Disclaimer: The TMNT and related characters belong to Mirage. I think we all know that by now. J

Special thanks to Reibenchaser for editing.

Chapter 9 Hun

Kurai had those same feelings again as they all left the limousine and walked up to the funeral parlor's doors.

Those feelings quadrupled as they walked inside. The elderly man, who had given her the first message, was speaking to a woman Kurai knew had dealings with the Ninja turtles.

When the woman looked up and saw Kurai, Saki, and Hun entering the room, she nearly passed out from shock. Only the obvious anger in her heart kept her on her feet. To her credit, she hid her rage and surprise, and politely asked, "And you are?"

Kurai bowed to the balding gentleman that she had seen in the museum. "Ahhh, Mister Connor, you remember me from the Museum, yes? You asked if I worked with Peter Castillo. You told me that his grandmother had died."

The man now looked at her, puzzled. He knew as well as she did that the conversation never took place, but considering who must have given him the note, he nodded and reached out his hand to greet Hun. "Oh yes, of course, Miss Kurai, and this is Peter, I presume?" He shook Hun's hand firmly, only slightly intimated by his size. "You favor your father, or at least the few pictures your grandmother had of him. She kept track of his wrestling career you know; used to send you birthday cards too."

"I received them," Hun said flatly.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Hun didn't know why they were even here. He didn't want this old woman's money; he didn't even know her. He wasn't sure why both Kurai and his Master said he should do this, but now they were here, he couldn't back out now without making the Master look very bad.

He did remember the birthday cards. He would receive one no matter where his father was wrestling. Two days before his birthday, they would arrive, always with a fifty-dollar bill inside. Maybe if he hadn't run away, she would have continued to send cards, but once he left his father, she wouldn't know where to send them.

Seeing that the O'Neil woman was present, too, was another shock. Hun was beginning to wonder how Kurai found out about his grandmother. Did it really come from the lawyer here? Or, was something else going on that no one was talking about?

He glanced over to where the coffin lay. The woman lying inside looked old and frail. He wondered how old she was when she had died. As he looked further around, Hun noticed that flowers filled the room. Even without the two wreaths that Master Saki provided, the room looked overstuffed. To the left there was a memory board with many different photographs.

Footsteps made Hun turn around. Even though the O'Neil girl was there, he didn't expect the next person to come in. There he was, the punk Casey Jones; Hun's eternal nemesis.

Hun's hands clenched into fists. Casey's did the same. Instantly April was on Casey and Kurai was on Hun. Kurai reached out and grabbed Hun's wrist, laying her thumb on a painful pressure point. April seemed to be applying a similar grip on Casey. O'Neil whispered something into his ear and Jones relaxed and took to glaring at Hun instead.

In his own ear, Hun heard Kurai say, "You are not about to desecrate your grandmother's wake or ruin The Master's public persona by brawling here as if you were at a tavern!" She applied a bit more pressure to Hun's wrist and continued to hold it until he calmed down. Hun glanced over to Master Saki. He wasn't happy to see Jones either, but he continued to show his pleasant, public face.

Another person distracted Hun; it was a blond woman with a thick Russian accent. She came over to Hun in tears, grabbed onto his arm, and began to cry. Hun didn't understand half of what she was trying to say. The only clear words to come were. "That dear woman a saint she was. Always so generous. How lucky you were to have her as your grandmother."

Hun had no clue what to do. As far as he was concerned, this Margaret Riley was not his grandmother. He looked at Kurai for help. Her face was neutral but her eyes were laughing at him. She thought this was funny. A pair of young women came over. One was holding a four-month-old child, while the other was a young teen. The mother managed to turn the Russian woman's attention off of Hun, and onto herself. The younger girl watched as they went, commenting, "She was Miss Margaret's nurse."

Now Hun understood who she was. He looked down at the girl and asked, "And you are,"

"A friend of April's and Casey's," the girl said without missing a beat. She looked at him as if she didn't care at all who he was. "And Marie is the one holding the baby. Casey's the baby's godfather." Then, with a complete change of subject, she said. "Oh, don't worry about your boss finding out. He can't get near Maggie, and I didn't do it either. Oh, and by the way, tell your boss leaving town is a very bad idea. Bye!" With that she wandered away before Hun could ask her any questions."

"Is that the girl who is a practicing witch?" Kurai asked behind him.

"A witch?" Hun echoed. He shrugged. How was he supposed to know? He didn't know this grandmother and most of the people who were approaching him were friends of O'Neil or Jones. Suddenly a thought occurred to him. "Why did the girl say that The Master couldn't get near her?" he asked himself. Curious, Hun strode up to where his grandmother lay in the coffin. Kurai followed behind him.

"What?" Kurai asked. Hun ignored her. When they approached the coffin both bowed in respect. At least he could do that much. He looked inside. She looked frail. Her hair was white and her skin was wrinkled. The mortician had done good work, for it almost looked as if she were still alive and only asleep. She was dressed in a black floral dress that seemed fifty years out of date. Around her neck were her glasses on a chain. In her hands were, expectantly, a bible and a set of rosary beads. Then Hun saw the origami. They were well hidden, but because he was observing his grandmother so closely, he noticed the five little paper animals. One was a little brown rat, while the others were all turtles. Of the turtles, one was blue, one was purple, one was orange, and the last one was red.

