"I'm the leader and i don't trust him" Leo said sternly, trying to win the argument which was just getting worse and worse with each word said.
"You're the leader on the battlefield, you are not in charge of my personal life" Karai growled at him.
The two of them had been standing around the counter fighting since the end of dinner and by the looks of things the argument was nowhere near finished. It all started because Karai had been going with April to watch Casey's hockey games the past couple of weeks and a few times afterward they went for pizza or something with Casey's friend Matt. The problem is that each night Karai came home saying Matt had gone with them after the game was coincidentally a night when the foot clan had attacked the turtles on patrol and considering this had happened a total of six times now, Leo didn't think it was all that coincidental. So now that Karai had told him she had plans to hang out with just Matt tonight, well the current argument had ensued.
"It's my responsibility to look out for you, both on the field and off" Leo argued while trying to maintain a calm demeanor.
"I'm not a baby Leo!" Karai shouted at her brother. She knew her response was immature, really immature. But truthfully she didn't know what else to say. Even in this heated argument it had touched her to hear that Leo would always be looking out for her.
"I never said you were!" Leo shouted back
"What is going on in here?!" Splinter's voice cut through the argument and there was silence for a minute, neither Karai or Leo wanted to admit that their fight boiled down to Leo trying to keep his sister away from a boy.
"Well?" Splinter questioned, raising an eyebrow.
"I don't trust her friend Matt" Leo admitted.
Splinter looked at his son in curiosity. He knew about his daughter's plans for the night and didn't have a problem with them but Leonardo normally didn't intervene in any of his siblings personal agenda's unless he felt he absolutely needed to.
"Oh and why is that?" Splinter asked Leo who suddenly realized that his argument sounded like nothing more than paranoia.
"Every time we've been attacked by the foot clan recently it's only been when she's with Matt. I don't think it's a coincidence" Leo explained and Splinter then looked to Karai who still looked very annoyed with Leo.
"Miwa" Splinter said, snapping his daughter's attention back to him.
"Do you trust this boy?" He asked her and she nodded.
"Then you may go, but be careful" Splinter said, he trusted his daughter's instincts and knew that after everything that had happened she was not a person to trust just anyone. So if she trusted this boy she had met, even if it was just that he wouldn't hurt her, he would let her go.
"So who won?" Raph questioned when Leo fell into the seat next to him on the couch.
"Karai" Leo bitterly answered
"Splinter told her to be careful but said she could go" he continued but Raph merely shrugged.
"You ever think you still have a crush on her?" He asked but Leo just stared at him
"Of course not! Do you have any idea how wrong that would be?!" Leo exclaimed, he had been trying to forget he ever had a crush on Karai.
"Well yeah but you did seem a little jealous" Raph pointed out, smirking when Leo's cheeks turned a bright red color as he frowned.
"I am not jealous" Leo said knowing it was useless due to the fact that he was blushing and of course Raph started laughing.
"Seriously Raph i'm not. I just have a really bad feeling about this guy" he tried to explain
"Leo you've never even met the guy and besides Karai can take care of herself" Raph said and Leo sighed, he knew that.
The strange thing was that he really wasn't jealous. He was embarrassed by the fact that he used to have a crush on Karai, but he was long over that. No this was driven from the fact the she is his sister, from his instincts to protect his family. He knew that assuming Matt was working for the foot clan was taking things a bit too far but he was still afraid that Karai would get hurt, even if it wasn't physically.
"So are you and April like roommates or something?" Matt questioned Karai as the two of them began walking to the ice cream shop.
He had picked Karai up at April's and when they usually hung out with April and Casey Karai always went home with April which he had assumed was just she hung out there a lot but tonight April wasn't home, she was at the movies with Casey.
"No but i was over there before she left and her house is on the way to the ice cream place, i live kind of out of the way" Karai answered being as vague as possible, not that Matt was going to guess that she lived in a sewer.
"Where's kind of out of the way?" Matt questioned but Karai only giggled
"I'm not telling you" she laughed but of course she was serious, she trusted him but not yet enough to let him in on the secret of the lair, she doubted she would ever trust anyone that much.
"Why not? Afraid i'll stalk you?" Matt teased with a smile
"No but my brother will probably kill you if you ever showed up at my house" she said and that wasn't a lie, of course if Matt ever showed up at the lair she would probably kill him before Leo could.
Matt chuckled "He's never even met me" he said, pretending to be hurt.
"Yeah and when i told him we were hanging out tonight i thought he was going to kill me" Karai sort of joked but her smile began to fade, she was still pretty upset with Leo.
"Well maybe if i met him-" Matt began but was cut off.
"I don't think that's a good idea. He was in an accident, he doesn't like people to see him" Karai said being as honest as she could.
Matt was quiet for a second, as if thinking of something to say.
"Sorry to hear that, what happened?" He finally asked
"I'd rather not talk about it" Karai answered and Matt nodded.
A few more minutes passed in silence before Matt finally spoke up again
"Come on i know a shortcut" he said, cocking his head towards an alley.
But Karai knew where they were and where that alley led, the street of Shredder's lair.
"No come on, let's just go the way we usually go" Karai said as she tried to avoid the street at all costs.
"A shortcut is faster" Matt said and before Karai could argue Matt grabbed her wrist and began dragging her towards the alley.
For a second she went with it, she let him drag her but then, when they were halfway through the alley, the church came into sight.
"Matt wait" she said, stopping abruptly which caused Matt to stop since he still hadn't let go of her wrist.
"What's up?" He asked but Karai couldn't think of anything to say, she just stood there with her mouth partially open.
"Karai are you ok?" Matt asked her and she was about to answer, she didn't know what she'd say but she knew she had to say something. But that was when she saw, up on the fire escape of one of the buildings, stood a foot bot.
It was barely visible in the darkness of the alley at night, but it was visible. Narrowing her eyes Karai lightly tried to take back her wrist but just as she suspected Matt didn't let go.
"No i'm not" she answered Matt before yanking her arm back but Matt's grip only tightened before he pulled her forward and sent her crashing face first into the ground.
About seven foot bots jumped out from the shadows, surrounding them as Karai picked herself up.
"It's your choice Karai, you can come with us to see Shredder peacefully or we can take you by force" Matt said to her but she only narrowed her eyes, she was never going to hear the end of this from Leo.
She swung hard behind her, elbowing a foot bot in the stomach and taking it's sword. As the robots attacked she fought them off as best she could but she knew she couldn't win this fight alone and eventually the foot bots restrained her.
"You know you probably should've listened to your brother and stayed home tonight" he teased as he walked towards her.
"I'm not the best listener" Karai retorted and Matt chuckled
"For a kunoichi, you're not the best liar either. 'My brother was in an accident and doesn't like people to see him' please, even if i didn't know that your so called brothers are mutant freaks i'd know you were hiding something" he mocked but Karai only snarled at him.
"Guess i struck a nerve" Matt smirked before turning his attention to the foot bots.
"Bring her to Shredder" he ordered and the robots tightened their grips on their captive's arms, their cold metal fingers digging deeply into her bare flesh but she only smirked as they began to drag her away, she knew how she could win.
"Foot bots attack!" She shouted and the robots obeyed. They released their captive and began to attack their leader who stared at the sight in confusion.
"What? No attack her!" He ordered them and so they turned back around to attack Karai who smirked.
"I taught them everything they know, they respond to my voice just as well as yours" Karai explained to Matt before ordering the robots once again to attack their current master.
"Very well" he said with a nod
"Stand down" he ordered the robots then glared at Karai, and the fight began.
It began with the two teenagers circling each other, neither of them had any weapons. Karai had opted to leave her dagger at the lair and Matt had come without his sword to ensure Shredder that no harm would come to Karai.
"Ladies first" Matt said with a chuckle but Karai only smirked back
"Go ahead" she teased and Matt growled but swung his fist with an aim at Karai's face.
She blocked the punch with the side of her arm and swung with her other arm. Matt grabbed her wrist and kneed her in the stomach, sending her stumbling backwards as he let go of her wrist. He hit her with another blow to the face before she could recover and then backed her into a wall. He held her there with an arm pressed firmly below her neck
"You know Shredder really over estimated you" he said but with a growl Karai grabbed Matt's arm and kicked off the wall. She flipped right over him and before he could turn around she had him pressed against the wall, immobilizing his arms behind his back.
She didn't say anything, she had no sarcastic comment or joke to make. Instead she just rammed Matt's head into the hard brick of the wall before dropping her grip on him.
Matt fell to the ground of the alley dazed from the impact and by the time his senses came back to him Karai was gone.
Leo and Raph were still watching TV when they heard footsteps in the entrance of the lair and turned to see Karai coming through the gates.
"You're home early" Leo commented but Karai didn't say anything.
She just stood there for a moment, one arm hanging at her side and the other placed across her stomach with her hand holding her limp arm. Looking at her feet she walked off in the direction of her yet to be finished bedroom. A quiet minute passed between Leo and Raph after Karai had left the room, as if they were each contemplating whether or not one of them should do something or if they should just leave her alone.
"I'll go talk to her" Leo finally said as he got to his feet.
As he walked towards the bedrooms he tried to figure out if this was a good idea or not, he didn't know what had happened tonight but he was probably the last person Karai wanted to talk to, if she wanted to talk at all. But he reached the closed door of her bedroom and knocked.
"Karai? Are you ok?" He asked but he got no response
"Karai i know you're in there, you're going to have to come out eventually" he said through the door. She doesn't have a bed yet so she would have to come out to sleep although Leo wouldn't put it past her to stay in there and sleep on the cold cement floor just to avoid him.
Sighing Leo placed a hand on the door handle and was surprised when it actually turned, he had suspected she'd lock it. Inside he found Karai sitting up against the back wall of the room, her knees drawn to her chest and one hand over her mouth to muffle the sound of her tears.
At first Leo was taken back by the sight, he had known she was upset when he decided to talk to her, it was the reason he decided to talk to her, but still the sight of her of all people actually reduced to tears was a shock. Shaking off the feeling he quietly closed the door behind him
"Bad night?" He asked sort of jokingly as she took a shaky breath before answering him
"You were right" she said in almost a whisper, Leo's eyes went wide.
"What?" He asked as he sat down across from her.
Karai removed her hand from her mouth but continued to stare absently into her lap, to embarrassed to look her brother in the eye.
"You were right, he was working for Shredder" she confessed and despite trying to hold herself together once she had said it out loud she just lost it.
It wasn't that she had liked Matt, she didn't think of him as anything more than a friend, but it was that for five minutes she had actually felt like a normal person. She wasn't Shredder's trained assassin or Splinter's lost daughter trying to regain her honor. She wasn't uncovering some alien conspiracy or collecting mutagen. She wasn't the girl who had been kidnapped as a baby. She was just another teenager hanging out with a friend, but then it was ripped away from her.
As she cried she felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up in surprise, she been expecting Leo to tell her that he told her so.
"I'm sorry" was what he said.
Karai sniffled "It's ok" she said wiping her eyes and not caring when it smudged her make up.
"No it's not, even i know that when you make friends you shouldn't have to worry that they're secretly plotting to hand you over to Shredder." He said and Karai smiled as she wiped her eyes again.
"Thanks" she said softly
Leo grinned at the sight of her smiling and then stood up
"We were gonna watch a movie, you interested?" He asked as Karai stood up with a nod
"Yeah be there in a minute" she said before leaving the room and heading for the bathroom to wash away the remnants of her make-up.
It was just past ten and the movie was about half over. Once again Leo made a quick scan of the other's and noted that all but Karai were awake. Karai at some point had curled herself into a ball and lay down to fall asleep. Giving a small smile at the sight Leo turned his attention back to the movie but soon began thinking about earlier. He now understood why he had been so worried, he didn't want to see his sister heart broken. When she told him he had been right it had been enough to make him grit his teeth and ball his fists for brief moment before he placed his hand on her shoulder. He hated to see anyone in his family like that, and if they ever saw Matt in battle he'd make sure to throw him off a building. He knew Karai could handle herself but she is still his sister, he would always be there to protect her.