into reality.
“What do you mean?” Nya said slowly.
I finally looked her in the eyes. They were shining with tears. My throat tightened. I hadn’t even told her what had happened yet. Then I realized that her tears were for my sake. She hated seeing me like this. She hated seeing me hurting and discouraged. And I hated myself for causing those tears. I needed to be strong. For Nya. So I told her what happened, not letting my voice quaver.
Nya blinked, opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again.
“I’m so sorry, Nya,” I said, my voice cracking traitorously.
She suddenly punched me in the shoulder.
“Ow?” I said, confused.
“You idiot! Why are you apologizing?” She embraced me, and I could feel her tears wetting my shoulder. “I can’t believe you did all that for me.”
I hadn’t explicitly said that when I told her what happened, but she knew how to read between the lines. I rubbed her back, trying to comfort her. “I love you, Sis.”
I was surprised how seldom I said those words. She already knew, and I knew she loved me, but it was something that needed to be said more often. Because it was true.
“I love you too, Bro.”
All of my pains melted away in our embrace. I hadn’t failed as a guard yet. Nya was still right here. I knew we might be uncomfortable for a while, but I knew we would pull through, one way or another.
We had to.
Together.
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