Karai massaged her feet and hands, encouraging circulation through her veins. Her captors, skilled as they were in their hostage-taking, had taken into the account the cold bloodedness of her mutation. She could see her shaky breaths as she struggled to stay warm in the icy temperatures.
The whispers outside the door and inside her head had combined into one cacophony of misery. Since the day she'd heard the muttered conversation about Hamato Yoshi's death, her demons had seeped out of her sub-conscience, permeating her thoughts in an endless loop.
She couldn't tell the difference anymore between Shredder's words and her own anytime he came in for another torture session. They emanated the same message to her every day.
Failure.
She'd failed in her mission. She'd left the family that had loved her, submersed herself back into hell with her 'father', and had groveled toward bringing the prophecy to fulfillment sooner... for nothing.
She'd returned to the Foot to save Splinter, to divert the fate of the Hamato Clan. From the moment she'd walked into the lair, no longer an enemy, her mind had revolved around protecting this beautiful life she'd been gifted.
Once the foes began to increase in number, she figured it was time to do something more than win an occasional battle. She'd remembered a scrap of a prophecy, a shred of hope for survival in this war against Saki. After Splinter had plunged into a bottomless cavern, come within inches of death, and left the Turtles, April, and herself to fend for themselves, she vowed to make sure her brothers never had to live without their father.
Karai vowed that she would take any sacrifice to save this new family.
And she'd failed.
Her true father was dead. The dire fate of the Hamato Clan had come and gone. Her attempt to summon the Freeformers had been all for naught. She was convinced that there was nothing left to live for now.
So she sat, rocking back and forth, trying to navigate the sea of nasty memories swirling in her mind.
"When dire is the fate of the pure clan's lives,
Four souls rise up to bring Saki's demise,
The soul of the leopard, with eyes of sky blue,
Searching for hope, with one dream to pursue,
The soul of the owl, hair dark as night,
Without chains, not free, about to take flight,
The soul of the fox, with heritage vile,
Overcomes the past, or is overcome by the wild,
The soul of the wolf, heart and mind ice cold
Loves the unlikely, who softens her world."
Karai repeated it over and over, crying the one divination that had once granted her hope. She screamed other things, too. Curses, pleas, even bits of literature she found comforting in this time of agony. Eventually she emerged from her pain-induced craze, bleary-eyed and staring at the single security camera in the corner.
She smiled as she turned her attention to the device.
"Hello, Shredder," she said as best she could around the muzzle, "I'm sure you're enjoying watching me degrade into insanity. But I'm not speaking to you. I'm speaking to my brothers."
She took a breath, closed her eyes, and began in a lower voice. "Entry Three. Date... I'm not sure. My family, the first time I addressed you, I explained my plan to save our father. Previously, I sobbed like a weakling about what had happened to me, to us. Now I speak simply to say goodbye. I'm not sure whether you'll recover these recordings, I can only hope."
Karai bit her lip, having to stop a moment to recollect herself. "I'm not going to survive much longer. I have nothing left to live for. I betrayed you all, to preserve our own lives, and now see just how toxic I am. But know that I never meant to hurt any of you, and that I will always consider myself honored to have called myself a member of the Hamato Clan, as short-lived as it was."
The titanium door opened with a creak, cutting off the rest of Karai's speech. It didn't matter, she didn't have much more to say anyway. Metal clanked as heavy footsteps echoed in the cell, and she didn't need to look up to know it was the Shredder greeting her for another session.
"Your friends are not coming."
"I don't blame them."
The Shredder cackled lowly, and one sharp CRACK! later, Karai was on the floor again, blood dripping into her eyes from the new laceration that had just opened on her brow.
"I taught you never to show weakness during these torture trials, Karai," Shredder scolded, "Now, get up. A student must obey her master's lessons."
She glared up at him. "I am not your student. I am not your slave. And I do not belong to you."
"Obviously, you need a reminder." Another set of footfalls, these ones robotic, could be heard outside the door, before Shredder barked his next order. "Fetch the branding irons."
Karai's head whipped up, cowering at the feet of the murderer towering over her. "No."
A kick to the jaw silenced her. "You belong to the Foot, as you always have."
Karai let a single sob escape her, as she turned to the small camera, tears streaming. "My brothers, I love you all, and even death will not change that."
