Disclaimer: I don't own the show, I'm just in love with it.


"Isn't Crognard the Barbarian awesome?!" cheered Mikey, gripping her hand in excitement.

Karai chuckled indulgently. "I gotta admit, it's not as bad as I thought it would be."

Mikey smiled smugly. "I knew you'd like it."

"If nothing else, it's better than Space Heroes."

"Well, yeah." He nudged her playfully. "That isn't exactly hard… but don't tell Leo I said so, 'kay?"

She put a finger to her lips. "Tell Leo you said what?"

He blinked. "That Space Heroes is bad."

Deciding that it wasn't worth the argument, Karai nodded her agreement, and Mikey returned his attention to the show.

For the first time in the week that Karai had lived there, the duo were alone in the living room that afternoon. Casey and April were at school, and Donnie was experimenting with some new device or other in his lab (Karai had known Donatello must have been dedicated, but she didn't realise just how introverted the genius was). She knew Leo was in his room, but he had been reading something earlier, and she didn't want to disturb him. Master Splinter had gone for a walk in the sewers, and nobody had seen Raph for a while.

"Karai?"

She suppressed the urge to jump. Speak – or think – of the devil. The red-banded turtle stood behind her, arms folded stiffly across his chest.

He tipped his head towards the dojo. "Feel like sparring for a bit?"

Karai opened her mouth to respond, but Mikey cut her off. "Raph! I'm hanging out with her!"

He shrugged indifferently. "So? She's spent every second since she got here with either you, Leo, or Sensei. I bet she's sick of you already."

The younger turtle whipped around to Karai for denial. She smiled. "I'm not sick of you, Mikey."

"Ha!"

"But-" Mikey frowned; Karai patted his knee. "Raph has a point. Besides," Karai winked at him, "you can tell me what happens next when I get back."

Instantly, his demeanour returned to normal. "No way! I don't give out spoilers."

"Then we'll just have to catch the re-run."

The kunoichi clapped Mikey on the shoulder as she stood, following a stoic Raph to the dojo. He strode confidently ahead of her, not checking to see if she followed. He close the screen door behind her, ensuring that it was shut.

Habitually, she rolled her shoulders, stretching her muscles in preparation. "So, rules of the spar?"

Also stretching, he answered, "No rules. Just try to keep your blood off the dojo floor."

"Oh, is that what you usually do?" she teased.

He growled. "You're going down!"

"Am I hell!"

Raphael swung his sai at Karai's head, missing by an inch as she dodged. She sliced her tantõ through the air at him as she turned, but he pinned her arm behind her back.

"Sloppy mistake, princess," he hissed.

"If you say so," she replied.

She slammed the handle of her sword into the turtle's thigh, causing him to drop down to one knee as he cried out. Though he still kept hold of her arm, and pulled her down with him. He secured both his arms around her, pinning her own to her sides, and held his sai against her throat.

"Yeah, I would say so." Raph smirked at her as she fruitlessly struggled for freedom.

But Karai wasn't going down without a fight. She lifted her legs into the air and stomped hard on his feet. As he yelled in pain, his grip weakened, and she broke free. The girl leapt just out of his reach and lowered herself into a fighting stance, beckoning him forward with a wave of her hand and a confident grin.

"Well, I wouldn't," she informed him.

Growling, Raph flung himself at the kunoichi, knocking her sword away with his sai and tackling her to the ground. He pinned her firmly to the ground; her arms were secured above her head, and her legs were trapped between his own. She tried to squirm away, but Raph had no intention of letting her.

"Okay, so you got lucky," Karai conceded, "well done." The girl cried out in surprise, twisting to the side as a sai's hilt suddenly hit the space her head had been occupying. "What the hell?!" She elbowed him in the face and leapt to her feet in his moment of distraction.

However, said moment ended quickly, and when he looked back up she noticed the fresh unadulterated fury in his green eyes. Her heart began palpitating in anxiety as she comprehended the real danger she was in. He winded her with a hard punch to the stomach, then kicked her legs out from under her. Her back hit the floor with a horrible smack, and her vision blurred. He pinned her again, this time abandoning his sai in favour of just pounding her. Large green hands twisted her arms beneath her painfully, forcing both his and her weight onto them.

His knees pressed hard on her own, pushing them to an awkward angle. Then his fists were flying at her, slamming any area of her torso they could reach. The motion sent her head bouncing up and down, and she winced each time it whacked the floor. And the whole time, the look on Raphael's face wasn't Raphael. It was a look she knew all too well: Vengeance. Dark, detached vengeance. She knew it. He had been harbouring resentment for her actions all along – maybe they all had been.

Terror boiling over, Karai began to scream, but it was interrupted by her own gasp of pain as he drove a firm punch into her nose. Her head whipped to the side, and blood spattered his fist and the dojo's floor. Having had her last tentative grasp on rationality broken, Karai dissolved completely, tears pooling involuntarily in her eyes as she began to hyperventilate.

Thankfully though, Raph's anger seemed to be subsiding. He glanced between his bloodied hand and her bloodied nose, then the bloodied floor beside them. "For crying out loud, Karai," he finally said, his voice thick, "I told you to keep your blood off the floor."

