Injured

Verse: 2012, early on

Prompt: Their lives are in the darkness of rooftops and shadows. They had been sparring for weeks now while out on patrol, but what happens after an injury occurs that forces them both out of the shadows?

The night was quiet and cold, a moderate dusting of snow covering the sidewalks and buildings of the city block. Most of the buildings were equally quiet and cold. Few if any windows had lights on, and nothing appeared to be moving. The thin blanket of snow was illuminated under the streetlamps, giving the scene a glow in the middle of the night. High above though, four stories up, the still was split open by the ting and clang of katana striking, metal on metal, the weapons singing through the air as they sought their mark.

Leo and Karai sparred, as they had done most nights for the past several weeks. Out on patrol, they inevitably came across one another – typically she thinking she was sneaking up on him, and him always aware of her presence before she revealed herself. Both kicked up clouds of dust as they sparred, their feet scraping swiftly across the rooftop. The dance continued like this, her advancing and him receiving. Although they had been bantering earlier upon the start of tonight's performance, they were mostly quiet now – focused. Both creatures of the night, her dark suit and gun metal armor and his dark green skin and blue mask blurs against the white dusted rooftop.

"I. Had thought. You. Might. Want to. Talk." Leo grunted in between strikes and blocks. "At least. At some point." He glared over their swords at her, but there was no anger or fury in the look. In fact, a hint of curiosity tinged his eyes as he watched his opponent.

She smiled and cocked her left eyebrow, pressing her blade against him, causing a pause in their dance. "Talking is complicated" she stated sharply, "and I need something simple right now." With the last word, she slid to the right and struck out, forcing Leo to bend sharply at the waist to block her. Quickly, she skipped backwards, putting six feet between them. Both were breathing deeply, engaged and focused on the sparring and everything else faded away. She struck a casual pose, her shoulders relaxed and her head cocked to one side.

"But…. If we were to. Talk. What would we talk about?" she mused, and he couldn't tell if she was talking more to him or to herself. He relaxed his grip slightly on his katana, and stood up a bit straighter, unlocking his stance.

"Uh…" his eyes darted side to side, trying to come up with a topic that even remotely made sense. After a moment, she chuckled softly.

"See? Not so simple is it?" she smiled and brushed a stray hair out of her eyes. Without warning, without even a preparatory step, she jumped to the right, arcing in a perfect somersault. When she landed, a quick flick of her right wrist sent three kunai sailing through the air, directly at him. Leo locked his stance immediately, caught off guard by her jump and now the three daggers on a deadly trajectory for him. Reaching over his right shoulder, he deftly unsheathed his other katana, whipping it in a blur through the air. His eyes slammed shut on reflex when the three kunai made contact with his katana as he swept the swords to his left across his body, deflecting the daggers to the left and towards the next building. Immediately his eyes were back open, and he instinctively followed the path of the daggers in the air to make sure they landed in the wall of the building, where he had intended.

But that didn't happen. He watched, in slow motion, his mouth dropping open silently, as the three kunai missed their mark. Instead of slicing into the, what he realized now was brick, wall of the neighboring building, the three daggers sailed on through the air, missing the end of the wall by mere millimeters. The third one, lowest in the arc, tinged against the corner of the wall and began spinning, falling out of the perfect alignment of the other two. It flipped, end over end, following its brethren but falling farther and farther behind and lower and lower. In the silence, he watched, helpless, as the slivers of metal disappeared past the edge of the building and the edge of the rooftop and out of sight.

From below, a quiet, sharp shriek of surprise and pain rose…. And then nothing.

Both Leo and Karai stood frozen, both holding their breath. Then suddenly, both of them were moving. Leo dropped his katana and barreled to the edge of the rooftop, catching himself on the edge and pressing his chest against it, leaning over to look down. Karai was next to him less than an instant later, her wide green eyes scanning the landscape.

"There." She pointed, not at a person, but to a growing discoloration in the snow. Snaking around the corner of the building, the blood looked almost black.

"Oh no," Leo gasped, his eyes widening. He shifted his weight and placed his right food on the rooftop edge, but as he was about to push himself up and over, Karai grabbed his arm.

"WHAT are you doing?" she seethed through gritted teeth, her eyes locked on his, her brow furrowing and knitting together.

"I have to go down the…" he began but was cut off by her rough pull on his arm, yanking him off balance and back from the rooftop edge.

"You can't go down there. YOU can't be seen!" she punctuated her words with harsh jabs to his chest, jostling his balance as he kept looking at the edge of the building.

