Author's note: Please be warned that this chapter is definitely one of the reasons this story is rated T. It might be borderline M. I avoid being explicit, but this chapter gets rather grisly. If you are easily upset you may not wish to read the second part where April's POV begins.
As Atsuko watched the four turtles leave the room, she felt a pang of guilt for not going with them. Her own selfish paranoia had done more harm than she could even imagine. She had called April a traitor—when she was the one who had betrayed the very girl she had promised to protect.
There was a moment of silence, during which Atsuko glanced around the room. It was filled with the most bizarre collection of home-made scrapped together electronics she had ever seen in her life. Finally, she turned to look at the tall rat who, inexplicably, seemed to be her brother-in-law. He stood there, not looking at her, apparently lost in thought.
"What happened to you?" she said, breaking the silence.
"I was exposed to a strange mutagenic substance," he said. "It changed my form. I did not understand it for years, but I now know that it is only part of a much larger tale."
Atsuko didn't bother trying to make sense of it. Too many impossible things had happened for her to question anything now. "He told me that he'd killed you."
"He thought that he had. Our home burnt down to the ground—I tried to save Tang Shen, but one of the rafters…"
His voice faded into silence.
"And my niece?"
"I could not find her. But he took her. He has raised her as his own daughter, teaching her that I killed Tang Shen. Teaching her to hate me."
"You did kill her," Atsuko spat. She had longed to accuse him to his face for sixteen long years. "Your petty rivalry killed her. Killed my family."
"Do you think I do not know?" snarled Splinter. "Do you think I do not regret my mistakes every single day of my life? If I had known how insane he truly was—if I could change it all—if I could take back the words and strikes that drove him further into hatred and jealousy—I would!"
"Do you think your guilt is enough? Do you know what he said to me? 'In your darkest hour, remember that Hamato Yoshi did this to you.' Every night I heard that, Yoshi. Every night for a year, while he sullied my honor to revenge himself upon the mere memory of you!"
"He…he…?" Splinter stammered, his eyes wide with horror.
"He raped me," Atsuko screamed, as if each word were a blade that she could drive into his heart. "He had planned to make you watch. To punish you for violating a stupid childhood contract you made."
"Tang Mei…I am so sorry. I am so very, very, sorry."
"Tang Mei is dead! There is nothing left of her, of me!"
Splinter fell to his knees. He knelt on the floor, hunched over, weeping silently. "The blame is mine," he whispered. "I cannot escape it. When Oroku Saki insulted me and I responded with violence—in the name of honor!—I sealed our fates forever." He sat on his feet and looked up at her. "The blame is mine, sister. Only know that I did truly love Tang Shen, with all of my heart. Nothing brings me more grief than knowing that I share in the responsibility for her death."
Atsuko stared at the figure on the floor. She realized that Hamato Yoshi too was dead. The man she had known—kind, albeit prideful—had been replaced by this shell of tortured guilt and grief. Staring into his eyes—the only part of him that looked like his former self—she started to weep. Memories of him flooded back to her. Watching him dance joyfully with her sister. Teaching ninjutsu to her oldest son. Proudly holding his newly born daughter. His self-blame made her wonder how misplaced her own hatred against him was.
"Were you to take my life in payment for hers, you would be justified in doing so," he said. His voice was a bitter indictment of himself. "Neither would I fight you."
Her mind started reeling. He had offered her what she had longed for in the past—the chance to make him pay for the death of her loved ones. The opportunity to make him suffer for what had happened to her. How many times had she thought of driving her sai straight into the hearts of the men who had destroyed her life?
"In your darkest hour, remember that Hamato Yoshi did this to you."
It was Oroku Saki who spoke those words. It was Oroku Saki who had killed her husband and sons.
Was she going to continue believing in the words of the man who had turned her life into a living hell? All she had done by blaming Hamato Yoshi was fulfilling Oroku Saki's designs.
It was time to escape her captor once and for all.
