Disclaimer: I don't own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles. Period.
A/N: Yes, it's been awhile, but don't pull out the party wagon just yet, because you're not getting rid of me. I'm still very much a dorkishly proud ninja turtle fan, I'm just lacking the time to actually sit down and prove it. Hope this one shot makes up for my absence. It was beta read by the marvelous talent that is known far and wide as the President of Angst - Dierdre, who we all love and adore. I think that's about it. Oh! And don't forget to reivew before you carry on with your everyday fanfictioning... er, business. Thanks!
COMMON DENOMINATOR
by
Mickis
Genre: Drama
Language: English
Fanfiction rated: T
Summary:Visiting a loved one's grave, Leonardo encounters someone he never expected to see again, much less have a conversation with. One shot.
Another year. I can't believe it's been six of them already. So much has happened since then; so many things have changed... myself among them. Yet, even as think of her now, she hasn't aged a day in my mind. Even when I'm an old man, she'll still look youthful and alive - an immortal image of her smooth features is forever burned into my memory.
It still feels strange coming here, maybe because I continue to do it in secret. Although I no longer need to hide my secrets from my father, since he died a couple years back, and my brothers couldn't care less where I've gone. I don't think they've even made the connection that I've been going off on my own every year on this particular night. I'm sure Sensei knew, but he never confronted me about it. Maybe he knew how badly I didn't want to have that conversation, maybe he understood my need to deal with it on my own...
Or maybe he just respected my decision not to tell him.
Looking up at the darkened sky, I'm just in time to catch a glimpse of the pale moon as it momentarily appears from behind the storm of clouds that seem to roam the heavens tonight. Forcing my hands deeper into my pockets, I mutely turn back to stare at the ground, feeling the dry corpses of leafs crushing beneath my feet as I walk across the cemetery. I retrace old steps as if in a trace, yet all my senses are alert and ready for anything, should someone else be here to pay their respects to a loved one. I know it's a slim risk. Most people don't wait till after midnight to visit the graveyard, but you never know when someone might surprise you.
Turning at the corner of the church, I know I've worried for no reason. There's no one here, nothing of interest except for a particular gravestone a few yards up ahead. A candle's been lit by its feet, and the reflection of the flame is constantly dancing across the glazed surface of the stone, almost mocking the emptier graves around it. Even at this distance, it's easy to tell it cost a few more bucks than its less fortunate neighbors. And when I stop about ten feet away, I instantly recognize the bouquet of white roses lying in the trimmed grass.
I guess he must still be around, then.
Nervously eyeing his surroundings through a narrow gap between the brim of his fedora and the collar of his trench coat, Leonardo hurriedly scanned the etchings on the graves as he passed through the seemingly endless isles of death. He couldn't help but feel guilty about not telling Master Splinter where he'd gone, yet at the same time he knew he wouldn't understand his reason for leaving, or at least not support it.
He'd tell him it was too big of a risk to head off to a public place like this, even at such a late hour. Too many eyes could catch him, and he'd have nowhere to hide, since, apart from the church, there was nothing but open land. And because this was sacred ground, it didn't have any manholes to slip down like the many alleys they often traveled through.
Yes, he knew it wasn't one of his brighter ideas to come here, but he didn't really care.
He had to see her.
Even after a year of rational thinking, she wouldn't leave his thoughts. It seemed her blood stained every hand he shook, and her tears brimmed in every eye he met. He was still very much haunted by the memories of her death. It was only by coming here and properly giving his goodbyes that he would finally be rid of her ghost.
Ironically, it seemed he hadn't anticipated the trouble of actually finding her grave. It was truly like searching for a needle in a haystack. The names of the dead had been leaving his lips for almost an hour now, yet none of them had been hers. Aggravated, he decided to simply take his leave if he didn't find it within the next fifteen minutes. It was getting dangerously cold, and his hands wouldn't fit any deeper inside his shallow pockets.
Casting an annoyed look at the graves around him, the turtle quietly turned a corner at the church to scan the graves on the other side.
"Leave."
Startled by the bitterness in the sudden voice, Leo stopped to notice the lonesome man a few yards up ahead, kneeling in front of a grave with his back turned to him. Shame instantly washed over him for interrupting this man in his private moment, as well as relief that his identity was still kept a secret, unless the man had eyes in the back of his head.
"I'm so sorry," Leo quickly apologized as he walked backwards, set on leaving as soon as possible. "I had no idea th--"
"Leave, I said!"
The sudden eruption of hatred in the voice immediately froze Leonardo in his tracks, and he could do nothing but stare at the hunched form in suspicion, as if it truly was a ghost he'd spotted at the cemetery.