"But… but we can't just NOT do anything!" He growled back at her, shoving her shoulder and putting his weight behind it. Surprised by the action, she stumbled two steps. In that break, he vaulted over the edge of the building, landing on the neighboring building's fire escape a floor down, and then jumped the last thirty feet down, tucking into a roll into the nearest shadow. He scuttled across the ground, slightly panicked and he couldn't honestly tell if he was more scared of being seen or what he was about to see. He hugged against the wall and craned his neck to look around the corner.

The woman lay on her back on the ground, not moving. The three kunai had struck her, all at the same time but in three separate places. The first dug into her upper right chest, just underneath her collarbone. The second was in the meat of her shoulder, and the third, much farther down, had punctured her outer, upper thigh. From his vantage point a few feet from her, he could see she was breathing. Around her, toppled over as if slapped from her hands, was a small beige purse and a tote bag with assorted notebooks, binders and a textbook spilled out into the snow. Her jeans were dark with blood on her thigh, and the heavy, oversized sweatshirt was also stained.

"Shit" Karai appeared next to him. Although her words came out harsh, he glanced at her face and saw it had paled to an ashen hue, and her eyes were still wide and almost glassy with panic and fear.

Leo reached into his belt for his phone, but came up empty. He closed his eyes and huffed angrily. He had left his phone at home in his room, specifically so that no one could call him while he was out and interrupt his time with Karai. Now however, he also couldn't call for help or advice. They sat there, immobilized by the scene before them. They had both gotten cuts and scrapes, a few serious bruises and strained muscles, but in their 16 years, neither had seen something like this up close, in real life. Next to him, Karai was breathing faster, and more shallow. He was started to tremble, his mind racing but ricocheting around with indecision, fear, and uncertainty.

The woman on the ground moaned lowly, and her left arm twitched. Her fingers flexed and curled closed. They could see her body start to tremble.

"Call 911" Leo whispered, barely hearing himself. He leaned farther forward, scanning the empty street and darkened windows. He began to crawl around the corner, flattening himself against the brick. He inched towards the woman, watching her intently as if she would suddenly sit up or scramble away. He slid on the ground past her feet and up towards her head, the metallic smell of blood curdling in his mouth. He froze, and closed his eyes, willing himself to move again. Behind him, Karai let out a string of curses as he drew away from her. He tentatively reached out and, with just a fingertip, touched the woman's left hand. When the woman didn't react, his brow furrowed and he swept his eyes over to her chest, watching for movement. To his relief, her chest moved up and down, but very shallowly.

Karai was suddenly across from him, on the woman's other side. Her eyes were locked on the kunai sticking out of the woman's chest and shoulder, and then flitted down to the one in her thigh.

"Call 911" Leo stated, more loudly than the first time. He gently, carefully, laid his hand on the woman's left shoulder, and he immediately felt the unnatural heat radiating off of her. The woman's mouth started to move, gaping open and shut like a fish, and her eyelids fluttered by did not open. He suddenly realized that he couldn't leave the kunai in her like this, but he dared not pull them out until he knew that help was coming.

Karai remained silent, her eyes rounded and wide.

"Karai!" Leo snapped, "You have to call 911!"

Karai swiveled her head in his direction as if she was seeing him for the first time, like he had just materialized before her. Slowly, her face regained its color, and hardened. Her eyes narrowed into slits.

"No"

"We can't just leave her here Karai! This is bad, really bad! It's – "

"We also can't be seen Leo! Neither of us! I don't – I don't think these are lethal. Like not her heart. Someone else can call." Her words were hard and matter of fact, but then her tone became pleading . She stood up abruptly. "We have to go."

Leo gaped at her, the woman between momentarily forgotten but not.

"Karai, I don't have my phone. I can't call Donnie. I can't – I can't do anything. You have to call – we have to get help for her. We can't – we can't just LEAVE her" Leo's eyes swept over the woman again, and froze when he realized the woman was staring at him with wide, hazel gold eyes.

"Karai, I'm pulling these out – if we leave them they police will be looking for ninjas. Neither of us can afford that. But you have to call for help, you HAVE to." He tore his gaze from the woman and looked up at Karai. The young ninja's eyes seemed to rock back and forth with uncertainty. She reached into her belt and held her phone, but did nothing more. She stared at the device in her hand, and then glared at Leo, her eyes glinty and dark.