She got down from the exam table and took the few steps over to where her brother-in-law sat waiting for his judgment. "No. Forgive me," she whispered. "I allowed Oroku Saki's words to poison me against your memory. I couldn't escape him, so I hated you instead. Even when I did manage to escape, I carried that with me."
He stared up into her face, his eyes shimmering with tears.
"I was wrong," she said, extending her arms to him. "Get up, brother." She helped him up from the floor, and for a moment they just stood there, staring at each other.
Then, they held each other in their arms, sobbing uncontrollably, releasing sixteen years of shared grief without any more words.
Author's Note: This is where it gets really unpleasant. Please read with caution. If you are concerned that this might be too grisly please scroll down to the end where I will provide a brief, completely non-explicit summary of what happened.
April woke up to a pain so intense that it threatened to make her vomit. Her head throbbed where Satou had struck her.
Her awareness of her surroundings came to her slowly. First, she was aware of pain. Next, she was aware of being restrained somehow.
Why?
Why had Satou-san turned on her? Satou had accused her of being a traitor. I thought you were my friend, she had said.
Satou-san, April thought. I thought you were my friend, too.
April started looking around the dimly lit room. The only source of light was from a skylight above, which admitted some of the ambient streetlamp light from outside. Every time she moved her eyes, she felt like she was being stabbed in the base of her skull. She vaguely remembered Donnie once saying something about how being knocked out wasn't as simple as they made it seem in the movies.
"It takes a tremendous amount of skill to knock someone out without killing them", he had said. "And of course, when someone wakes up from being knocked out, they can expect nausea, headache, loss of memory, temporarily impaired vision and motor skills, and so on. Most likely they will have suffered a concussion."
April bitterly thought that if knocking someone out without killing them was that difficult, at least Satou hadn't been trying to kill her. But that was a small consolation.
Why? Why, Satou-san?
April tried to push the question from her mind. As much as her head was throbbing, she knew she needed to assess the situation. Think ninja, she thought. Take a deep breath.
She was in a relatively small room with a skylight, lying on her back on a cold, hard surface. She was on a low table of some kind, perhaps three feet off the floor. Her hands and feet were chained to the table in an awkward spread-eagle position. Painfully, she turned her head to see what was next to her. An array of evil-looking instruments hung on the wall opposite her; with a stab of fear, she realized that her arms and legs were spread in order to make her more vulnerable to torture.
Terrified, she struggled at the restraints for a moment—when she realized that doing so would just weaken her to no avail. Ninja. Nin. Patience. Save your strength. Wait for the right moment.
She prayed that the right moment would come.
Deep breaths. The key to remaining calm is breathing.
Silently, she thanked Splinter for his emphasis on maintaining emotional control of any situation.
How long would she have to wait? Every moment of silence was torture.
Suddenly, the silence was interrupted by the sounds of jingling keys and footsteps. April listened intently, her body coiled to react at a moment's notice.
A deep voice spoke. April instantly recognized it as the Shredder's—she would never forget the way he taunted her before handing her over to the Kraang. Control your anger, she thought. Don't let it distract you.
"I do not want to be disturbed for several hours, do you understand?" Shredder said.
"Of course," replied an accented voice.
Fishface, thought April.
"Furthermore, I don't want Karai anywhere near this building. She does not need to know anything that transpires here."
"I will ensure that she is elsewhere, Master Shredder." There was a pause. "What exactly…?"
"That is none of your concern, Xever," Shredder snapped. "Now go. I want guards posted outside every entrance to the building."
"Hai, Master."
April heard the sound of metal footsteps receding. After a moment, she heard Shredder sorting through keys—and then a click as the door was unlocked. A light turned on—though it was dim, it seemed blindingly bright. April's head screamed in pain.
Calm. Stay calm. Her pulse was racing.
"April O'Neil," Shredder said. "I understand that my incompetent daughter recently failed in her endeavor to end your pathetic existence."
"That's a sweet thing for a father to say," April said defiantly.
Shredder laughed. "Her sentiment was acceptable. She wanted to punish Splinter by taking your life. But she is a foolish child. You see, it is better to return a broken loved one rather than simply taking them away."
April's stomach plummeted into a bucket of ice. She glanced nervously over at the knives hanging on the wall. In the light, they seemed even more lethal. Many of them had hooks in the blades. She couldn't even imagine what they were intended for.
"I see that you are afraid. You ought to be. You have been chosen for a very special task," Shredder said. He came over to the table and looked down at her. His eyes were narrowed, as if in disgust. He grabbed her face with his hand.
Calm. Stay calm. Wait for the right moment.
"You see, you are going to be my personal messenger to Splinter. Even better than that, you are going to be the message itself." He let go of her and walked over to the wall covered with instruments of torture.
"What, are you going to take one of those fancy knives over there and write a letter with it?" April said, still trying to sound defiant. "I'm not afraid of you. Whatever you do to me, I'll heal."
Shredder selected an ordinary-looking blade and turned around, laughing. "You only wish it were something so easy," he said. He laid the knife on the table next to her. His eyes—the only part of his face that was visible behind his helmet—looked up and down her body. He reached down to her belt and removed the tessen that April had tucked inside of it. He glanced at the other side of her belt, found her other tessen, and took that as well. He flipped them open and examined them.
"Interesting," he said. "I expect that Splinter gave you this one. But I am curious as to how you came to possess this." He held Satou's tessen in front of April's face.
"eBay," April said.
Shredder raised an eyebrow. "Indeed," he said, clearly not believing her. "Perhaps you are aware of the story that accompanies this."
"I am. Splinter told me how you killed Tang Shen's sister."
"No. I did not kill her. Have I not made it clear that death is too simple, April O'Neil? Oh, I will kill your pathetic rodent master eventually. But I will make him die a hundred times over, until he begs me to slit his throat."
"And how exactly do you think cutting me up is going to accomplish that?"
"I do not," Shredder said. He took both of the tessens and tossed them aside. The landed on the floor with a clatter. "Here is the message you will take to Hamato Yoshi. You will tell him that I will make his loved ones suffer in every conceivable way until he comes to finish this. I will never stop until one of us is dead."
With that, Shredder took off his helmet. April nearly gasped when she saw how half of his face had been disfigured with burn scars.
"As I said, April O'Neil, you yourself will be that message—the proof that Oroku Saki keeps his word, unlike Hamato Yoshi the traitor."
When he picked up the knife again, April did everything she could to keep herself from showing fear, but she couldn't keep herself from shaking. What if the right moment—the faintest chance—to fight back never came? When she saw the tip of the knife approaching her body, she pressed her eyes shut in terror.
But the blade never touched her skin. Instead, Shredder cut through the fabric of her clothes, cutting open her shirt, her sleeves, her undergarments, everything.
April shook even more. She opened her eyes and watched in horror as Shredder calmly threw the scraps of her ruined clothing onto the floor. She was completely naked, completely exposed, completely powerless.
Now she couldn't control her panic. She struggled fiercely against the restraints. She might have been shouting. She didn't even know. All she knew was that she had to escape.
With cold amusement in his eyes, Shredder stood there watching her struggle for several minutes. Then, he put the knife blade up against her cheek. "Be still!" he barked.
April stopped struggling, but still trembled uncontrollably. She found herself staring up into Shredder's eyes—eyes alight with malice and pure hatred.
"Tell me, April O'Neil," he hissed. "Are you a virgin?"
April burst into tears.
"Answer me!" He dug the blade of the knife into her cheek, drawing blood.
"Yes!" April screamed, sobbing uncontrollably.
Shredder laughed and threw the knife aside.
"So much the better."
As Shredder started to remove his armor, April knew that the moment she had been waiting for would never come. There was nothing she could do to save herself.
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Summary:
April wakes up chained to a table. She can't think of any way to escape. Shredder comes in and explains his plans to her. He plans to rape April and then release her so she can to tell Splinter what happened to her. Shredder intends for this to make Splinter suffer even more than simply killing April would. The scene ends with Shredder about to rape April.