It didn't make any sense, of course, but he would recognize that raspy, Japanese accent anywhere.
Taking a hesitant step forward, Leo narrowed his eyes as a nimble hand automatically gripped the hilt of the katana he kept hanging by his hip, veiled by the heavy cloth of his coat.
"...Saki?"
Prepared for anything, Leo was surprised when the man didn't even move at the mention of the infamous name. Maybe he'd been wrong after all. Why would the Shredder stick around in a city where he was wanted for all kinds of crimes? Surely he was more protective of his life than that.
Just as he released his hold on the katana in relief, the man apathetically answered him in a low, familiar voice, "Have you come to finish the job, turtle?"
With his hand immediately clutched around the grip of his sword, Leo carefully took another step closer to his never forgotten enemy; the wet, short and slightly spiky grass discommoding his bare feet. "The police may think you're dead, but I still say you've taken an awfully big risk coming here."
When slowly turning his face to the side, Shredder's jagged profile was bared, yet he didn't bother to look at him out of the corner of his eye, almost as if he didn't have any reason to fear Leo. He didn't even make an attempt to get up from the grass. "Is that meant to be a threat... Leonardo?" he quietly asked, the familiar tone of mockery painting his words a coal black.
"I have sworn to take you out," Leonardo firmly replied, gently pulling his katana from its sheath, as though a rough touch would break the weapon in half. "A year in hiding won't change that."
Laughing bitterly, Saki gracefully rose to his full height, displaying a muddy black leather coat over his broad form that towered over Leo in a way that seemed almost anticlimactic. Yet, when looking at the man's face, things seemed everything but familiar, for nowhere in those features could Leo spot his sworn enemy. Oruko Saki had always struck him as a perfectionist of sorts. His clothes were always neatly ironed, and his black, shiny hair – down to the very last strand – was always perfectly combed behind his ears, framing his evident cheekbones with its stark contrast.
But this man's hair was greasy and tousled, reaching below his shoulders in a neglected manner. His weary features were covered in a thick, black beard that looked almost filthy, much like the shaggy coat of a stray dog. His soil brown eyes held no resemblance to his old enemy, whose stare had always been cool and confident, superior to all those around him. These new eyes were raw with anger and desperation, yet they also held a painful sense of emptiness that no emotion seemed able to fill.
"Then, by all means, do it," Shredder simply said, stretching out his long arms as if inviting him to strike. "I know you long to impress that rat of yours. Perhaps the head of his sworn enemy would be a good enough trophy to earn you a seat next to his."
"Don't speak of my master like that," Leo warned, grabbing a hold of the sword with both hands and positioning it in front of him. "He'd never lower himself to such level as to speak of you."
"Perhaps," Saki offered a broken smile, hidden in the depths of his beard. "Then again..." he added, his features once again bleeding with defeat, "he never lost a child to the art." He fell quiet, locking his bitter stare with Leonardo's.
"And whose fault was that?"
"Silence!" Saki exploded as he dropped his arms to his sides, the intensity in his eyes almost causing Leo to take a reflexive step back. "Who do you think you are to speak to me of my daughter like that?"
"It was the honor binding her to you that got her killed," Leonardo said, still holding his blade in front of him, albeit not as high as before.
"And you always hated me for it," Shredder candidly stated, taking a small yet decisive step forward, burying his words even deeper into Leo by using his piercing eyes to better reach him through the dull darkness. "You could never stand the thought that she always chose me over you, no matter what you did."
"And you could never look beyond your own selfish needs to see what was best for her," Leo added, just as straightforwardly as his foe. "That should've been your downfall, not hers."
Blinking once in soul-deep silence, Saki spoke with a voice that barely reached above the wind, which pulled on the naked branches of a tree standing a few yards to the side. "Are you truly so blinded by honor that you can't recognize a broken man, even when he's standing right in front of you?" he calmly asked, his battered gaze locked with Leo's.
Not knowing what to say, Leo's features only twisted in protest.
"Yes, she died... and I lived," Saki nodded slowly. "But just because my heart's still beating doesn't mean that the man you're looking at is not dead."
"And just why would I care? Suffering is the least you owe her," Leo harshly spat, fearing it was just another one of Saki's tricks to catch him off guard. Maybe he was just talking because he was unarmed, in an effort to stall long enough to be able to locate a weapon of some sort. Instinctively, Leo scanned their surroundings to make sure there was nothing within their reach that might be of use to his enemy.
