Annnnd...yes, this is late. That's why I'm uploading two chapters to make up for it. Enjoy! The last part of the chapter was based off an actual conversation Ravyne and I had...Doritos...Hahaha!

Again, all advice and critiques are welcome!

-Katt B.

**DISCLAIMER: WE DO NOT OWN TMNT**

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Strike of the Dragon

PART 2

6

3-3.2: "Ryu"

"So when I downloaded the data from the Kraang ship, I discovered the creature wasn't really April's mom, it just had her memories," Donnie explains as he types away on his computer inside the Kraang ship.

"So what was it?" Raph asks.

"Some sort of early infiltration experiment that utilized a combination of Mrs. O'Neal's DNA and Kraang DNA, but it was too dangerous."

"So the Kraang put it in a deep freeze," Raph finishes, "It all makes sense."

"Guys," Leo stops them both, grabbing their shoulders, "Do we have to talk about this right now?" He glances off at April who sits curled up next to the wall in deep thought by herself. The turtles nod in understanding and move to stand near her.

Over by the door, Venus is watching Ryu poke around on her mini-screen handheld that is hooked up to a metal contraption around her forearm just below her elbow. The metal band blinks with different colored lights as it reads her blood readings and sends the data to her handheld which displays the findings on the screens.

"Nothing so far," Ryu tells Venn who watches her carefully in his place leaning on the other side of the doorframe.

"Well, that ends that then," he sighs in defeat.

"So then, what set you off?" Venus asks, "And how on earth did you mold your arms into blades? Since when could you even do that?"

Ryu shrugs, rubbing her forehead again. She never remembers what goes down when she changes. Personally, she doesn't really care to know. All she cares about is whether or not she hurts anybody. That would actually bother her.

"I don't know nor do I care. I'll send a message to the elders about it tomorrow morning when things settle down. As of right now, I just want to go to bed," Ryu pushes herself off the doorframe, listening to the dead sound the metal makes, and heads back upstairs. She rolls her bedding out on the floor and slides under her blankets without bothering to pull her hair up into the braid she normally wears at night.

Before long, everyone is wondering off to bed, settling the house back into a calm silence around them. The night's events had left everyone exhausted to the core, but Ryu and April had really been the ones affected.

Ryu, though, didn't have the heart to tell anyone. She just couldn't find the right words.

Knowing that she had hurt that beast, even if the thing was evil and a complete fake, April had still seen it as her mom. Ryu had destroyed that; she had brought this pain on the girl.

Just as the fire had brought this pain on Ryu so long ago.

Now, she had become that fire.

And she can't stand it.

Sleep doesn't come to her at all that night; eventually she sneaks out of the room around Venus and Venn who are both snoring soundly in the room with her and out the front door to sit on the porch. She sits there in thought for so long that she loses track of time.

That is, until the roosters crow in the coming dawn.

She looks up and finds the sun beginning to lighten the sky above. Right about now, she would be getting up to go out for her morning run, but now she just can't find the energy. A deep fatigue has settled into her bones ever since she came out of her change last night, a fatigue that she's never known before whenever she came out of a transformation.

Could this be what the Dragons warned me about?, Ryu wonders. Whatever, I've taken this mission and I will finish it. No matter the consequences.

She reaches down into her boot and feels around for her intended target; a small test tube-like container filled with a deep, dark purple liquid. The cork comes out with a small pop and she downs the sour liquid in one gulp.

One down, she chants to herself, nine to go.

Immediately, the fatigue tainting her body evaporates into nothing, as if it had not even been there to begin with, and Ryu smiles. Above her, dark clouds are beginning to roll in, threatening a storm on their area. In the air, she can faintly smell the approaching rain.

"Ryu?"

April sits down next to her as she jumps at the sudden voice; she hadn't even heard the front door open. "Wow, you scared me," Ryu laughs.

"Sorry," April shrugs, "Training to be a ninja remember?"

"Right, yeah, I remember now. How's that going?"

April rolls her eyes, "Well the turtles don't make it easy."

Ryu chuckles, dropping her head on her knees.

"Hey, don't laugh at me!"

Ryu chokes her amusement down to a snicker and presses her lips together, but April still glares at her, "What, I'm trying right?!"

April groans and they go silent as they look up at the darkening skies above. The wind is already starting to change from a graceful, gentle dance to a playful tumble in the yard, the grass swaying helplessly against it.

"Hey…can I…ask you a question?" April asks after a long pause.

Ryu turns her head to the side and raises her eyebrows curiously. Since when had the girl ever asked for permission to ask a question?

The redhead drops her eyes to her feet before she continues, "That night, when you had told me that story…about your friend…the one who lost her family in the fire…?"

Ryu eyes quickly become guarded as she shifts her gaze out across the yard and focuses on her breathing, blocking out the press of memories that try to break out from their cage in her mind.

April glances over at the other girl carefully, not really sure she wants to continue now that Ryu has that look on her face, but she just has to know, "That girl…she's you…isn't she?"

Ryu's throat goes completely dry, tightening up like a noose has pulled stiff around her neck. She swallows it and goes to stand on her feet, "You know, I think this is a story the whole family deserves to hear."

"No, I didn't mean you had to tell everyone!" April waves her hands in panic.

"It's okay," Ryu smiles weakly, "I want to."

Back inside, Ryu calls everyone to the living room and she goes to lean against the wall next to the window. Beside her in chair next to the couch, Venus pops her butterscotch lollipop out of her mouth, "So why am I wasting my time in here when I should be outside?"

"Doing what, lounging around?" Ryu raises an eyebrow at her.

"Stop it," Venn groans as he takes a seat on the floor beside Venus, "Why do you both have to constantly go at each other's throats?"