Hun nearly exploded right then and there. How dare they…HOW DARE THEY have the gall to claim any connection to her? Before he could recover from the shock to react, Kurai had her hand on his pressure point again.

"Hun, you can do nothing!" she whispered. "I will not allow you to dishonor her, especially here in public!"

Hun relaxed again, but he felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach. "They told you, not the lawyer?" He hissed back at her in a whisper.

To his surprise, she did not deny it. "Yes," she said, and then added. "And they did not have to."

That cooled Hun's anger instantly. Kurai was right. They probably took a lot of risks to give Kurai this information for him. "Why would they -" he began but Kurai shook her head.

"They did not stick around for an interrogation," she explained. "I do not know why they did this any more than you do." Gently Kurai pulled Hun away from the coffin to the memory board. At least here, he knew he would see no pictures of the turtles. Most of the pictures were from the fifties and the sixties. One was a wedding picture from nineteen-forty. In it was a man in a naval uniform.

"That was your grandfather," O'Neil came up behind him. "He was a gunner in the Navy. He and your grandmother were married less than a year before he died at Pearl Harbor."

Hun wasn't sure what to make of that, but Kurai looked unhappy. "I see," she said.

There was a more recent picture on the bottom, with her looking older, standing next to an Asian looking man. In his hands was a large brown domestic rat. "Who is that man?" he asked. Hun couldn't shake the feeling that he had seen this stranger somewhere before.

"Oh, that was Hamato Yoshi, her last employer." April said. There was no mistaking the hostility in her voice. "He was a martial arts teacher, and a body guard. He was murdered sixteen years ago, and he left all his possessions to Maggie."

"Murdered?" Suddenly Hun remembered. He knew where he had seen that face before.

"He who lives without honor shall end without honor." Hun remembered those words, the last thing Hamato Yoshi said. He was there when The Master had killed this enemy of theirs. In fact, he remembered the rat that marked him. Suddenly it occurred to him. The master of those turtles was a rat. Could there possible be a connection between the pet and...? No, Hun firmly shook his head in negation. That was a crazy idea. It was impossible!

O'Neil smiled as if she knew she had struck a mark with him. "One of the things Maggie always said, was that she wished she could have been there that day to call the police. Maybe, then, Yoshi might have lived."

It was a simple statement, but suddenly Hun felt as if he were drowning in this room that seemed filled with his enemies. Even though the turtles could not be here, he could feel them here as if they were watching him from afar. How many of these strangers knew about the turtles, what did they really know about him and Master Saki? Hun could not stand it a second longer. "I'm leaving," he said harshly. He turned away from Kurai and O'Neil and marched towards the door, only to be stopped by the lawyer.

"Mister Castillo, if you wish I can go over your grandmother's will with -"

"I don't want anything," Hun said, growing angrier by the minute. He had to get out of there now! "I'll sign whatever you want, but I do not want this woman's money. I never knew her and I want nothing from her!"

He wasn't really surprised when the lawyer happened to have that particular document with him. "Then if you'll just sign here," he said.

Fine," Hun put the paper down, snatched up the pen that Jones offered. He signed his legal name and then left the funeral parlor.

He held the limousine door open for Master Saki and Kurai. Just before he entered the limo himself, Hun felt someone behind him and something pushed into his free hand. It was the O'Neil woman.

"I told you -," He said but she cut him off.

"You wanna know why? She asked in a whisper, "Here's why," and then she walked away.

Hun stared down at the envelope. It was an ordinary plain white envelope with only a red wax seal to distinguish it. Hun glared at the envelope and shoved it into his pocket before he got into the limousine.

It was hours later when Hun found the time to look at the contents of the envelope. The wake had rattled him so much that his temper was quiet out of control. Master Saki didn't fault him, however, he simply told him to take the rest of the night and the next day off to settle himself. Then, he sent Kurai to check on him later that evening.

"Do you believe it was their intent to make you uncomfortable there?" Kurai asked from his doorway. "It would not be logical to invite you to the wake, only to then make you feel as if you were not welcomed."

"It wasn't them," Hun said absently from his bed, not even knowing why he bothered to answer her.

"I looked up the file on Hamato Yoshi," Kurai said conversationally, "He was an enemy to the Foot and was killed because of it."

"I was there," Hun said sharply, rolling over on his side away from Kurai. "I don't need to be reminded of it."

"You were?" Kurai asked. Hun didn't answer her. After a long silence, Kurai said, "You felt as if the dead were telling you that you were not welcomed. That you violated them by your presence."

Was that what he felt? He knew that Master Saki had some experts on magic and the occult, but he never took any of it seriously. Hun rolled back to his other side, and looked up at Kurai directly. The haunted look in her eye gave him an answer. "You felt something, too?" he asked, sitting up.

