TMNT and the Legendary Creatures
Night of the Ao nyōbō
The turtles had to travel several blocks over rooftops before they could meet up with Mr. Hidesato for a ride back to headquarters.
While he drove, they told him they'd captured the Yanari and explained that the apartment was something of a wreck. Since the police had been called, they would probably track down the occupants and report the apparent vandalism.
"Would it be possible to send an anonymous donation to the family to take care of repairs and pay for replacing the things that were broken?" Donatello asked.
"Such expenditures are not the norm for warders," Mr. Hidesato said. "Resources must be utilized wisely."
Raphael had been sitting silently in the back seat, his arms crossed. It was easy to see from his expression that he was brooding about something. Now he sat forward and in a belligerent tone said, "So it's okay to pay to get them out of their house but it ain't okay to make it livable enough for them to move back in, is that what you're saying?"
"The former is the cost of recovering a yokai, the latter is not," Mr. Hidesato said.
"I don't think we can break this down to a simple bookkeeping equation," Don argued. "If the responsibility for the creatures is ours, then I believe it is incumbent upon us to make that family whole again."
"They had Yanari in their apartment through no fault of their own, Mr. H," Mikey said.
"Leonardo?" Mr. Hidesato asked, glancing at the elder turtle.
"I agree with my brothers," Leo said, answering the unasked question. "It's only right that we fix what we've broken."
"Then it shall be done," Mr. Hidesato said.
"Ya' know what else was fucked up tonight?" Raph asked with a scowl. "The fact that neither the journal nor you said a damn thing about Yanari being invisible."
"They were not visible?" Mr. Hidesato asked, sounding surprised.
"No they weren't visible," Raph snapped. "If it wasn't for Mikey's power, they'd still be invisible and we wouldn't have caught the little suckers."
"That is a divergence from their normal behavior," Mr. Hidesato said slowly. "One that has never in hundreds of years been demonstrated."
"You've hunted them?" Leo asked.
"With a cousin once, many years ago," Mr. Hidesato said. "They were quite visible, though they moved so quickly that only the sharpest eyes could track their progress."
"Is it possible that the invisibility was due to the adaptation process?" Don asked. "Perhaps the way our buildings are clustered together made invisibility a necessity. There aren't the same types of crawl spaces and wall separations in modern apartment buildings as there would have been in conventional fifteenth century Japanese homes."
"Nor in the villages where I hunted the Yanari," Mr. Hidesato said.
"In horror movies, a lot of monsters are invisible until they let you see them," Mikey said.
Raph frowned at him. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"What we talked about before," Mikey said. "You know, the tul . . . tul . . . what did you call it, Donny?"
"Tulpa," Don supplied.
"Yeah, that," Mikey said. "So what if the Yanari get into the people's apartment, make noises that the people can't figure out, and the people start thinking the place is haunted. Word gets around and everyone in the building starts to think the place is haunted. Haunted equals invisible."
"And the Yanari then become invisible," Don finished. "That's pretty smart, Mikey."
"See, there's more to me than just good looks," Mikey said smugly.
It was a little after two in the morning when Mr. Hidesato dropped the turtles off behind the house and left to return the Rolls to the parking garage.
The first thing that Mikey did upon entering the house was to make a beeline for the kitchen and the refrigerator. "Anybody else want a snack?" he asked.
"My stomach wouldn't mind a shipment," Raph said.
"Sit down and let me take a look at your stitches, Leo," Don said.
"Not on the table," Raph said quickly.
Leo sat on one the chairs and Don kneeled in front of him after grabbing an antibiotic ointment from the medical closet. Don first examined the cut on Leo's cheek, deeming the wound that had been inflicted by the Hari onago to be healed enough so the bandages could be removed.
Don was applying ointment to Leo's leg when Mr. Hidesato returned. "How is the injury?" the man asked.
"Fortunately we heal quickly, so I should be able to remove the stitches soon," Don answered.
Mr. Hidesato appeared curious. "Is that a benefit of your mutation?"
"I believe so," Don said as he stood up. "We know very little about the substance that caused our mutation other than the fact that it was created by an alien race."
Eyes widening in surprise, Mr. Hidesato asked, "The Triceratons who invaded our planet?"
Raph snorted. "Nah, a different group. There's a whole lot of 'em out there in space and it'd make me happy if they stayed out there."
