Curse and Misfortune
Story collaborated with and based on art for each chapter by crabapplered. Please go and see the original artwork for this part here: h t t p : / / c r a b a p p l e r e d . l i v e j o u r n a l . c o m / 6 7 5 7 0 . h t m l
Pairing: Leo/Don, Mike/Raph Warnings: perhaps for eventual violence Disclaimer: Don't own. No money being made.
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The galaxy spread across a cloudless night sky, sparkling behind a black moon. In the respectable districts, houses and shops closed up and lights were doused. Darkness moved into the streets, kept back only by a scant handful of lanterns in the hands of hired night watchmen. Yawning as they leaned against the nearest wall, none of them heard the tiny rustle of cloth as Karai slipped by them, passing just beyond the lantern's glow.
Sometimes on two legs, sometimes on four, she flowed like water along rooftops and through the street, her tail outflung for balance and twitching behind her. When she came to the end of the row of houses, she crept down, darted across the street, and scaled the high wall circling her target's estate.
For a moment she paused at the top. Tall wisteria vines wrapped around the other side of the wall and flowered around her, hiding her as she scanned the garden. Two guards walked along the path lit by a few lanterns, murmuring to each other in low voices. Karai watched them disappear around the corner, then slid along the top of the wall until she was clear of the vines that would snap or rustle if she touched them. Once down, she hurried on all fours to the closest door and gently slid it open enough to look in.
The hall was dark, but the garden light leaked in so that she could make out the edges of the floor and walls. She opened the door and slid in, then closed it with her tail tip as she eased her body down and almost completely flat, only inches off the floor. With her hands braced as far out as possible, she could just barely maneuver across the edges of the floor slats built to creak and groan if someone stepped on them. A few times she lost her balance overextending herself, but a quick flick of her tail to one side or the other set her right again.
If only she'd been able to sneak in one of her ninja as a maid or a guard, she thought, then her own loyal clan would have assassinated this man. She had other duties to attend to, plans and schemes that demanded her attention. But sometimes she had no choice but to bloody her own hands.
She rounded the corner and heard him speaking to his servants in that shrill, frantic voice men get when they know they're in danger. He finished with a shout. Footsteps came rushing toward the door and Karai skittered up to the ceiling, bracing herself by pushing her tail hard against the far wall. Servants rushed out, and she spotted the ryo in their hands. So he was hoping to buy ronin off the street to protect himself.
The servants running down the hall masked the noise as she dropped back to the floor and went inside, sliding the door so softly behind her.
Like most merchants, he was fat under layers of silk. With his back to the door, he took slow, wobbly steps to the small table in the corner with a candle. He knelt down and stared at the stacks of ryo, then smacked them with his hand. The coins glittered as they fell, like stars cast into the darkness, coming to rest at her feet.
Finally he noticed her. This part never changed. First the wide eyes, the sharp breath of recognition. Then the way they always stumbled over and half-crawled, half-dragged themselves away. The way their eyes followed her hands as she unsheathed her kunai and unwound the chain attached to the blade.
The way they didn't yell or run until she swung the heavy weight at the end and took a step towards them.
Before he reached the far wall, she loosed the chain. The metal flew out and snagged against his neck, then wrapped around again and again, tighter and tighter until the heavy weight slammed into the back of his head. She yanked back hard, drawing him across the floor until he lay face down on the floor, gasping in panic.
"No one leaves the clan," she told him, whipping him onto his back with her tail. "Not even fat merchants who forget where they came from."
Blood splashed the floor. Flew up the wall. Found the cracks in the floor and poured into the darkness beneath the house.
By the time anyone arrived, all that was left was the candle guttering in its own wax.
She did not relax until she reached her current hideaway, a house kept by her clan on the outskirts of the city. Built without any concern for the proper flow of nature, the wood boards of the wall looked more like white bones kept together out of ill will alone. She closed the window behind herself and locked the latch, testing it to make sure it wouldn't open. Ignoring her bed for now, she crept across the dirt floor to the corner and the fire pit permanently crackling. The flames made the blood on her hands shine, but it was easily wiped away.
Above the fire hung her most prized possession, a mirror that still reflected the day it lured the sun goddess out of her cave. The blinding light made staring into the mirror dangerous for any but the most holy or royal personages, but she'd found a way to blacken the glass with fire and the negative chi that gathered in this, the most inauspicious direction of a house already made of misfortune. Tracing the edge with her hand, she looked into her dark reflection and watched her features blur and disappear.
"Donatello," she whispered.
Linked by the curse on Raphael and his spell sealing it, the mirror gave her a reflection of Donatello sitting in the same decrepit shack he'd been in the last few times she looked in on him. She could not move the mirror to look at anything else in the room, but she didn't have to. Leonardo lay in clear view at Donatello's side, fast asleep. The strip of cloth bound around his arm didn't hide the fading poison.
Enrapt, she touched her fingertips to the glass, following the line of his body. The scars she'd left on his face stood out against his skin. Did he think about her when he touched them? Did he ever dream of what they might have been if he had not betrayed his clan? If he had not betrayed her?
Her hand tightened on the mirror, making the gold and jade tremble. Honorless coward! Was she worth less than a dead father and disgrace?
Donatello's head snapped up and he glared. He couldn't see her, but he knew. He always knew. In an instant, the reflection faded and she saw her own face again. Damn sorcerer. He never let her see her intended for more than a moment.
But he couldn't stop her from trying Raphael. The curse linked him directly to the mirror, though she could only see him when he left his shrine. If only she knew where it was! But the land around Edo was vast and easy to hide in, and Donatello had hidden him well.
To her surprise, tonight Raphael came into view. The image didn't last long. As Raphael thrashed and screamed in pain, the ink creeping down his body, Michelangelo held him and dragged him back up the path to the shrine. At the very bottom of the mirror she saw a black gloved hand still holding a tanto, one of her own ninja.
Her hands tightened around the mirror. Beyond the screaming and her own heartbeat pounding in her ears, whispers swirled in the glass. Raphael's thoughts, wracked and howling, bled into the mirror's magic. The words were indiscernible now, but as more time passed, she would soon catch his soul.
It should have been Leonardo's soul in her hands, her dear childhood friend turned traitor. He'd always been so honorable, so how could he follow his coward of a father and that whore--why hadn't his loyalty to his clan trumped his loyalty to his family? Why hadn't he been that loyal to her?
Raphael disappeared from sight as Michelangelo dragged him back to the shrine. As the mirror faded, she pushed it away and stared into the darkness. Raphael was as good as hers. In time she would claim Leonardo as well.
end