I do not own any of the characters save the one narrating this final chapter of this story, Mayu my OC. Please don't sue and just enjoy instead.

I lead April O'Neil into the dojo. After crossing the threshold and taking five strides, I turn back to the teenager. Staring into blue eyes that widen slightly as they stare back, I keep my voice flat as I say, "Hit me."

April O'Neil's eyes widen further. Her eyelashes seem to bend as they collide with and then are pushed against the skin behind them. "What?"

"Hit me."

April blinks. The silence hangs between us about three seconds. I let the feeling of the familiar wide-open space with the tree filtering the light spilling in from above relax my own still form. The screen surrounding Splinter's living accommodations set up along the far wall seem to back me up with their traditional dignity somehow.

A single continued syllable spills from April's open mouth before me. "Uuuuuuhhhh …" Her eyes slide to the side then squint. They look back to me still squinted. Her head shakes causing her red ponytail to swish. "I don't get it."

I give the slightest nod of my head to show I understand her confusion. "I want to see how good you are on the attack at this starting point."

April squints her eyes further and purses her lips before shrugging. "Okay." She balls her hand into a fist and sends a punch at my diaphragm. I'm pleasantly surprised at her choice of target. I take a stride back and out of the reach or her arm.

April blinks. Then she takes a stride forward herself and punches mid-stride. I smile and take an even longer stride back. April stretches her legs to try to make up the difference, but her fist sweeps through air.

April grits her teeth. "How can I hit you if you won't stay still?"

I raise my eyebrows at her. "How will you hit anything that wants to and can get away?"

She grits her teeth and leans back onto her right leg raising her left bending it back at the knee before lashing it straight out. It does extend her reach but takes enough time for me to take three steps two back and one to my left her right. Her foot only hits air. She puts it back down and sighs her shoulders and head sagging.

She charges. Her face is flushing a deep pink. She puts a swing into her punches and tries to hit first with the right and then the left. There is less than a second between blows.

I smile and move my head and upper body in a weave taking only a half-step back. I feel the movement of the air from both her blows, but they miss me. April brings both her arms in pressing them to her chest before throwing both forward at once. I slide my right foot back to near full extension and then slide my left foot back to meet it while turning my body sideways. April's eyes widen. I smile. Turning the body sideways makes even my already thin frame about a third of its width facing forward and a far smaller target. I continue my stare at her not allowing myself to blink. How will she react?

April tilts back on her right leg and kicks out her left again. I lean to the left out of the kick's trajectory. April shifts her weight letting the leg go straight down while throwing her right fist forward. I back up a quick step to avoid that blow and smile. "Go get a weapon from the wall over there."

April spins on her heel and marches to the wall arms straight and fists clenched at her sides. A rack of weapons Splinter, Leo, Raph, Donnie, Mikey, and I use is in front of her. She takes down one of Donnie's spare staffs. I raise my eyebrows at this choice, but then mentally shrug. She may be choosing it for its long reach considering how this session has gone.

She marches back, grips the staff like a baseball bat, and swings it at me. Instead of dodging I catch it with my hands hardened by beating them on rocks in my own youth. I've used more toned-down methods to keep them hardened since. The sound produced when the wood meets my palms is a thunk I'm used to. April's eyes widen and mouth falls open. I smile at her judging the force I felt in my hands at the blow. "That was better."

April's brow furrows. I can see her warmed muscles relax in her arms. I grasp the bo and jerk it out of her sweaty hands. The red-head spins to stare at empty hands slowly brings up before the face they belong to. Then wide blue eyes look back at me. My smile has fallen away, and I raise my own eyebrows at her. "If you fail to injure your opponent with a bo staff, swing it back and or try to use a backswing against them too. Never let them get a grip on it."

April clenches her fists and her teeth. She holds her arms straight and solid at her sides before she turns and stomps back to the weapons rack. She takes down a sword. I feel my eyebrows rise. She comes back at me holding the sword up behind and above her shoulders again like a baseball bat. When she's a little beyond arm's reach of me, she swings. I bring up the bo staff to meet her blow. As I block her every swing, I hear April begin to wheeze. Her sword sweeps grow slower and lower. I think she is realizing two things. One, that sword is not sharp. Two, it is heavy.

Without me telling her to, April turns and walks back to the rack. Her steps like her sword sweeps do not rise as high or go so fast. I raise the bo staff to poke in gently into her back. She spins around in half a second, not having lost all her speed it seems. Her blue eyes are narrowed with furrowed red eyebrows pressed up against them. I smile back at her. "April O'Neil. 'Never' turn you back on an opponent."

April continues to glare, but steps backward now, which makes my smile widen. She reaches backward with one hand till her fingertips find the wall. Then she taps them along it till she finds the rack and runs her fingers along it till she finds the sai. She grabs one, pulls it free, then takes sideways steps till she can reach back with her empty hand, feel around and grab the other. Having gotten her wind back she runs at me. She even gives a low and wavering war cry which causes me to raise my eyebrows, but it dies away probably because she over-estimated how much air her probably now sore lungs were holding.

I step out of the way. April stops a step after she passes me, and swings around, and jabbing out with both sai. I catch them on my bo staff between their prongs. April's eyes widen. She plants her feet and leans back trying to pull them off. Failing this, her eyes scrunch up and jaw clenches as she instead pushes forward. I plant my own feet and tense holding firm.

Finally, April jerks back, loses hold of the sai and falls on her posterior. She first leans then sags over at the waist and pants. I stare down and nod. "Good," I smile, "for a first try."

April raises her head and eyebrows continuing to gasp her face flushed hot pink face beneath the freckles. "Good? That was good? What is bad like?"

