I own nothing except Rin and the Association. I make no money from this either.

The turtles were all nestled snug in their beds and Hamato Yoshi had made tea with the hotplate and little boxes of bags, which in turn contained bits of tealeaf, she had brought down. He now sat before her staring at her as he took a sip. She had a cup and saucer before her as well. After he took a sip, he stared at her and waited. She stared into her cup at her reflection.

A memory came to her.

Her friend, her only friend holding her hand. An empty paved area with a long low building behind the only other person there. She was shorter than her friend, but she had none of the warmth of her friend, nor was the strange woman smiling. That was odd, they were guests, or should be, she thought … Her friend had brought her here to … She looked up at her. "Are you sure this is right?"

Her friend gave a soft, gentle, bubbly laugh, a little like her baby sister's, as she looked down at her. "Of course, she wanted a strong, fast, brave girl just like you, one who is undefeatable like you. She will love you!"

. . .

"Rin?"

She looked up. Yoshi was staring at her with more concern on his face. He was trying to be polite, but …

She felt frozen somehow. Her story was about to come to an end and … it … what kind of story had it been? Before she just had to endure to the next part and the next part, to get past the worst parts ... but now …

"I … I have to go, and … I'm not coming back."

He stared at her in silence. One ear flicked back, but other than that there was very little reaction. She grit her teeth then spat her words out. "I have to go! The Association has found me!"

He raised an eyebrow now. "The Association. What is the Association?"

Her shoulders drooped along with the corners of her mouth. Her brow became a "V" shaped ditch. "It's the organization Saki's birth-father, the last leader of the Foot clan before him, contacted before his death offering literally half the worth of everything he owned on completion of his son accepting the truth about himself, embracing his place as his heir, and 'your' death leaving his enemy, your father, in complete defeat, failure, and misery, only it didn't turn out that way, so 'I' have to die now."

Yoshi reared back. "What do you mean?"

She raised her hands her fingers curling till they looked like claws before her as her voice became strangled in frustration. "Didn't Tang Shen tell you anything I told her while she was with me before you arrived to rescue her?!"

"She told me you said the Oroku man my brother and I heard about in my father's stories hired you to kill me and leave my father in misery, because he triumphed over the Foot Clan as he always said he did at the end of those stories."

She raised both hands on either side of her head. "Yoshi, I wasn't born yet!"

His face became more furrowed. "So, he hired an 'Association' to do it." Yoshi looked down in thought, but her voice made his head snap back up and eyes widen and focus on her.

"He hired 'the' Association to do it! The Association of Assassins!"

He stared at her another moment, before speaking again. "And they are now after you, because you failed?"

"Yes!"

"How many are there?"

She blew out a breath and looked down. "Dozens at least. We were never 'all' together at the meetings to discuss Association business. Right now, the North American chapter is after me."

His ears went straight up, and eyes widened further. "North American? It is not a Japanese organization?"

Her eyes narrowed at him and hands fell into her lap. "My sensei was head of the Southeast Asian Branch 1 area."

He stared at her without seeming to blink a moment before asking. "How many 'areas' are there?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I only know they cover the globe everywhere, but Antarctica, although there was a rumor one of us did a job there and surviving was harder than the actual killing part for the member who did it."

Yoshi stared at her his eyes about as wide as he'd ever seen them. "'I' had a global empire of assassins after me?"

"No. Well, kinda …" She put her hands to her head and shook it. "It was one of the hardest, most complicated killing contracts, ever … See most people just want us to kill. Some clients are sadistic enough to want it to hurt, but the main target of the contract was really your father, who wasn't supposed to die, 'he' was supposed to suffer alone knowing he lost everything. 'You' were supposed to die. And the opposite happened."

"Yes …" Yoshi looked away slumping a bit. "I went to my father after … after I woke up outside the dojo as it burned. He had already passed on … He must have told Saki the truth as he said he would right before …"

Rin was suddenly the one staring bug-eyed at him though her frown was still carved into he face. "Yoshi …"

He looked to her. She bit her lip. Ohhhh … Her need to speak everything on her mind was going to get her into trouble again … Don't say anything! Don't say anything! "You 'know' how your father died, right?"

Yoshi's brow furrowed and his voice came out angry and yet subdued as he shrugged. "He had cancer."

Rin tried putting a thumbnail in between her front teeth and clamping down on it. He narrowed his eyes at her. "What are you doing? Why are you asking? Why do you look at me that way?"

"Ummmm … I … may have been listening in … and …"

"Listening in?" He sat up straighter and then began to crouch over her. "'Listening in' to what?"

She glanced away. There was an opportunity to lead him off on an unpleasant, but potentially less lethal track here. What was she kidding? Yoshi killing her down here might be less bad for her than what was on the horizon, but then the association might look for her down here and … She looked back at him meeting his furious gaze. "Everything?"

The expression of fury left his face. He blinked down at her blank-faced. "Everything?"

"Ummm … tapped phone lines, virus in the computers to secretly forward messages to me, bugs in your belongings. Those were the hardest. I actually used your American-style wedding to Tang Shen and your family's time at the hospital when Miwa was born to …"

Yoshi let out a roar that had his turtle babies' heads popping up as he lunged at her. She, however, managed to get away. But as he turned toward her again, he paused in his other movement long enough to ask in a growl. "And my father?!"