"If this house is going to be our base of operations until all of the creatures are recaptured, then we should have a proper medical room," Don said. "Something I can set up the way the infirmary is at the lair. I'd rather not perform any more operations on the kitchen table. I'd rather not perform any operations at all."
"We could always convert the media room," Raph suggested.
"Oh heck no!" Mikey exclaimed, waving an oven mitt covered hand at the group. "That's not happening. I'll go on strike. I'll barricade myself in there. I'll spike every drink in the house with hot sauce. I'll . . . ."
"Thank you, Mikey. We get the idea," Leo said.
"I think one of the storage rooms in the basement would work," Don said. "The one right by the stairs and across from the bathroom."
"That gets my vote," Mikey said before turning to extract a baking tray from the oven. "Who wants some chicken wings?"
"I will leave you four to your snack," Mr. Hidesato said. "Shall I put away the trap coin?"
Raph handed it to him along with the wax tool. After he left them the brothers sat down to eat their early morning snack and then tidied the kitchen before heading up to bed.
Darkness.
Leonardo realized he was dreaming almost immediately. It wasn't the first time in his life that he'd had a lucid dream, but it was the first since becoming a warder. That this was also a prophetic dream was clear by the way it felt and smelled.
There was a musky, dank scent in the air. Not the sort of smell he was familiar with from living in the sewers, but that of an older, abandoned building. He couldn't actually see anything, though he turned in a full circle in an attempt to get his bearings.
When he stopped moving he noticed an area some distance in front of him now seemed clearer. Leo began walking towards it, finally discovering that what he was seeing was light spilling through an open doorway.
He knew that whatever the dream was trying to show him would be in that room. With a sense of growing dread, Leo nevertheless entered the room without hesitation.
The floor beneath his feet was now covered in tatami mats. The illumination came from lanterns which hung from thick beams in the ceiling overhead. Though the room appeared as though it belonged in a home of wealth and status, it looked decayed. Cobwebs festooned the lamps and beams; a thick dust had settled over everything.
Near a wall decorated with a mural was a woman in tattered kimonos, seated with her back to Leo. To either side of her, on low tables, were cosmetics. She held a small mirror in her hand, though it was angled in such a way as to prevent Leo from seeing her face.
Leo wanted to stop walking towards her but he could not relay that message to his feet. The sense of foreboding increased as he drew closer to her, for she did not acknowledge his presence. Instead she continued to reach for items from her tables, constantly applying cosmetics without ever pausing.
Heart pounding, Leonardo stopped only a few feet behind the woman. As if suddenly realizing that she was no longer alone, the woman lowered her mirror and began to turn.
With a gasp, Leo jerked to full wakefulness. His sudden movement woke Mikey, who had fallen asleep with his face burrowed against Leo's neck.
"Bad dream?" Mikey whispered. Raph and Don lay on the other side of him, the pair tightly cocooned in each other's arms.
Leo took a deep breath, held it for a count of ten, and then slowly released it. "Yes," he murmured, keeping his voice down. "Prophetic."
"Wanna talk about it?" Mikey asked.
"It will keep until morning," Leo said, turning onto his side so he could wrap an arm around his brother. "I don't want to wake the others and I'd rather not tell it twice."
"Your choice," Mikey said, turning his head so he wouldn't yawn in Leo's face. "Can you go back to sleep?"
"M~hm," Leo mumbled. "Halfway there already."
Leo woke the next morning to the feeling of Mikey's toe digging into the back of his neck. Slowly getting out of bed, Leo looked down at his brother and smiled. It had taken awhile to get used to how much Mikey moved while he slept and to ignore it enough not to wake each time his younger brother shifted.
He was just sitting down with a cup of tea when Raph shuffled into the kitchen. After yawning and stretching, Raph said, "Morning."
"Good morning," Leo responded. "Sleep okay?"
"Yep. You?" Raph asked as he took the jug of milk from the refrigerator, removed the top, and began to tip it towards his mouth.
"Glass," Leo said.
Raph set the milk on the counter and said, "Yes mom." After pouring himself a full glass, he came over to join Leo at the table.
"Ya' had a dream, didn't ya'?" Raph asked after studying Leo's expression.
"I did," Leo answered. "How long do you think it will be before Don and Mikey get up?"
"We could go roust them right now," Raph said. "Do we need to?"
"Half an hour," Leo said. "If they're not up by then, we will. I want to get in some practice and then we'll need to hit the books. My dream had some pretty specific features that we should be able to recognize."
"Or ya' could just tell them to Mr. H and see what he says," Raph said.
Leo nodded towards the bulletin board. "He left a note. He's going to be out for an indeterminate amount of time taking care of business obligations. His words."
"He knows a lot of them," Raph muttered. "He likes using them to avoid answering direct questions."
Don had wandered in and heard the tail end of their conversation. "That's probably his diplomatic training," he said as he began his morning ritual with the coffee maker.
"If he keeps talking without saying anything then one of these days I'm gonna pop him in his diplomatic mouth," Raph stated.
"That might not be as easy to do as you seem to think," Leo said mildly. "Donny, is Mikey still conked out?"
"I nudged him when I got up," Don said, turning to lean against the counter. "He's in the bathroom. He said for you to wait for him before you started telling us your dream. I'm guessing that means you had another one."
Leo nodded. "It woke both of us up. This time I knew I was dreaming as soon as it started."
Mikey came racing into the kitchen. "What did I miss? You didn't start without me, did you?"
"No. I just told them that I knew I was dreaming this time," Leo said.
He continued, explaining the dream in as much detail as possible. Unlike regular dreams, his prophetic ones were vivid in his mind even hours later.
"How come ya' woke up before she turned around?" Raph asked when Leo had finished talking.
"I really don't know," Leo said. "I'll be honest, I didn't want to approach her in the first place. For some reason I didn't seem to have enough control of myself to stop."
Don had taken a seat at the table and after enjoying a sip of coffee said, "Maybe it wasn't you."
"What the hell does that mean?" Raph asked.
"Oh, oh, I know," Mikey said excitedly. "You were dreaming someone else's experience. Right, Donny?"
"That wouldn't be a prophetic dream then," Leo said, frowning. "Not if it's already happened to someone."
"It probably hasn't," Don said. "You dreamt about the young couple being killed by the Jubokko before it happened."
"I saw that dream as though I was watching a movie," Leo pointed out. "This time I was an active participant."
"You were viewing a future occurrence through the eyes of a victim," Don said. "The reason you had no control was because the body belonged to someone else. I'm going to guess that when the woman turns around, something catastrophic occurs. That's why you woke up. At that point, your connection to the victim is broken."
"Next time, pull out a wallet so we can get a name," Raph said.
Leo pushed back from the table and got up. "Hopefully there is enough detail from that dream to tell us what we're after. Time for practice. The ground's crew is supposed to be here today, so it's the dojo for us."
Shoving thoughts of his dream and a potential yokai victim from his mind, Leo led his brothers through a training session. Afterwards, they each hit the showers to get cleaned up and then regrouped in the office.
"I gotta say one thing about this house, it sure is nice having a lot of bathrooms to choose from," Raph said. "No standing in line or running out of hot water."
"Mr. Hidesato hasn't returned yet," Don said. "I used the second floor bathroom and knocked on his door when I got out."
"I'll start on the journals," Leo said. "Don, run the information from my dream through your computer and see if you get a match. Also scan all the local papers for any news of weirdness that might fall under our purview."
"I guess I'll tackle journals too," Raph said. "We can listen to that wacky radio station and see if anything came up last night."
"I can check the news channels," Mikey said quickly.
Leo moved over to a bookcase and Don disappeared into the war room. Raph snapped his fingers as though remembering something and said, "I saw some steaks in the freezer. Be back in a minute, I'm gonna take them out to thaw."
He left the room, glad that nothing in his tone had alerted Leo. Raph was on the staircase when Mikey nipped out of the office.
"I took those steaks out last night," Mikey said. "What are you up to?"
"Keep it down," Raph said. "Mr. H ain't here and this is my chance to see if I can find the missing journals. I'm gonna search his room and see if he's hiding them from us."
"Leo's not going to like that," Mikey said.
"If they ain't there, no harm, no foul," Raph said. "Nobody needs to know I looked. If they are there, then we got bigger problems than my invading his privacy."
Mikey grimaced. "We never had this conversation," he said before slipping back into the office.
Raph took the stairs two at a time but slowed down once he was on the second floor. He silently approached the door to Mr. Hidesato's room and pressed his head against it to listen. Though Don's knock hadn't been answered, it didn't mean that the man was not inside.
Hearing nothing, Raph tried the door. It wasn't locked the first time Raph had taken it upon himself to search the room and it wasn't locked now either.
Opening it just enough to stick his head into the room, Raph glanced around to verify that it was empty. The entrance to the bathroom was open and the lights were off, so Raph slid into the room and shut the door behind him.
A quick yet thorough check of the bedroom and bathroom turned up no journals, so Raph applied himself to the walk-in closet. This took a little longer because either Mr. Hidesato or his uncle was a bit of a clothes hog.
When he found nothing, Raph moved on to the hidden security room. There was one locked filing cabinet inside but picking the lock was child's play. There was nothing of note in the cabinet and the journals were nowhere to be found.
Frustrated, Raph decided that Mr. Hidesato was too sly to keep anything suspicious in his own room. The search was going to have to be expanded. One thing was for sure; Raph stubbornly held onto the belief that Mr. Hidesato was trying to keep something from them. Leo might be willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt, but Raph was determined to find out what Mr. H was hiding.
Sure that he'd left everything just as he'd found it, Raph exited the closet. When he turned around he found himself face to face with Mr. Hidesato.
Arms crossed, Mr. Hidesato asked, "Have you misplaced something, Raphael?"
"I'm looking for something I think you must have misplaced," Raph said, unfazed at being caught in the act. "We're missing at least one journal and something tells me you've got it."
"You had only to ask," Mr. Hidesato said. "I have no journals."
"Leo started writing in one he said belonged to your uncle," Raph said. "It ain't in the office now. Why did ya' take it?"
"My uncle's journal? I do not recall seeing one written by him," Mr. Hidesato said. "Perhaps Leonardo is mistaken."
"Are ya' calling my brother a liar?" Raph asked, his tone dangerous.
"Not at all," Mr. Hidesato said, appearing unruffled. "There have been other people in the house. Perhaps someone on the cleaning staff mislaid a journal or two. I am not at all certain my uncle even kept a journal."
"I thought that was a tradition in your clan," Raph said. "I thought that was part of the job when it came to catching creatures."
"No two warders do things in exactly the same fashion, Raphael," Mr. Hidesato said. "I have ancestors who were unable to read and write."
"Your uncle could do both," Raph snapped. "Leo saw his damn journal. What's in it that ya' don't want us to know about?"
"I cannot answer your question," Mr. Hidesato said.
"Can't or won't?" Raph demanded.
"Let me assure you that your suspicions of me are unfounded," Mr. Hidesato said. "I am withholding nothing of import."
Raphael clenched his fists. "Now why don't I believe ya'?"
"Raph!" Leo called from the doorway. "What are you doing in here?"
"What do ya' think I'm doing?" Raph countered. "I don't like being lied to and I don't like when people hide things from me."
"This isn't the way to solve differences," Leo said in a measured tone. "We have to work together and we need to trust each other."
Raph scowled at him and marched towards the door, shoving past Leo. "Ya' be sure and let me know when I can trust him."
Leo remained where he was as Raph tramped downstairs. He and Mr. Hidesato stared at one another for a couple of minutes, neither saying anything.
It was Mr. Hidesato who spoke first. "This issue of trust cannot be resolved as long as Raphael is certain that I am withholding information from the four of you."
"To be very frank, you have withheld knowledge from us," Leo said. "The existence of a Warder High Council for one thing. Would you have told us about them if we hadn't forced you to be forthcoming?"
"If you had needed to know of them, I would have told you," Mr. Hidesato said. "I was dealing with them and your involvement was not required. Should anything arise that I believe you have a need to know, then I will immediately share it with you and your brothers."
It did not escape Leo's notice that Mr. Hidesato had said 'that I believe you have a need to know'.
"The threat of other warders coming to New York was something we needed to know," Leo said. "For obvious reasons we can't have contact with them. You don't know us well enough to decide what information to withhold. I truly hope that Raphael's suspicions are unfounded. If you want to assuage them, you're going to have to be more accessible and communicative."
"Were you in need of my expertise?" Mr. Hidesato asked. "Perhaps you had a dream last night?"
"I did," Leo said. "Could you join us in the office when you get a chance? We need help finding a starting place for this hunt."
Mr. Hidesato bowed his head in acknowledgement. "I will be down shortly."
The interaction left Leo feeling unsatisfied, but an all-out war with the man wasn't something he wanted. Saying they would walk away from their task as warders was one thing, doing so another.
If they could even walk away at this point. It was no longer just a question of protecting the city or trying to keep Casey from wallowing in guilt and attempting to do the job himself. All four of them had somehow acquired powers that they couldn't control. Not only that, they weren't sure if those powers could be removed.
Raph was pacing the office when Leo entered. As soon as he saw his brother, Raph demanded, "Did ya' ask him about the missing journal?"