"This is YOUR fault. YOU fix it." She attempted to turn, but Leo snatched his hand out and roughly grabbed her wrist, causing her to release the cell phone in surprise. The small phone dropped, bouncing cruelly off of the prone woman's stomach and next to Leo's foot.

"Well if you hadn't – " but he didn't finish the sentence. "It doesn't matter." He quickly let go of Karai's wrist, practically shoving it away from him as he scooped up the phone and flipped it open roughly. He punched in 9-1-1 with his thumb.

"9-1-1. What is the nature of your emergency?" The male dispatcher sounded like a robot.

"Uh … yes…. A woman has been… um… stabbed." Leo's voice hitched awkwardly.

"Ok sir. I'm going to get some information from you and get help there right away. Can you tell me where you are? Can you tell me if you can see the injuries?"

"Yes. Yes!" Leo stuttered and then fell into the comfortable cadence of reporting information, like he did every night to his brothers. "I'm at the corner of 11th and uh Bleecher, right at the big brick building. She's um been stabbed three times. Get someone here now!" Leo flipped shut the phone just as Karai's fingers curled around the device and yanked it from his grasp.

"You… you have to help me" he said, lifting his eyes to her hardened ones. "I have to take the kunai out, or else… or else they could find you."

Karai's emerald eyes softened slightly, and her mouth formed a thin, firm line and she nodded stoically. She knelt back down next to the woman. The woman's eyes rolled from side to side slowly, almost lazily.

"What are…" the woman whispered.

"I'm…" Leo spoke quietly, and the woman's gaze returned to him. "I'm sorry."

He carefully wrapped his hand around the dagger in her thigh, unsure how much force to use to pull it out without causing more damage. He had the sudden thought that he had no idea what he was doing. He heard a ripping sound, and glanced over to see Karai cutting and tearing sections of the woman's sweatshirt hem and lower half in large chunks. Karai looked at him, and then down at the dagger he gripped, and nodded.

Gritting his teeth, Leo pulled the weapon straight up, feeling the vibration of the metal as it slid out of the muscle of the woman's leg. Immediately, Karai pounced on the wound, pressing down hard with a piece of the thick sweatshirt. Leo dropped the kunia on the sidewalk, and then shifted to grasp the one in the woman's shoulder. He avoided looking at her face as her breathing became more labored. He clenched his teeth again, and pulled straight up. Again, Karai attacked the wound, applying pressure immediately. Leo dropped the dagger, and sat back on his haunches, taking in the scene before him. The now open wounds were bleeding actively. Very, very faintly, he heard the high pitched whine of a siren. He knew time was running out. He sat back up, and leaned over the woman. He grasped the hilt of the last kunai with both hands, suddenly worried that this one would be harder to pull out. In the corner of his vision, he saw the woman watching him, her face contorted and twisted in pain.

"I'm sorry" he breathed out and then pulled the final dagger. As he pulled, he could feel the blade scrape and run against bone, and the sensation put his teeth on edge. This time, the woman gasped and began to moan, tears falling down the sides of her cheeks and into her hair. For a second, Leo stared at her – all of his senses on overdrive with the smell of blood and wet cement, the cold air stinging his throat, the increasing wail of the siren, the dark red of the blood moving and expanding as if it was alive.

He felt jostled, and then realized Karai was tugging at his shoulder.

"We have to go!" she pleaded, desperation lacing through her strong words. "Leo please."

Leo grabbed the three daggers and started to stand up, Karai's tugging having pulled him almost flush to the wall. The woman's eyes snapped open and looked up at him, confusion and pain racing through them.

"We – we called for help. They're coming. I'm so sorry. I'm so… I'm sorry" Leo muttered. He turned to go, but then turned back, kneeling quickly down to look the woman in the face.

"What's your name?" He asked.

"Al…Allie" she whispered, and then rolled her eyes and then head towards the sound of the approaching siren, her left hand twitching again, as if she was trying to wave.

As Leo and Karai watched from the rooftop, they watched in silence. He had laid the three kunai on the rooftop, but Karai had given the weapons a wide berth, as if they were coiled rattlesnakes. They both watched as the paramedics applied further bandages, and exchanged confused glances when they couldn't find what had stabbed the woman anywhere. They watched as she was lifted into the back of the ambulance, and watched until the vehicle had faded from view. And then they watched up the empty street as its wail also faded into the stillness of the night. Neither of them looked down at the red stains in the snow.

Neither of them looked at the other as they parted, not a word spoken, but hundreds of unspoken uttered.