For Whatever Reason

____"Yum reds groot," Jeremy sighed contentedly, swallowing the last of the green spiced soup Jimmy was feeding him. He smiled happily as the quiet ninja gently wiped the spilled remants from his dark cheeks. He didn't even seem to notice the harsh penetrating glare the exotic ninja was giving him, busy adjusting the gigantic straw sombero he refused to take off.
____"Did you do this to me?" Jimmy demanded, watching Jeremy silently tilt his head to the side, big black eyes adorably inncocent and blank, mouth agape once again. Why the boy simply refused to breathe through his nose Jimmy would never know. It wasn't long before the stoic ninja let his question drift away, heaving a dismissive sigh as he turned to rinse their few dishes. They both knew the ninja cared for the boy out of his own free will, a fact Jimmy was slow to admit.
____“My life revovles around you… I almost don‘t even care that the world is about to fall apart. I fill my time making sure you‘ve eaten, helping you get dressed and bathed, ignoring everything else that really matters. I wonder what mother would think?”
____“Try kill now,” Jeremy laughed, absentmindedly poking himself in the chest. He was laying on the ground listening to Jimmy’s words as only he could. The infantile telepath was always inside Jimmy's head, something his caretaker knew all too well, and still he spoke. The words he felt always took flight around this peculiar boy, Jimmy aware and content that his breath was wasted, his mind already an open book to the gangly teen. This was the only time he would truly speak, but the time for that was over. He had a schedule to keep, and no matter how far away from the monastery he strayed he always kept to the regimen.
____“Let‘s go Jeremy,” he sighed, eyes closed as he reached for the two waiting swords at his side.
____Two glistening transparent katana’s tasted the fresh spring air once more, their silver glint sparkling in the waning sunlight. A few small flicks of the stoic ninja’s wrist rendered the swords momentarily invisible, light dancing through them inconsequentially before he settled into the familiar stance.
____“Fight, chase, play, try… again, AGAIN!” Jeremy screamed, rolling around in a fit of insane laughter. The boy really was out of his mind, clearly unaware of how many times he really and truly had almost died. Or maybe he did know… It didn’t really matter either way. His new surrogate father was going to attempt to slay him once more, the child’s insight bordering on premonition the only way Jimmy could truly hone his skills. And so they locked eyes, Jeremy’s smile fading to a drooling slack jaw as his eyes shifted, their colorless depths replaced by the calculating silver of his assassin caretaker.
____“Me sees me,” Jeremy whispered, literally looking at himself through the opposing man’s eyes. He felt stiff and brittle, like a salty wheat cracker just waiting to crack with any slight pressure. His scrawny body was now locked in the same Zen like readiness as the ninja he’d slipped inside. He knew what was coming, and could feel the attack changing too, drifting between every single action Jimmy knew in an effort to confuse him, but that was impossible. Unless Jimmy confused himself he would never confound the boy, and so the fight began. Two swift transparent blades sliced through the meadow on courses already known, with alternate routes and second strikes likewise memorized, all in an endless stream of information. A lesser mind would have crumbled under the onslaught, but Jeremy’s mind had collapsed a long, long time ago. He was left with just enough empty space to perfectly ingest it all, dancing through Jimmy’s past even as he twirled around his piercing swords. It took only minimal effort to perfectly evade Jimmy’s incomparable attacks. He’d run, trip, and roll smiling all the while, only to awkwardly stand and cartwheel through the next barrage, somehow unscathed all the while. Jeremy’s body might as well have been clay the way he bent and contorted himself around Jimmy’s strikes, glancing impacts and absorbing kicks with a style beyond ridiculous. At first it had infuriated Jimmy, but the boy was merely playing after all, and no matter how he survived these matches it was still impressive, a feat worth respect by any standards.
____“Sparkly?” Jeremy asked, his eyes still lodged inside his attackers head, their battle taking place in a home long departed. Jenbu monastery lay around them in pristine clarity, Jeremy’s mind working overtime to recreate Jimmy’s birthplace for the both of them. It was how all there matches went, their world transformed within the boundaries of their imagination by the power of Jeremy’s will. For whatever reason the boy regularly took them back to the Jenbu monastery’s white gravel training ground. Maybe the overwhelming urgency it festered in Jimmy’s heart entranced him? It’s not like Jimmy cared, focused only on the waving yellow poncho before him… and the bare black feet walking across his sword?
____It never ceased to amaze him that Jeremy could put himself in such impossible predicaments. Any other person would have seen their foot sliced to shreds, but before he could even flick his sword upward to rend his entire leg the boy was rolling down his back to land behind him… on his face? Their was absolutely no care whatsoever for the proper ascetics of a warrior, no concept of even simple pride. Jimmy heard him quietly munching juicy green blades of grass before he even turned to finish him. His sword cut through the air potent and precise, beautiful in its murderous ark only to clang decidedly with the rock Jeremy was suddenly inspecting. With one squinted eye Jeremy focused entirely on the strange gold streak in the rocks surface, loosing interest as fast as he found it to yawn around the next blow from Jimmy’s ever vigilant swords.
____The match was over, Jeremy curling into a small ball to sleep as the gentle lull of ocean waves took him away. Jimmy had no choice but to concede, unable to force Jeremy to do anything outside his will and so he picked up the almost weightless teen and watched the world around them fall apart. He couldn’t quite remember when Jeremy had created the beach around them, but as his slumber took hold the meadow soon returned. It was time to regroup with the other Elements, and so as Alex requested Jimmy began to bend the earth to his will, silver eyes glaring neon brown as his feet sank into the soil. It was still extremely awkward, but he would keep pushing himself to learn how to control the Elemental power locked inside. Their wasn’t much more he could learn physically anyway. Without growing spiritually his matches with Jeremy would keep ending in failure, and he refused to be weak among the other Elements as well. He’d had enough of that in the monastery.
____This was to be a new beginning for him, and the oddly adorable snoring mess of a boy in his arms was the center of it all.