"No I did not," Leo said. "You invaded his privacy to search for it and came up empty. I'm not going to throw around accusations without any proof."
"What are ya' gonna do, let him call the shots even though he's keeping secrets?" Raph asked, clearly aggravated.
"We're going to be smart and find out what we need to know without going straight at the man," Leo said.
Raph's eyes narrowed. "Ya' got something up your sleeve?"
"I've got a couple of ideas," Leo said. "He's going to be down here at any minute. Let's shelve this discussion until we know that we're alone."
Leo called Don and Mikey into the room when Mr. Hidesato arrived. Raph was seated on the couch with a journal and pointedly ignored the man as Leo explained his dream.
"I am certain that what you experienced was an Ao nyōbō," Mr. Hidesato said.
"Ao as in blue?" Leo asked. "She wasn't blue."
"The reference has nothing to do with color," Mr. Hidesato said. "It comes from a lack of maturity or experience. Nyōbō were the court ladies of old Japan. They served in palaces until they could be married off to a worthy suitor. Ao nyōbō refers to low-ranking women of the court who could not seem to catch a husband or to elevate themselves enough to escape poverty. The term is an insult but is very befitting of this yokai."
"What's her deal?" Mikey asked.
"Ao nyōbō inhabit the abandoned homes of once wealthy people or people of stature," Mr. Hidesato answered. "They wait inside the home, constantly adjusting their image in anticipation of the arrival of some guest who never shows up, usually a lover who has lost interest or a cheating husband. Anyone else who visits the home is devoured by the Ao nyōbō and then she goes back to vainly waiting."
"The mirror, the makeup," Leo said. "She was preening herself."
"Exactly. The Ao nyōbō wears the white face of ancient courtiers and her body is covered in the many-layered kimonos of older eras. Her clothing will be tattered, her body aged and wrinkled from years of waiting in musty ruins. She is no longer beautiful, only bent and twisted and most horrifying to look upon," Mr. Hidesato said.
"How do we capture the Ao nyōbō?" Don asked.
"The trap coin must touch her mirror," Mr. Hidesato said. "It will affix to the mirror and thus pull the yokai inside. There is nothing more important to this yokai than her mirror."
Mikey raised his hand. "Next question, how do we find her?"
"That is more difficult," Mr. Hidesato said. "She will have settled into a house of some opulence, but one which has been abandoned. It will not have been abandoned due to a structural issue or because a family has traded up. This yokai is drawn to a particular despair, that of ruined families."
"Bankruptcy," Don said. "Foreclosure. Homes seized because the owners couldn't pay their mortgage."
"That's something ya' can search records for, ain't it?" Raph asked, addressing his brother.
"Of course," Don said. "The problem is, there are bound to be a lot of them in this city. We don't even know if it's a house, a condo, or an apartment building."
"In my dream, the interior design was distinctly Japanese," Leo said. "Would those records give descriptions of the residences?"
"If the bank wanted to sell the home then they would," Don said. "It'll take a lot of winnowing, but I think I can find likely candidates."
"Who'd be going into these houses by themselves?" Raph asked. "I mean, Leo was in the house on his own. Whoever's eyes it was that he was looking through had a way into the house. If it was a buyer wouldn't someone be tagging along with them?"
"A realtor," Don said. "Certainly if someone was going to sell such a residence, they'd want to inspect it first."
"Mikey can check the news outlets to learn if any realtors have gone missing," Leo said. "Don, run down a list of homes that fit the criteria we've discussed. Would there be interior pictures?"
"Not in its current state," Don said. "If the people who owned it were prominent citizens, then there will probably be pictures in online archives."
"Raph and I can jump on computers and look for those," Leo said. "I'll recognize that room if I see it."
"And what about him?" Raph asked, jerking a thumb in Mr. Hidesato's direction. "It ain't like he don't have a dog in this hunt."
"I will make some phone calls," Mr. Hidesato said. "I have sources in the banking industry from whom I can learn if there are any homes which have not formally gone on the market."
"Let's get to work then," Leo said. "We probably only have until dusk to locate the yokai or she's going to claim the person in my dream as her next victim."
Mr. Hidesato excused himself to use the phone at his desk upstairs. The four brothers gathered in the war room to begin their respective tasks.
They had been quietly working for about ten minutes when Raph asked, "Donny, could ya' check real quick to see if ya' scanned in anything about the Ao nyōbō?"
"Nothing popped earlier when I plugged in the description of Leo's dream," Don said. "I'll try it with her name. Can I ask why?"
"I want to check the journal entry against what Mr. H told us," Raph said. "Call it covering all our bases."
"Because you don't trust him," Mikey said.
"'Cause he leaves stuff out," Raph said. "Invisible yokai with lassos. Pfft."
Mikey's eyes twinkled mischievously. "I kinda liked their idea of tying you down. I vote we give that a try. Anyone else with me?"
There was a chorus of ayes from Leo and Don. "The ayes have it," Mikey said with a grin. "I wonder where Mr. H keeps the rope."
"Shut up," Raph growled good-naturedly.
Before long Donatello had compiled a list of possible addresses, to which Mr. Hidesato added some additional ones. Exhaustive searches uncovered images of home interiors which one by one were discarded by Leo as not fitting what he'd seen in his dream.
No realtors, housing agents, or bank representatives had shown up on a missing persons' inquiry. Time was slipping by and Leo found himself growing anxious.
"If we don't get her tonight, she's going to claim her first victim," Leo said, pushing aside uneaten the sandwich that Mikey had brought to him a half hour earlier.
"You still have to eat bro'," Mikey said. "Do you want something else? Some fruit maybe?"
"What I want is the Ao nyōbō's location," Leo said. "Are there any more clues in the journal?"
Don's computer program didn't have an entry for the yokai, but Mikey remembered seeing something in one of the books he'd flipped through. He'd found the journal and Raph was reading it through for a second time.
Raph closed the journal with a snap. "None. All is says is what Mr. H already told us."
"I'm starting to think that tracking them down is worse than actually trying to catch them," Mikey said. "Well, almost."
"Look, we've got it down to four houses that might fit the bill," Don said, glancing at the clock. "There are no interior pictures of them anywhere. Two had been owned by Japanese businessmen, one by a former ambassador to Japan, and another by a well-traveled archeologist."
"All four homes were foreclosed on?" Leo asked.
Don nodded. "Yes, and all within the last two months. How do we decide?"
"Split up and break into all four of them?" Raph asked. "Check for the room Leo saw and if it ain't there, get the hell out."
"If one of us is alone when the realtor shows up, then what?" Leo asked. "Expose ourselves to get him out of the house? If we don't catch him in time and we're not the one carrying the trap coin, there would be no way to stop the yokai from devouring him."
"I don't know any other way to do this, Leo," Don said.
Mr. Hidesato had been sitting quietly to the side as the turtles worked. Now he leaned forward and said, "Perhaps this would be a good time to learn if you can access your power in a more conscious way, Leonardo."
"How do you mean?" Leo asked, turning towards the man.
"Your foresight in the dream belonged to another person," Mr. Hidesato said. "If you can access that person's thoughts again, perhaps who can learn something about them which would tell you the house they will be visiting."
"It's worth a try, Leo," Don said. "We're going to lose the sun in about forty minutes."
"Meditation," Leo said as he got out of his chair. "I'll go to the dojo."
"Go with him, Donny," Mikey said. "Fire up some candles and turn out the lights. You're the mellowest of us so you can use that soothing voice of yours to help him reach the right state quicker."
"I will get the car and have it standing by," Mr. Hidesato said, leaving the room.
After Leo and Don departed for the dojo, Raph said, "Let's get the coin and wax tool. I have a feeling every second is gonna count."
While Leo got into a comfortable position on the mats in the dojo, Don fetched some candles from one of the storage rooms. After setting them down near Leo, he lit them and then turned out the lights.
Sitting down across from his brother, Don said, "Okay Leo, I want you to focus on the sound of my voice. There is nothing but my voice. Allow all thoughts to slide away. Your body is weightless. There is no light or dark. There is no sight or sound other than my voice."
He continued speaking in a low, even monotone, watching as Leo's face and body relaxed. Once he was certain that Leo had reached a suggestible state, Don carefully chose what to say next.
"You're going into an old home," Don said. "Do you see the home?"
The symbols on Leo's arm began to glow and his head tipped forward in acknowledgment.
"You open the door," Don instructed. "The first thing you notice is the smell. Do you smell it?"
Leo nodded, his face wrinkling slightly as if assailed by an unpleasant odor.
"You want to be sure you're in the right place," Don said. "Can you step back outside?'
Once more Leo nodded, his expression smoothing out again.
"You look for a number," Don said. "A number on the house. Do you see one?"
Leo's head turned from left to right, stopped, and then straightened as he nodded.
"Tell me the number," Don said.
"Five fifty-two," Leo responded.
"Good, very good," Don said, trying to quell his excitement. That was the number of one of the four homes on their final list. "Come back to yourself now. Move away from the house. It's not time to go inside."
"Not time," Leo repeated. The glow from the warder symbols faded and a moment later Leo opened his eyes.
"It worked," Leo said.
"Yes it did, hurry now," Don said as he blew out the candles. Leo seemed a little out of sorts and Don helped him to his feet. "Are you okay?"
"Slightly disoriented, like with my dreams," Leo answered. "It'll pass."
They ran upstairs to find their brothers waiting for them.
"I've got the coin and wax tool," Raph said. "Mr. H has the car idling at the curb."
"We've got the address," Don said, heading for the front door. "It's the small mansion in Brooklyn Heights."
Don gave the address to Mr. Hidesato as soon as the turtles were in the car. He drove quickly, following Donatello's directions in order to take the fastest route. Dusk had arrived and full darkness would descend in only minutes.
"We're not going to be on time," Leo said suddenly.
He had seemed withdrawn since coming out of his trance. Don glanced at him and saw that the warder symbols on his arm were beginning to glow again.
"Leo?" Don asked. "Leo, what are you doing?"
"Connected," Leo said, slowly closing his eyes. "Linked. Slow him down."
He became silent, the glow from his symbols brightening the interior of the car.
"Leo? Leo, what the hell?" Raph asked, leaning towards his brother.
"I don't think he can hear you," Mikey said.
Raph looked towards Don, who was in the front seat. "How long, Donny?"
"Couple of minutes," Don said.
Mr. Hidesato took a turn quickly, jostling the car's occupants, but Leo barely moved. He was statue like, his head down and hands clasped in his lap.
The house loomed up in front of them, five stories tall with hedges lining the sidewalk. A dark colored town car was parked at the curb and Mr. Hidesato pulled in behind it.
"We're here Leo," Raph announced. He got no response from his brother.
"I will stay with him," Mr. Hidesato said. "Go quickly. The realtor is already here."
Don, Raph, and Mikey dashed up the front walkway, unconcerned about showing themselves to whoever was inside. As they reached the stairs going up to the house, they saw a man standing there watching them. He did not move or seem startled at seeing three huge mutant turtles hurtling towards him.
It was Don who realized what was happening. "Is that you, Leo?"
"This was the only way to stop him from going inside until you got here," Leo/realtor said.
"Put him back in his car and snap out of it so ya' can join us," Raph said.
"I can't do that," Leo/realtor said. "The Ao nyōbō won't come out for us. Once I'm inside, she'll sense a human presence and put in an appearance. You'll come in then and capture her."
"You sure about this, Leo?" Mikey asked.
"Positive. Give me a couple of minutes and then follow me," Leo/realtor said as he unlocked the front door and stepped inside.
"Man, I do not like this," Raph said, his fingers twitching against the handles of his sai.
"No more do I," Don said. "That's a lot of control that Leo's trying to maintain."
Mikey peered into the dark interior of the house. "I can't see a thing."
"That's it, I ain't waiting any longer," Raph said, striding inside.
The brothers had only taken a few steps when Mikey's symbols lit up. "Looks like he drew her out."
"Then where the hell is he?" Raph demanded.
"There," Don whispered, pointing ahead and to their right. Standing in the doorway of a lighted room was the occupied body of the realtor.
Don grabbed Raph's arm as his brother started forward. "Slow," Don instructed. "We need for Leo to get out of the way."
The trio moved cautiously, watching as Leo began moving farther into the lighted room. By the time they gained the doorway, he'd reached the midpoint, his gaze fixated on a woman seated on a low stool. Her back was turned to them and to either side of her were jars and tubs filled with cosmetics.
Tattered robes splayed out around her and her jet black hair hung nearly to the floor. She dabbed a brush into a bowl containing something of a bright reddish hue and brought the brush around to her face, which none of them could see.
Leo was still walking towards her, looking almost mesmerized.
"Time to stop, Leo," Raph hissed at his brother.
For a second it seemed as if Leo had not heard him. Then with one foot off the ground, Leo froze.
As he did, the Ao nyōbō whipped around, coming to her feet in one smooth motion.
Rising to a height that brought her head nearly to the ceiling, her vividly tinted mouth stretched impossibly wide. Her countenance was horrific, the white paint cracking over wrinkles that hung from her face and neck.
Her eyes were sunken, black things highlighted by false eyelashes. Her nose and chin drooped and jiggled as she moved.
Clawed fingers easily three feet in length reached for the body of the man who stood before her.
Mikey was a blur of orange as he bolted into the room. Grabbing Leo around the waist, he flung both himself and his brother to one side as the clawed fingers closed on the spot where they had just been.
A shriek that shook the room informed them that the creature had recognized their symbols.
The sound seemed to activate Donatello's warder magic and its radiance suffused his entire body, traveling along the length of his bo.
"Mirror!" Don yelled, darting forward and batting the Ao nyōbō's hands aside with his weapon.
"Which one?" Raph shouted.
Ducking out of the yokai's reach, Don looked towards the makeup tables. Scattered on the floor around them were several hand mirrors. Mirrors began to appear on the walls, blinking into existence almost faster than the eye could see.
Mikey dragged Leo from the room, pushing him down on a nearby staircase. "Stay there," he ordered before returning to help the other two turtles.
Don continued to battle the Ao nyōbō, using his bo to counter her height advantage and keep her away from them. "Start smashing them!" he called out. "If it doesn't break, it's hers!"
Nunchucks in hand, Mikey began shattering the mirrors on the wall. Raph used his sai to splinter the ones scattered around the tables, stomping on others with his bare feet.
"Ow!" Don yelped as one of the claws swept past his protection and raked an ugly trench across his upper arm.
In the split second that his concentration was broken, the yokai twisted towards Raphael. Throwing himself into a forward roll, Don came up under her outstretched arms and slammed his staff against her elbows.
"Ya' okay, Donny?" Raph asked.
"Yes! Mikey, it's the mirrors on the floor! Help Raph!" Don exclaimed.
Dancing past the clutching, screeching demon, Mikey joined Raph and began crushing the hand mirrors strewn across the floor. The tip of a clawed finger caught the end of one of Mikey's mask tails and jerked his head back, but Don dislodged it with an upwards sweep of his bo.
The tips of Raph's sai came down simultaneously on two mirrors. One immediately shattered; the other did not.
"Got it!" Raph yelled.
Dropping one of his weapons, he yanked the trap coin from his belt and smacked it against the mirror.
The yokai's scream was near deafening. Slapping their hands over their ears, the turtles cringed as the sound cut to their very core. Suddenly the Ao nyōbō's body rolled upwards, struck the ceiling and then in its entirety sped towards the mirror.
Raph shoved Mikey backwards, leaping aside as well when the yokai hit the trap coin. Her feet entered first, her gown fluttering grotesquely before it was swallowed.
The last thing to disappear was her hideous face and the wide black maw which was still screaming as it disintegrated.
Springing forward, Raph snatched up the coin and placed it into the wax tool.
Around them the mirrors and makeup all vanished. The lights went out, leaving them standing in darkness.
Mikey took out his flashlight and shone it around the room. There was no longer any sign that the space had been occupied by anything. Don was clutching his arm, blood dripping over his fingers and Mikey rushed to his side.
"Here," Mikey said, removing his mask and using it to tie off the cut. "That's gonna need stitches."
"Leo," Don said, unconcerned with his injury. He all but ran to the foyer, where he found the realtor still sitting on the steps.
The man looked up at his approach and Don could tell that Leo remained inside of him. "It's done," Don said softly, squatting in front of his brother. "Go back to your body now."
Nodding, the man's eyes closed and Don backed away, signaling for Mikey and Raph to do the same. Mikey switched off his flashlight when the man began to groan and all three of the turtles quickly exited the house.
In the Rolls they found that Leo was just coming to. Mr. Hidesato had already started the car and once the doors were closed, he pulled away from the curb.
"How ya' doing, Leo?" Raph asked.
"My head hurts," Leo said groggily.
"How about you, Donny? You had to use your powers too," Mikey said.
"I feel like I just went through one of Master Splinter's seven hour training sessions," Don said, sounding tired.
"We got that bitch," Raph said, "but these fights ain't getting any easier."
"The price," Leo murmured.
"What's that, bro'?" Mikey asked.
Lifting his head, Leo said, "We can save people, but there's a price to be paid."
"He means the downside to our gifts," Don said. "The plus and minus to everything."
"I just call it turtle luck," Raph said. "Keep crossing your fingers that ours holds out."
End Ao nyōbō