"Not from her," Kurai said, "but I sensed many spirits around. I have read about such things, but have never experienced it for myself. Even though their anger was not directed towards me, it was...unsettling."

At least he knew he wasn't going mad. Curious though, he asked. "Did the Master...?"

Kurai shook her head. "If he did, he did not confide in me." She told him bluntly. "Nor do I wish to explain my feelings to him. As I said, it was unsettling."

Unsettling was an understatement as far as Hun was concerned. It felt to him as if he was being choked. Kurai was right, the less Master Saki knew about that the better off he was.

Kurai gave him one more long critical look. "If you do not need anything, Hun, it is time for my evening exercises." Hun waved her away without answering. Kurai bowed and left the doorway, which closed behind her.

Once Kurai was gone Hun lifted weights for an hour, trying to take his mind off the wake, but the question kept coming up. Why? Why did the turtles bother to contact Kurai, and have her tell him about this woman? He would never have extended the same courtesy to them, and right now, if he ever did see them again, he wanted to pound them into the ground for forcing him to suffer though the wake.

As he stripped off his clothing to take a shower, he felt his pants pocket crinkle. Inside he found the envelope that the O'Neil woman had forced upon him.

"You wanna know why? Here's why," he recalled her words. Without knowing why he was doing so, Hun broke the wax seal on the envelope, took out the two pages of handwritten copy paper, and began to read.

"Just to clarify things, I'm the one you STILL owe a new bike to, and I'm the one you and your little invisible buddies nabbed once. My brothers don't know I'm doing this, neither does my sensei. Heck, the envelope was sealed when I gave to it April, so if the seal wasn't broken, then you're the only one who's ever seen this, except me."

Now, Hun believed that he knew which turtle this was. Despite the fact that when they were around each other, all they wanted to do was kill each other, this was the one he understood the most I hate you. You hate me, and one day one of us is going to do the other in. It still didn't explain why he had this letter in his hand, but he was sure that none of the others would have thought about giving him this explanation.

Still, Hun continued to read.

"There are three reasons why we even bothered to tell you that you had a grandmother, that she just died, and she wanted you at her wake. The first reason was that Maggie asked me to. Now don't get me wrong here. It's not because I respect you or thought this was fair or anything. As far as I'm concerned you don't deserve to have Maggie as a grandmother, but she asked me to find you. I don't know if that high-priced lawyer told you or not, but Maggie was a hard person to say no to. The moment she asked me, I knew I'd have to, it didn't matter that I already figured out it was going to be you. Maggie wanted you there, and I wasn't going to argue with her.

"That brings up my second reason. I'm sure you saw our little presents for her, or at least I hope you did. They'll illustrate for you what I'm about to say. I did it because I loved Maggie. We all loved her, and she loved us. And you know what, Hun? You can't do anything about it! You can't hurt Maggie or yell at her, she's out of your reach forever. You can't do anything to us except kill us, and you already want to do that, so it doesn't matter. We were her real grandsons, and we only knew her for two months. She said as much to me and to anyone who knew us. She helped us when we were little, giving us food and supplies. She's the one who went out and bought our weapons for our sensei. She loved us, and nothing you can do can take away the love we shared with her. Nothing."

Hun almost ripped up the letter and threw away the pieces right then. The turtle was taunting him, just the way their gifts had taunted him at the wake. They wanted Hun to know that no matter who he was, they were not going to stop honoring her. He really didn't want to know anything more about her, but something in him made him keep reading.

"There was one more reason why I wanted you at that wake. Maggie wanted you to get the chance to know her, and I really do hope you got that chance. The reason we all loved her is that she was a sweet lady with a wonderful and kind heart. There were a lot of times she'd tell us that she wished she could have been there when her old boss, Hamato Yoshi, was killed. She was his housekeeper, and that particular day, when your boss came by, she wasn't working. The rest of us were rather glad she wasn't there that day, or we'd be out a grandmother. I'm almost afraid of thinking what The Foot might have done to her.

"That brings me to my third reason. I wanted to ask you a question Hun. I don't' expect an answer, but I want you to think about it. I want you to think about it for a long time, and I hope that whatever gods you worship, that one day you find an answer. You were there that night when your boss killed our sensei's sensei, Hamato Yoshi. What would you have done if, in addition to Master Yoshi, you found a sixty five year old little bundle of sweetness and chutzpah telling the lot of you where to go and trying to dial 911? You would not have known who she was, and even though you do look a lot like your dad's photo, I don't think she would have made the connection if you were trying to pound her boss into the floor. Don't just put this off either. I want you to think about it. Every time you shake a storeowner down for money, every time you push around the homeless guys in the street. Every time you try to steal an old lady's purse or hurt ANYBODY that you don't know. I want you to ask yourself what would you have done that night if your grandmother had tried to stop you from killing Hamato Yoshi?"

Hun sat on the edge of his bed, dressed only in his shorts, and staring at the opposite wall. His fist clenched at and crumbled the paper in his hand, letting it fall to the floor, with only the faintest of rustles, but he didn't hear it. Everything he knew, everything he was, slowly froze up as the thought kept running through his mind at a breakneck pace.

What would he have done?