Green Ninja Kai AU, the most unoriginal AU premise ever but shush let me have my fun
"Maybe you were right last time. Maybe we do have more in common than I thought."
Last time, Morro had been dead set on convincing the ninja of what they had in common, how he was right and Wu was wrong, and how he and the old man's new pupils should work together. This time, hearing echoes of his own words, confirmation of so many things which he'd fought so hard just to make them understand, he wants to track down one of the Masters of Time in the Departed Realm so he can go back and stop those words before he ever put them in the Green Ninja's head.
"Wu only cares about my power, not about me."
That one, though, was not so directly from Morro, and came as something of a surprise.
"The others..." Kai scoffs. "He's treated them different ever since he found out about me. Like they're not worth his time. Except Lloyd — as soon as his powers showed up, Wu suddenly couldn't let him out of his sight. Like he never abandoned him."
Morro doesn't know what to do with this information. He's not totally sure who Lloyd is. His powers must really be something, if Wu took notice— no. He can't take Kai's words at face value. There's something going on and he's wary, unnerved by the changes in the Green Ninja since the last time they met.
He's angry, a seething anger kept in check but only just. It's most clearly visible whenever Wu is mentioned, which is disproportionately often, even considering the huge role he played in Morro's earlier arguments that Kai is rehashing now. Either they had preexisting problems, or the seeds of those arguments grew even more than they were meant to.
Maybe finding a Master of Time isn't such a bad idea. As the Green Ninja goes on, railing about the way his master treats his friends and himself, about the childhood that this Lloyd person is missing out on, he becomes even more unnerved than his initial reaction to finding himself face to face with the guy and not being blasted at. Which had been very unnerving, but he'd quickly realized that it meant exactly the opportunity he had come looking for, to reason with the ninja and apologize and seek— maybe not forgiveness but some kind of understanding—
It looks like Kai is understanding all the wrong things. Do the other ninja know he's this unhinged? Surely they would have talked some sense into him by now. The things he's saying... He feels a worry for his old Sensei that he hasn't felt in a long, long time. It's clear that the Green Ninja feels betrayed by his master and is overprotective of his friends (no, family, he keeps calling them his family). The question is whether he's dangerously overprotective yet.
...this is the Green Ninja. Of course he's dangerous. Hence the worry for Wu.
"Where is your family, by the way?" Morro cuts in to the rant.
Kai looks like he's about to answer, starts with a wave of his hand, and then narrows his eyes. "Why do you want to know?"
Because it's not a good idea to be alone while grappling with resentment for someone you thought of as a father as family. Because with no one around to talk you down, you wound up doing really stupid things. Because you could die get hurt trying to prove yourself. "It's just that you're out here on your own talking to a ghost that's tried to kill you before, is all," Morro says, and there's a beat before he realizes that sounds threatening— "Not that I'm going to try again. Like I said, I just want to talk, but shouldn't you have backup anyway?"
Kay dismisses the concern with an Eh, still eying him suspiciously. "Why would you want to talk with them? I'm the one you've got issues with. Me and Wu, anyway."
...since when has the Green Ninja dropped titles for his master? Has he been doing that the whole time he's been ranting? It isn't a good sign. Morro initially dropped the title out of intentional disrespect, thinking the man didn't deserve it, and now he doesn't use it because he's the one who doesn't deserve to imply any kind of relationship. "To apologize?" he tries, forcing half a smile. "I did do some damage."
"Yeah," Kai says, shifting into a slightly readier stance, "you did."
Morro raises his hands — only a little, placatingly —and repeats, "I'm not going to do that again. I only want to apologize. Especially to," he falters, but can tell that he won't be able to get away with just trailing off the words, so he quiets but makes himself finish, "to Master Wu."
Kai snorts at that, either the inclusion of the title or the idea of apologizing. "There's nothing to apologize to him for," he bites out, and that answers that. "I know what he did to you."
Oh does he now? "He... took me in," Morro begins cautiously. "Gave me a place to stay, food to eat. Trained me." Loved me.
"Turned his back on you as soon's he found out you weren't the Green Ninja."
The one who did turn out to be the Green Ninja is... surprisingly calm as he says that. No, calm is the wrong word; his voice is even, but his face, his eyes, they're sharp and hanging on close to whatever reaction the words will garner. Oh. So he's trying his hand at manipulation. It's too obvious, it's a weak attempt, but all the same this is a weak point for Morro and Kai definitely knows that. "He didn't kick me out," he says, then forces himself to stop gritting his teeth. "He made a mistake, but then I made a much worse one. He didn't—"
"You were a kid and he shouldn't have put that kind of pressure on you to begin with!" Kai snaps.
Morro stares. Doesn't know what to make of that. Doesn't know what to think. Since returning to the Departed Realm, he's been working on his apologies, working out what to say to prove that he regrets what he did, how to show his old master that he's changed. It hadn't truly occurred to him that Wu had in fact been partially in the wrong and Morro's own mistakes don't overwrite those of his master.
He sees that now mainly because Kai is practically a kid, even if not quite as young as he'd been himself. They can both be wrong. They can all be wrong. Morro's not totally sure what's right at this point — "family" would sound right except for the way Kai talks about it, the edge to his voice and twist to his words that he's almost sure shouldn't be there, but then what would he know about family himself — and he had sort of planned on getting his apologies out, making things right as much as he could, and fading back to the Departed Realm where he belonged.
Now... now he thinks he might have stumbled into some kind of responsibility here. He had put at least some of these ideas in Kai's head, and the guy is clearly not all right. He should probably make sure that Wu and the other ninja are aware of things, and then they can deal with it themselves. He's not cut out for it.
Still, what he can do is make sure the Green Ninja gets home safe. As long as it doesn't rain again or something, that should be within his power. "I want to talk to him," he says finally. "I—"
Kai's scoff interrupts his attempt to swear not to harm anyone. He doesn't say anything else right away, just rolls his eyes, looks off to the side, crosses his arms. Morro waits, and finally the living ninja mutters, without looking back, "Why? It won't do you any good. He hasn't changed."
"I still want to," he says, firm but quiet. Kai has too much angst going on to get any sense out of him, or into him for that matter. He'll have to rely on his family.
He has to swallow a surge of jealousy at the thought of having that, having a family to rely on to pull him out of a dangerous mindset. But no, he had something good and he threw it away. He isn't innocent, no matter how much of the fault was on Wu. He can regret, but he doesn't get to go around feeling sorry for himself, not until he's out of the way in the Departed Realm again. For now, there's some amount of responsibility he has to take for what he's done, and he figures getting the Green Ninja safely back to his family is a decent start.