She was backing away into the shadows and he began to follow her as the turtles began to cry, but their sobs didn't seem to break through to him as he charged her, slowly, but … "How did my father die?"

"Saki!"

He froze and stared at her. His voice came out hoarse now. She almost couldn't hear him over the turtles' sobs. "What?"

"He was about to die, and he sent for Saki to finally tell him. I let it happen because it seemed the only way Saki would believe the truth as the contract said he must! I should have been there! I could have stopped it, and 'that' would have been protecting the contract! But I could have blown my cover, because your ninja really were good, and they were guarding your father more than ever in his sickness, but Saki … Saki didn't take the truth well … he …"

Yoshi's face had gone blank. His ears lowered even his whiskers drooped. The tightness in his coiled to spring at her form melted away as he stared at her. Then his strained, but softer voice spoke. "Tell me everything!"

She glanced down at the floor and sighed. Then she looked up. "I heard him talk to you first. Tell you the truth. About how he tried, when he learned about you, your coming birth from his beloved … your mother, his wife, how he thought about Saki, son of his enemy, and how if Oroku felt about his baby son, Saki, even a little how he felt about you then, wanted to protect you so much, wanted the brightest future for you, then it could end the feud! How he called a meeting. How they drank tea together. How he asked … offered a peace offering to his old enemy … How they drew swords, how he escaped, but half his attendants didn't, though they killed most of Oroku's guard in return, but he couldn't reach him himself 'and' escape with his own life, and thought about you and his wife and even Saki to make that decision. How he thought, and he thought, and he planned and the only way forward to end the feud and give you a bright future going forward was to end the feud by killing all in the Foot who would carry it forward, how it was months after your birth that was finally accomplished and finding Saki. How he always meant to tell him the truth eventually, when your bond was strongest, and he thought brotherhood would break the curse that seemed to divide the Foot and Hamato forever. He meant to tell you when you came back from that mission together, but I … and Tang Shen, and he could have, but he saw what was happening after Tang Shen … and Saki seemed so scared that it might be true then, and he only said he was his true son, your mother's true son, and your true brother in reply. And that wasn't a lie. And he still meant to tell the whole truth eventually. But it was too late. Things only got worse, but he had to tell Saki now, because he felt certain he would not make it through another night alive. So he told you first to prepare you, and then sent you away, and then sent for Saki, and told him the truth, how he tried to raise you both as the firstborn son despite you being younger, because Saki still, as heir to the Footclan, was owed all its treasures and its leadership, and you could take the Hamato clan as was your own birthright, and both of you could have a clan to run as leader, but both stay brothers too. But he refused, and said he was owed everything including Tang Shen and liars and murderers were owed nothing. And he killed him. The man who raised him. He truly came unhinged. I'm sorry."

Yoshi turned away at the last two words, but he didn't stand tight and tall to spring anymore. He simply spoke in a raspy voice. "Get out …"

She paused and stared at him. Then she turned and began to leave. But she paused beyond the turnstiles. "For what its worth, I think Saki was wrong. I told him so. You all 'were' his family. Bringing forth, or discovering, and then nurturing a life and then protecting it too is so much more satisfying than an building an entire empire that only consumes and destroys as he's rebuilding the Foot Clan to be. But sometimes, you can't even count on your family to save you, and or even do the right thing, and peace just doesn't come, only war."

Yoshi sniffed and finally turned his eyes on her again. "I suppose you know 'that' don't you?"

She looked back at him. "Actually, I kinda hoped my family would find and rescue me, and kinda hoped they wouldn't try, or even come too close to doing so. I was convinced by my sensei she was more powerful than me and every member of my family, and truly so. And I knew she wouldn't hesitate to kill me or them. More me, actually, because as long as I could move efficiently I was of some use to her. So, I hoped they wouldn't find me. And hoped they would too, because that would mean they were really trying to ... It was weird."

Yoshi raised his ears and his eyes seemed to focus on her again. "Did they?"

"No … I checked on them from far away once, and they seemed … normal … older, but very like any other family too. I was always the strangest member."

He looked away from her again turning his whole body more fully away too, and at least this time, she noticed and relaxed a bit at the sight, more toward his crying turtles. He still didn't reach for them though as he shook his head. "You will get no sympathy from me."

"I didn't expect to. But I thought you should know why I wasn't coming down anymore, and why you had to hide even more carefully."

He turned back and stared at her with some confusion, so she elaborated. "The Association. If they find out you're alive, they'll see a way for the contract to be filled a little further at least. A little less smirch on their reputation with you and me both dead. And your voice and fighting style are still recognizable if not your body and face."

He growled "I will keep that in mind."

She flicked her gaze to the turtles. "Now go take care of your babies. You're not angry at them, but me." She turned and stepped off the platform and onto the dark tracks beyond and began walking further into the darkness." Yoshi stepped further into the light, though his ducked head made everything below his long rat nose dark. He reached in and held his turtles tight tears flowing from his eyes. All seemed tainted. His brother had killed his father, and his conversations with them, and Tang Shen, even his wedding and child's birth had been overheard or been opportunities to be overheard by one seeking their destruction. What more about his past could be poisoned for him?

What do you think?

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes