Disclaimer: I do not own Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja. BACK, you rabid lawyers, BACK!

Credit for the cover art goes to the lovely Raifiel over at DeviantArt - check out her stuff, it's amazing!

A/N: We never are told in any detail of the Nomicon's origins - or even why he and the Sorcerer have it out for each other.

I believe that it's personal.

Big Brother

The Ninjanomicon wasn't always a book. Before the Sorcerer, before the Ninja, the Ninjanomicon was simply Nomi, the oldest of five brothers.

They weren't related by blood - but out on the streets they lived on, that didn't really matter. As the oldest of their little orphan gang, Nomi took the responsibility of keeping his little brothers safe. Keeping them warm and fed. Making sure they were cared for, in a way that had been taken from Nomi himself so long ago that the memories were blurred and fuzzy.

Nomi had originally learned Ninja skills to provide for his brothers. At first, he only used the skills to steal food- spending money was a luxury at the best of times, and the way everyone's faces lit up when he presented bread that wasn't stale or moldy… it always made the law-breaking worth it.

On colder nights, though… simply stealing food wasn't enough to provide for Nomi's brothers. Winter was cold, and coats and blankets and medicine… they were out of reach for anyone without cash.

There was a limit to what - and how much - Nomi could steal.

That was how Nomi met the Sorcerer for the first time.

The first time he laid eyes on the Sorcerer, Nomi couldn't suppress the chill that danced down his spine. All his instincts screamed at him to get away, to run, that this man could not be trusted and that every minute spent in his company was time spent waltzing towards the abyss.

But he couldn't run. This ominous man, who was possibly (definitely) insane was Nomi's new… employer, for lack of a better word. Every day Nomi didn't earn money was another day that his brothers went without basic essentials - ones that Nomi couldn't afford.

So when the Sorcerer ordered Nomi to beat people up for "disrespect," he bit back his distaste and did it. When the Sorcerer ordered Nomi to destroy people's property to "teach them a lesson," he swallowed his shame, and did it. Nomi did a lot of things that he was not proud of, working as the hired muscle of a man with no principles.

But it would all be worth it in the end, Nomi always told himself, every time he came back to the little lean-to in the alleyway his rag-tag family called home. His brothers never saw the nausea Nomi suppressed, or the evidence of sleepless nights. They never knew what Nomi did for a living, to ensure that everyone had everything they needed...

And for as long as Nomi could help it, they'd never find out.

Once Nomi finally earned enough money to get his family out of that place (to ESCAPE), he'd quit. There's no way the sorcerer could keep Nomi there forever, he was certain of it...

Right?

Though there were times…

When Nomi's blade dripped with blood, and yet another pair of sightless eyes glared at him with wordless accusation…

Times that the doubt pushed its way to the front of his heart. That Nomi wondered if he was any better than the man whom he condemned as a monster.

After all, Nomi was the one doing the Sorcerer's dirty work.

What did that make him?

Nomi had been in the Sorcerer's employ for four years, now...

Four long, hellish years.

During this purgatory, every one of his initial doubts and fears were justified. The Sorcerer had always been meddling in the arcane arts (it was why everyone called him the Sorcerer, after all), but since he never did it in front of him, Nomi usually dismissed it as an "out of sight, out of mind" kind of thing.

At least, until Nomi was called on for "cleanup."

"A little mishap," Sorcerer had always called them. But every time Nomi looked up, up, and further up to meet a pair of monstrous eyes that had ostensibly once been human, he couldn't suppress the dread that settled heavily in his stomach like a stone.

But every time, Nomi would remind himself that he had a job to do. Every time, Nomi pushed his emotions to the back of his consciousness and did what he did best. What he had been doing for the past four years, and if the Sorcerer had his way (which he always did; no one survived denying the Sorcerer) would be doing for the rest of his life.

How had it turned out like this?

Nomi's world shattered, the day that his gut feeling was right all along.

He had known that the Sorcerer used human beings in his macabre rituals. He knew, but he never gave any thought to the fact that the Sorcerer plucked people off the streets for his twisted idea of a hobby.

Outlaws. Runaways. Homeless people. Folks that law-abiding citizens wouldn't miss, when they were turned into rampaging monsters.

Who would miss a couple of street rats?

It wasn't until Nomi returned to an empty home, that he realized why the Sorcerer's latest batch of "mishaps" seemed frighteningly familiar.

Too late.

Several hours too late.

Why, why hadn't Nomi just taken his brothers and ran, back when they all still had a chance?

Taking down a crime lord is a dangerous thing. Trying to take down a crime lord that wields sorcery is downright suicidal.

But that's okay with Nomi.

He's been dancing on the edge of death for so long…

He stopped caring where he landed, once the Sorcerer tossed his family over the side.

Magic is a lot harder than it looks.

Nomi would've liked nothing more than to chuck the musty old spell book he was holding and just slit the man's throat, but he'd learned long ago that the Sorcerer had taken measures to prevent himself from dying in any…. conventional ways.

Which was the reason why Nomi sat cross-legged on the floor, tearing his hair out trying to understand arcane phrases in a book that he stole from the Sorcerer's personal archive.

At first, all Nomi could make out was a pile of obscure proverbs. In fact, for the first two weeks, all he could make out was proverbs. Wasn't this supposed to be a spell book?

In the end, it took a bit of deciphering (okay, a lot), but the the real contents of the book presented itself… and Nomi knew he had his answer.

So what if the spell sealed away the soul of not only the target, but the caster, too?

It's not like Nomi would have seen his brothers if he ever died. There was no way he'd go to the same place that they did….

Having your soul sealed inside of a spell book is a very painful process.

Nomi took comfort in the fact that the pain the Sorcerer was going through was worse.

Two hundred years of being a book is really, really boring. When was the last time Nomi had spoken to someone?

Or at least, what passed for speaking in this form… though he supposed that he should be grateful that he could communicate at all. The power of projections was actually a recent development, manifesting in the last ten years or so. Nomi supposed that he should be happy about developing the power to affect the world around him, after two hundred years of not having anything resembling an actual body.

But then…

If Nomi had powers that were manifesting in his sealed state, then what about the Sorcerer?

And once again, Nomi's misgivings about the Sorcerer proved to be correct.

Why couldn't he ever be wrong about these things?

Even worse, this time Nomi was helpless to do anything about it. What could a mere book do about the Sorcerer turning people into monsters? To stop him, from gathering the power needed to escape his prison?

As it turns out; a lot more than Nomi initially thought.

The first time someone had picked up the book that Nomi's soul inhabited, he had only been sealed for about half a century. It felt a little weird - and even violating - to feel someone turning through the pages - but nothing extraordinary had happened.

This time, when a high-school freshman mistook Nomi for a textbook...

The kid landed in Nomi's mindscape.

There was a lot of screaming from all parties involved.

When Nomi had first sealed himself into a stolen spell book, he had believed that he was defeating his enemy, at the price of a fate worse than death.

But three hundred years later - as he buries his newest protégé in a pile of carp (that never stopped being funny) during their latest training session in Nomi's mindscape... he could think of worse ways to live.

At least this way...

Nomi can be a big brother again.

The boy pops out of the fish pile, spluttering about what did he do THIS time, and WHY DO YOU ALWAYS DO THAT, YOU CRAZY BOOK.

Nomi drops more fish.

Yeah. Life is good.