When Mikey and Donnie finally take a seat on the floor on the other side of the room from them, Ryu sighs, "Well, I know you're all wondering why I called you in here."

"Cliché," Venus mutters behind her magazine, earning her a glare from everyone.

April, standing behind the couch where Leo, Raph, and Casey are settled, nods to Ryu encouragingly.

"I told April a story a while ago and I feel like it's only fair that you should all know about it."

Venn and Venus both share a look and Venus sets down her magazine on her lap, "Is this what I think this is?"

Ryu nods.

"I think I'll go to the kitchen-."

"Sit," Venn demands through his teeth.

Venus drops back into the seat and crosses her hands in her lap immediately.

"What is she talking about?" Raph urges.

"Yeah, you can trust us," Leo adds.

"I do trust you! That's why I want you all to know…I just don't know how to start," Ryu fiddles her fingers in front of her, staring down at them.

"Start at the beginning," Raph suggests.

"Yeah, just pretend you're telling me all over again," April smiles again.

Ryu leans back against the wall and starts fiddling her fingers again, "When I was really small, me and my family often went on vacation to a small lodge my father had gotten for my mother. It was always exciting to go and just get away from all the stress, but as I got older things got a bit harder between us. I had a younger sister, she was two years younger than me, but she was born a little too early. The doctors said that she would always get sick easily and as she got older it just got worse. It wasn't until I was six that it really started to bug me because my mom was always having to stay at home to take care of her, but on some good days we'd get a chance to take her with us to the lodge. It was on one of these lucky weekends when I was seven that things went very wrong."

Ryu's voice pauses as she turns to gaze out the window for a moment, "Me and my sister had just been finishing our prayers when the phone rang. My mother was in the room with us, singing us to sleep, but we could hear my father start to raise his voice. He never raised his voice, so we were all pretty surprised to hear it. My sister started to cry and my mother had to go calm her down, but I remember getting up to go to my father. I had just come into the living room when he was slamming the phone down on the receiver; his expression scared me. Whoever had been on the phone apparently said something to make him mad but he would never tell me that night. Instead, he just kneeled down in front of me to apologize and said that sometimes we make mistakes but we can't let them define our future. I never understood what he meant. He brought me to bed where my mother had finally gotten my sister to sleep, and they both sat down on my bedside to tell me that I would have to become really strong so that I could take care of my sister."

She stops again and swallows the emotions that have swelled up in her throat, hating the words sitting on her tongue, "I didn't want to. I told them right then and there that I didn't want to take care of my sister—that she could take care herself. I told them I didn't like her because she was always taking up everyone's time together." Ryu sighs heavily and chokes out a weak laugh, "Great thing to say to your family before they die, right?"

"Ryu-."

"Don't try to tell me that I didn't know any better," Ryu stops April, "I did know better. I knew that I was jealous of my sister. I knew that I hated her. What I didn't know was that she'd die in that fire. I didn't know that I wouldn't have the time to tell her that I hated her."

No one answers, uncertain of what to say. Raph glances up at Ryu, seeing a strange person behind her eyes; someone older and way more tired that her outer self lets on. It's when she starts talking again that that other person she buries inside of her comes pouring out.

"It was a few hours later, after everyone had gone to sleep, that the fire happened. My parents woke me up and told me to get outside, but I wouldn't go. I was too afraid to move; the heat from the fire was excruciating. All I could hear over the flames was my mother screaming that she couldn't wake my sister, that she had to get her out. She tried to tell me so many times to get out, to run, but I kept crying that I couldn't do it. My father eventually was forced to pick me up and carry me outside to the big oak tree that sat out in the yard before he went back in to get my mother and sister," Ryu squeezes her eyes shut and her words choke in the back of her throat. "They never came out. I just sat there and watched them die and I didn't do anything!"

"Ryu, you were only seven, you couldn't do anything," April tells her, her own voice trembling.

"Everyone says that!" Ryu snaps. "They all told me that I was just a child, that I couldn't have done anything. I could've gotten up, stopped sitting there like a coward, and gone to get them. I could have, but I just sat there! I just sat there!"

In a flash, Raph react before his thoughts can catch up with him, rushing to her side the second he sees her knees start to buckle, and wrapping her up in his arms. Ryu goes weak, burying her face into the side of his neck and biting her tongue to keep herself from breaking down. Venus glances at Venn who stands up to put a hand on the back of Ryu's shoulder. Donnie and Mikey both jump up to go wrap them up in hugs too, followed by Leo, and April who do the same.

Venus and Casey both remain seated, staring at the group with matched expressions. "Sorry," she calls to the hugging group, "I don't do hugs…but I sent you my condolences years ago, Ryu. Still do. You remember, right?"

Ryu chuckles weakly from the center of the group, "You made me a plate of burritos."

The whole group steps away to throw weird looks at Venus who shrugs, "You said you liked burritos!"

"I said Doritos."

Everyone bursts out laughing, filling the house with the merriment and chasing out the fog that had started to build up around them.

Author's Note:

Here's a layout of the text affects again:

Italics-any words in this affect are personal Thoughts or Sounds.

Bold-any words in this affect are Computer Messages/Text Messages.

"Bold"-any words in this affect inside quotation marks are Computer Voices.

"Italics"-any words in this affect inside quotation marks are Past words/Emphasizing.

"Bold/Italics"-any words in this dual affect inside quotation marks are Past Computer Messages/Past Text Messages.

Bold/Italics-any words in this dual affect are Voice of the Earth.

Italics/Underlined-any words in this dual affect are Voice of the Spirit Guides.

Bold Underlined-any words in this dual affect are an Unknown Voice.

Again, all advice and comments are welcome.

-Katt B.