I raise my eyebrows again at that question. "Bad. For a first try yours was good." I reach down and grab ahold of April's left forearm pulling her up to the soles of her sneakers. I give her another wide grin and some encouraging words before I go for the soft sore spot. "You have spirit April O'Neil and determination. You can do well in time."

April's eyes shut and wrinkle. A tear begins to leak from each of them. She raises her voice as her slick, darkened hair clings to her damp, flushed face. "My mom has already been with the Kraang for years! I can't wait!"

Ah. She's already opening up the spot to me then. I sigh. "Even 'too' long spent with an enemy may not be wasted time." I shake my head and take a small step toward her resting my hand on one of her shoulders. "What is truly a waste of time is time spent hating anyone or anything particularly that which wishes to do you good."

April looks me in the eyes and glares. No further tears chase the ones rolling down her hot pink cheeks, but the first seem to have turned the whites pink as well. "What do you mean by that?"

I meet her glare without returning it keeping my face relaxed as I ask in a soft quiet voice, "Do you think your father wants to hurt you?"

"He left my mom to die, or be tortured, or … or …"

"Didn't you as well?"

"I was six! I don't even remember it. He lied to me about it! He said she hallucinated and ran away in fear of things that weren't real! He knew they were real then! I've been waiting for her to come back to sanity and then us! And she's been captured! I don't know where she is, or what they're doing to her!"

I press my lips together and tilt my head letting silence fill a moment before answering. "I was kidnapped, captured, and held against my will. As far as I know my family hasn't ever learned what happened to me."

April's mouth fell open so far, I see the molars in the deep recesses of her mouth. "What?"

Mayu raised the bo staff and then swung it gesturing to the dojo. "That's when I first learned to do all of this. Oh, yes, I had karate, ju-jitsu and even gymnastics training when I was younger than you are now. My family of birth, who kept me throughout my childhood, had me involved in a lot of activities. But it was my sensei who paid my kidnapper for me, who really trained me diligently, obsessively, cruelly until I became as skilled as I am now. I have been striving for the past fifteen years to both make my sons great warriors and not to do them what she did to me to accomplish it."

April's wide eyes followed her. "Um … is your sensei … what happened to her?"

I tilt my head away a little and try to answer neutrally neither cold nor happily nor anything but gently for the poor girl before me, who is already so frightened. "She was murdered." I pause only a half-second before hurrying on with "Not by me."

April's brow furrowed in thought. "Then … you said … Your family doesn't know you're, okay?"

I shake my head again. "The man who murdered my sensei may be watching them now. I told him too much."

April's gaze turned down to the floor. She blinked back tears letting her arms hang at her sides. "Do you think my mom might be out there somewhere … Trying to protect us like that too?"

I tilt my head to the side while studying her. "Perhaps, I can imagine the Kraang not admitting it if they lost her and her fearing drawing their attention to you."

She looked back up at me with wide eyes before asking, "But how will she find us now?"

I sigh. "Let us concentrate on making the threat less threatening and seeing what happens. But how will hating your father help her? Do you really want her to come out of her time with the Kraang or her time away from you both, to see you filled with hate for your father, her husband and father of her girl?"

April's whole body jerked like a puppet whose strings were pulled sharply. "No!"

I smile at her softly, but she frowns again and clenches her fists before looking back up.

"But isn't it okay to at least hate the Kraang? Don't you hate the ones who took you from your family."

April began to blink again, hard and fast, because the tears were back. Mayu gave a soft smile. "I killed one of them, and I felt relief even joy when I found my sensei dead, but the first event didn't really improve my life. The second sent me down another dark path ... This is a better one I got onto after deciding 'not' to kill or hate."

April's mouth fell open a little. She turns both her stare and open mouth to the floor. After three full seconds she stammers "I … I just … I just …" She reaches up and begins to run her fingers through her short ponytail." Her eyes flood now with tears that don't quite spill yet. "I just miss her so much! And I just can't forgive him for leaving her like that!"

April's brow furrows and eyes slightly squint at me as she asks, "But don't you think she's angry at him too?"

I shrug. "Perhaps, but I'm pretty certain she misses him too, and I doubt she dreams of you hating him every time she captures a calm moment alone."

I squeeze April O'Neil's shoulder and continue speak even more softly. "I imagine of all the things your mother misses, seeing you and your father thrive and love each other is one of those she misses the most."

I place my free hand on her other shoulder now and tighten my voice a little. "If you as a baseball enthusiast couldn't beat me as another human, did you expect him to beat off more than one invading alien that night? They ended up taking me. And I doubt your mother wanted you all taken by the Kraang that night."

April sighs. Her shoulders slump. She turns and walks out from under my hands, out of the dojo, and stops only to look over at her father on the couch sitting there between Donnie and Splinter. Mikey, Raph, and Leo are sitting on the other. Every one of them has a plate of pancakes on their lap, but Dr. O'Neil puts his down and stands up rubbing his own hands on his pants while staring back at his daughter still gazing at him. April slowly, but smoothly walks up to him. When she is one step in front of him, she sighs. "Dad … we weren't ready, back then, to protect mom. And we might not be ready to rescue her yet now either. "But can we try to get ready to do it now... Together?"

Tears fill Dr. O'Neil's eyes. His voice is raspy as he replies. "Oh, Sweetheart, yes!" He wraps his arms around April and holds her close. "A thousand times yes."

Splinter and my boys smile first at them then at me. I smile back from inside the dojo doorframe. We have two new human members of our family and maybe someday soon, we'll have a third.

What do you think?

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes