Her vision was filled with nothing but darkness and the sweet smell of blood filled her nostrils. Karai crept through the sewer tunnel so quietly, it made her wonder if she was even moving at all. But she knew she was.
The way her body swayed in the darkness was the only thing that calmed the speed of her racing heart. She knew she was going the right way, she had been there before. Karai didn't know how long she had been searching for, but she knew she was close.
The seventeen year old girl lifted her hand in the vastness of the darkness and brushed her fingers against the wall. She lifted her other hand to her face to wipe away the sweat only to feel more dampness be smeared behind: Michelangelo's blood. Karai felt her lips twitch.
She took another step and lights suddenly flickered on. Karai was momentarily blinded and had to stop herself from grabbing her weapons. She wasn't under attack and wouldn't be.
It didn't take long for her eyes to adjust. When they focused, Karai discovered she had found exactly what she had been looking for: the turtles' and Hamato Yoshi's lair.
Karai hadn't expected it to be so...nice. The furniture was placed with care and everything she laid eyes on was personalized to show that not just creatures rejected from the norm lived there, but also a family that had once looked out for one another, cared for each other...but not anymore.
The kunoichi glanced down at herself. Her uniform was soaked in thick, crimson liquid. She glanced back from where she had come from to find she had left a bloody trail from the gore she carried. The blood the turtles' shed...
Karai turned back to the lair and made herself at home. She passed by the training dummy the hot headed one probably used on a daily basis. Would the dummy miss him? She glanced over at how torn up it was with the numerous weapons jabbed into it and knew it wouldn't.
The kunoichi continued on and glanced at the stairs she assumed led to the brothers' rooms. The rooms that would never be used again. Would they gather dust? What state would they be preserved in until someone else happened to stumble upon the remains?
She passed by a lab Karai knew could only have been owned by the scrawny one. Karai glanced in and smirked. He had been the most fun to kill, and the blood that covered her probably was mostly his of the four mutants.
Karai sneered at the memory, the look of anger leaving his face as she took his life, all because he had thrown himself in the way of the ginger. It dumbfounded her that he would end his life to ensure that April's life would continue on. He was weak, stupid, careless...everything she wasn't.
April had survived and escaped, but not untouched. She had left, her body covered in the purple one's blood. Now April had to live knowing the four brothers that she had come to love were dead. All dead, thanks to Karai. And one day, Karai would find April and take her life as well.
Karai smirked and continued on up some stairs where she entered the dojo. It was large and beautiful and, for a moment, she stopped and gasped. She had to admit, Hamato Yoshi really knew how to decorate, something her father never could quite grasp.
The kunoichi eyed the cabinets and made a mental note to come back and raid the place for weapons she could use. She glanced at a curtain that she guessed led to a kitchen and a large box that could only be Hamato Yoshi's room.
Karai scoffed and turned to leave. There wasn't anything there that would interest her besides the weapons, finding the lair was a waste of time. But as she turned, something small caught her eye and she froze in her place.
The girl turned slowly to face the object that had caught her attention and stared it down. What was this bull shit? Karai inched her way to the small object as though it were an enemy, it might as well have been.
Karai stared down what could have been a normal family portrait for anyone. But to Karai, it wasn't. The kunoichi felt as though her blood had run cold. She knew the man was Hamato Yoshi, but the woman beside him must have been a fraud. Some sort of sick joke.
The kunoichi immediately dug her hand under her armor and yanked out a small necklace with a locket. She clicked it open and gazed at the black and white photo of her mother, a single portrait of the woman when she was younger.
Growing up, Shredder had told her how much she looked like her mother. She did see the resemblance, but she had thought maybe she had gotten her looks from her father.
Why was Hamato Yoshi with her mother? And who was the child they were holding? Karai narrowed her eyes and dropped her sword. The child looked just like her. The Shredder had only one photo of her as a baby that was charred from the fire from so long ago, and there was no mistaken. But what did that mean?
Karai nearly collapsed from running. She had bolted out of the dojo, down the stairs and fell to her knees in the living room. She gasped for air and held in tears that stung her eyes.
It was too painful to be true. It couldn't be...Shredder was heartless, but not towards her...he wouldn't lie to her...right? Karai froze and knew he was capable of lying to her as much as he was to anyone else, if not more so.
Was she really the daughter of Hamato Yoshi? Karai wanted to deny it, but knew it had to be true. The photo was of a happy couple holding their child, not a good friend posing with her mother. No matter how much she wanted to tear up the photo and pretend she never saw it, she knew the truth was imprinted on the back of her mind and never will.
Hamato Yoshi was her father. Her true father. This whole time, Karai had been living a lie. What did that make her to the Shredder, then? A shiver ran down her spine and she knew she had just been a giant piece in his whole vendetta, and she had done his dirty work for him.
Karai shakily sat up, her hair matted to her face with sweat. The Shredder didn't really love her, and now that his vendetta was over, what did that make her? He didn't need her anymore. She doubted he would send them back to Japan to have a regular life. He isn't Mr. Good Father, never has and never will be. She would go back to training alone and sticking to herself in Japan, just as it had been for all those years.
The kunoichi glanced down at her hands, at herself, and suddenly felt sick. The turtles and their father were dead. Gone. Their blood stained her skin and soaked her armor. What once felt like victory now made her feel disgusted. She wanted to tear off her armor and wash the blood away from her, but instead, she could only stare and gape.
Suddenly, she was back to being the scared little girl she used to be. The night had become a nightmare and she wanted to desperately wake blinked, looking around the lair as though she half expected the boys to come out, for Mikey to pelt her with a water balloon or for Leo to say 'just kidding! We had you fooled, didn't we? Nice try, Karai.' But no one came out. It was just her and the memories the boys left behind.
A shrill sound like an animal crying as it died pierced her ears. It echoed up and down the sewer tunnels and through the lair. At first, the sound startled Karai and she wondered where it had come from. It took her a minute to realize that the sound was coming from her.
Karai tore at her hair, not really feeling the pain. Tears dripped from her eyes and to the ground below, her wailing ceasing to stop or even quiet down for that matter. She crumpled over in a pain she never thought she could have as she drowned herself in the sound of her own misery and bask in the never ending pain of her biggest mistake.