As if he hadn't even heard him, Saki casually changed the subject. "Were you with her when..." he trailed off, both of them fully aware of the ending to that sentence.
Swallowing a lump in his throat that always seemed to surface whenever he was reminded of the tragic incident, Leo sternly replied, "We fought on her side."
"We?" Saki asked, looking up with a briefly alarmed stare.
"My brothers and I."
"Of course." Shredder bitterly shook his head, as if scolding himself for being stupid enough to ask. "But were you there when she..." taking a moment to gather his composure, he blinked once before he completed the question, "when she died?"
"...Yes," Leo truthfully answered. No more, no less.
Saki's body noticeably tensed, as if he grew several inches taller at that very moment, and Leo found himself staring into his urgent, almost imploring eyes. "What did she say?"
Snorting in disbelief at the idea of the two of them actually having a conversation, Leo only shook his head and replied, "Why should I tell y--"
"You will tell me!" Saki immediately exploded, closing in on Leonardo with threatening steps that carried the force of a hurricane.
Instantly, Leo held up his katana in front of him, both hands locked firmly around the hilt and ready to strike the moment his foe came any closer. The act halted Shredder in his tracks, yet his body still seemed to feed off of the hurricane, only five feet parting him from twenty-six inches of sharp steel.
"Where's the honor in attacking an unarmed man?" Shredder suddenly asked, almost spitefully.
"That never stopped you," Leo firmly replied, keeping his sword steady and never once breaking his stare.
Saki's eyes, however, dropped almost tiredly to the ground before he again met Leonardo's gaze, hints of desolation swimming in his brown, bottomless pools. "What did she say?" he then asked, so quiet and calm Leo nearly had to resort to reading his lips. The Asian man's eyes seemed to bleed with an unabashed, pleading desperation that felt terribly uncharacteristic. "I must know," he continued, his entire body language urging Leo to answer him. "Was she in great pain? Was it swift? I have to know."
Not being able to suppress that certain moment in time when he recognized the pain in his enemy's eyes, Leo relaxed his stance a bit, his mind going back to a night he'd relived too many times to keep track. "She... she couldn't feel anything when I cradled her in my arms, so I don't think she was in that much pain." Pushing down the knot that seemed to tie up his throat, Leonardo hoarsely continued his testimony, "I remember that..." Casting a quick glance at Saki's surprisingly attentive eyes, he went on in a louder voice, "I recall asking her why she'd do something as stupid as going up against the Foot by herself, and she said..." he trailed off, shaking his head in irritation at the memory. Looking up at Saki with hatred burning in his eyes, Leo fixated his gaze on his foe before continuing, "She told me she had to restore your honor. She said she had to protect you," he finished, his jaw snapping shut in a bitter lock.
They'd all known the Foot had been planning something; they could almost smell the anticipation in the late night air when they went out on their patrols those last few weeks. The city had been much too calm for their tastes. The old saying 'the calm before the storm' had crossed all of their minds on more than one occasion, but they had never expected for the Foot's great plan to be to storm their own master. All this time they'd been preparing for an attack on them, plotting and training, always guarding their home like a wildebeest protecting its calf when sensing a stalking predator.
Leo could still recall the shock that washed over him when Raph called from his cell phone that night, telling him that the Foot were fighting their own. They'd all rushed over to the majestic skyscraper, but by the time they got inside, Karai had already been delivered a fatal blow by the army she'd once trusted with her life.
She'd been keeping the soldiers from accessing the elevator that led to Saki's floor, using her own body like a homicidal wall they'd only be able to trespass by tearing down permanently. She didn't stand a chance against them – and she had known and accepted that when she boldly drew her katana in her father's name.
After they got home that night, Leo had locked himself in the bathroom. He had then spent hours scrubbing her dried blood off of his hands and plastron, as though a mere spot of red would seep into his being and infect him with the death that took her.
Staring now into Saki's eyes, where – although he was ashamed to admit it – he could momentarily spot ghostly traces of Karai's still lingering memory, Leo grimly interrupted the silence that had washed over the two of them with his story, "You may not have been there when it actually happened... but it doesn't clean her blood off your hands."
Speaking through clenched teeth, the reply sounded almost as if it never truly left the pit of Oruko Saki's throat, "I never meant for her to get herself killed."
"Really?" Leo challenged. "Because you sure had a strange way of showing it."
"She was my daughter!" Shredder blasted, his eyes burning with a fire Leo had only seen before in Raphael's gaze. His chest seemed to heave up and down in exhaustion, as though he had to catch his breath. Ever so slowly the fire began to die down, and eventually the only thing left was a burning glow in the deepest center of his pupils. "What kind of a monster do you take me for?" he asked, sounding almost genuinely hurt. "I loved her far more than you ever did; more than you could even begin to fathom. I would have never intentionally put her in danger. Ever."
Taking a moment to consider this, Leo finally lowered his sword completely, although he remained ready should his old enemy decide to try something. He'd always known Saki cared for his daughter, although he'd imagined it was more because of his possessive nature, rather than this unconditional love he claimed he had for her. Because of all the preternatural beings he and his brothers had come across over the years, the one with the closest resemblance to a monster had been none other than the human being he was facing right now.
"If what you say is true," Leo calmly began, "then why did you raise her under those circumstances?"
"You expect my own daughter not to have been a part of my clan?" Saki questioned, his face twisting into an incredulous expression.
Your clan, Leo's inner voice bitterly spat. The clan you took by force and corrupted for your own selfish purposes. Holding this back with difficulty, he almost had to grit his teeth when addressing the villain, "I'm sure you knew there were huge risks when you brought her up as a ninja. I'm sure you knew of the danger when you sent her off to fight my brothers and I."
"As I'm sure your master did when he sent you after me," Shredder countered.
"That was different," Leo objected.
"Was it?" Saki wondered, leaving the question hanging like an echo in the wind. "You weren't less her enemies than I was yours. I was merely passing the feud down to the next generation, just like your master did."
"Feud or not, she never thought it necessary to kill us," Leo reminded him. "Despite your orders."
Nodding slowly, thoughtfully, Shredder quietly replied, "And therein lies the difference between her and us."
Yes, she had gone against her master's orders, time and time again, something he had never done with his own master. An order was an order, and Leo trusted his father's judgment – not only trusted it, but admired him because of it. He couldn't imagine refusing his master like Karai had done. Although, when it really came down to it, she had never swayed from her father's side, but died guarding him, not a single word of regret to be found on her dying lips.
She must have genuinely loved her father, in spite of his flaws and evildoings. After all, he was the man who had brought her up, the man who'd always loved her – in his own twisted way.
He was the man she had died protecting.
"Leave."
His voice was low and firm, causing Oruko Saki to look up in surprise, his features twisted in confusion. "Excuse me?"
It was fairly obvious he wasn't used to taking orders. Especially not from archenemies, Leonardo imagined.
"Leave," he repeated, his tone of voice unchanged. "New York's not yours to bully anymore. There's nothing left for you here; I told you what you wanted to know. Now leave."
Saki smiled devilishly, humor twinkling in the blackness of his eyes for a short moment before he parted his lips to answer, "So you can stab me in the back?"
Keeping his katana close to his body, Leo simply quoted him from before, "Where's the honor in attacking an unarmed man?"
Although nothing in his expression visibly changed, a sudden sense of understanding seemed to radiate from Shredder's eyes. It wasn't gratitude, but not far from it. He then bowed his head once, his eyes still stubbornly locked on Leo's, staring at him through the strands of black hair that whisked over his face. "Sayonara, Leonardo."
Gracefully stepping around the foot of the tombstone, Saki then walked down the graveyard, his form disappearing into his surroundings with such ease, it could only have been the act of a ninja.
Staring at her grave for the first time, Leonardo quietly murmured to himself, his tone wistful, "Goodbye."
Admiring the shy bouquet of white, enfolded roses for a long moment, my thoughts naturally go to the man who put them there. He did as he was told: he finally left New York City, with this particular night being the only constant exception.
I don't like it, but I guess I can't deny him the right to visit his daughter's grave. She was the reason I let him go in the first place, and Saki knew that when he was told to leave, because she was our common denominator.
She loved us both, albeit in completely different ways, and out of respect for that love, we looked past our own differences and simply parted company.
I can't help but wonder, though, what it would be like if I ever met him here, putting flowers on her grave. For some reason, he's always gone by the time I arrive.
Probably a good thing.
Reaching into the inside pocket of my trench coat, I gently grab the stem of the flower I picked up from one of the other graves. It was a huge and surely expensive bouquet – one little flower more or less doesn't make much difference. Of course, I would have preferred getting my own flowers – and paying for them – but since all the flower shops I know of are all closed by the time I can wander the streets, it wasn't much of a choice.
Bending down and placing the purple tulip next to the roses, I then smile briefly to myself before turning on my heel to leave.
Until next year.
One Last A/N: In my world, Shredder is human, not an alien. And Karai is/(was?) very much his daughter by blood. So if you felt confused or whetever, that's my story - and I'm sticking to it. As for you... Thanks for sticking by to the end credits!