His attempt at a joke hung awkwardly between them, growing stale in the air. Karai squeezed her eyes closed, trying to regulate her breathing, looking like she was anticipating something. Raph watched the confusion flood across her face when he lifted himself off her and eased her into a sitting position.

"Careful," he instructed her, untangling her arms with one hand and pressing the other against her nose gently, hoping the wraps would soak up some of the blood. "If you move too quick you'll get a head-rush, and that definitely won't help."

She started to slouch in on herself defensively, but he shook his head. "No, sit up straight. Just tilt your head forward a bit."

Recognising that for the moment he was no longer a threat, Karai obeyed, reaching for her nose. When he brushed her hands back down, he raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you meant to pinch your nose?" she asked shakily, her voice stuffy.

"Your nose might be broken, idiot. Wanna break it more?" A conflicted expression crossed his face. "I did hit ya pretty hard." Karai looked down while she tried to think of something to say, but Raph moved her head back to its original position. "Not that far forward, or you'll get dizzy."

When it was clear she wasn't going to reply, Raph undid the wrappings on his stained hand and bunched them up, holding them to her nose. Her hands curled around his singular one, and he let her take the cloth. She didn't relinquish his scaled hand.

After she had calmed down enough, he softly investigated her swollen nose, grimacing when he heard little clicks and cracks. "Yeah, I'm thinkin' that might be some kind of break. Here, I'll take you to Don."

"Raphael?" He almost chuckled at her muffled voice. "Why are you helping me?"

He sighed, and mumbled, "'Cause I shouldn't have hurt ya. At least, not this bad."

The turtle uncomfortably shuffled closer to her, and enfolded her in his arms. His embrace was stiff and awkward, like he wasn't accustomed to it, but she huddled in anyway, if only because his cradles felt so much better than his punches. She tucked her arm around his neck, her other hand covering her nose with the fabric. Her head slotted into the crook of her neck, with his own lolling against it.

"For the record, this is a one-off thing," Raph told her. "Don't get used to this."

"Which, you hugging me or hitting me?" Karai chuckled.

"Hugging you," he elaborated. "We're siblings now; we'll be hitting each-other regularly."

He said they were siblings. Karai couldn't hide her smile. "Most times won't end with a broken nose though, right?"

He huffed, hugging her even tighter. "Only if you do something as stupid as running off after Shredder again."

She tensed. "Oh. So that is what this is about."

Raph was practically crushing her into his plastron by now. "Karai, what is wrong with you?! Did you really think you could take on the Shredder by yourself? He taught you, he knows your fighting style." He relaxed his grip, but kept a firm hold of her. "We could've helped you. Taught you new skills, backed you up… You could've been happy with us. We could've been a family."

Karai tried to inhale through her nose, but found it difficult. Her voice was a lot less steady than she would've liked when she whispered, "Is that still an option?"

He lightly swatted the back of her head. "What do you freaking think?"


"Hmm…" Donatello muttered, carefully prodding his sister's swollen nose. "Yeah, I'm thinking a minor break. It's stopped bleeding though, there's no external cuts, and it's not crooked or deformed – all good signs. I'd say keep an ice-pack on it," Karai gratefully accepted the one he offered, "for about fifteen minutes every couple hours for the next few days, maybe take some painkillers – I'm sure April can take you to a pharmacy – and prop your head up on some pillows when you lie down. And, y'know, don't hit your head or face on anything, obviously." He smiled sympathetically. "You won't be able to train, either."

"Until?"

"Until it's healed. That should be about six weeks."

"That's all kinda vague, Don. Any definite answers?" asked Raph from the doorway.

Donnie and Karai both jumped; Raph had been silent so long, they had forgotten he was there. "Raphael, I can't pinpoint healing to the nanosecond. Every case is different."

Karai didn't really hear her scientific brother, as she focused on Raph. He had been in the lab as long as she had, but not beside her, not in a comforting touch or soothing murmur when she flinched in pain, like Donnie had. No, Raph had stood woodenly in the doorway, arms rigidly folded over his plastron. But she could still decipher the tiniest glimmer of care in his eyes, with an even smaller hint of guilt.

"Wait, bro, you can't go in there!"

Everyone's eyes widened at the sound of Mikey's panic-stricken voice. He had been put on 'Leo Watch', as much to keep the little turtle from fussing wildly around the lab as Leo himself. Raph turned to glance over his shoulder, and was promptly shoved aside. The blue-banded turtle strode into the room, an anxious Mikey at his heels.

"Karai!" snapped Donnie suddenly, taking her head in his hands gently. She had whipped around instinctively as Leo entered, not wanting him to see her injury straight away. Donnie tugged the ice-pack away from her nose and checked for bleeding, thankfully finding none. Replacing the ice-pack, he glared at her. "I didn't think I needed to specify not giving yourself whiplash!"

The kunoichi couldn't help smirking. "Well, I think doctors should be thorough."

Mikey laughed, before quickly realising it may have been a bad idea. "Uh, sorry, D. if it counts for anything – which I doubt – I was laughing at her voice, not you."

"Gee, thanks, Mikey," Karai commented, rolling her eyes.

"That isn't polite, Mikey," Leo informed him, beore stepping closer to the girl. "He does have a point though, Rai; what's up with your voice?" Another step. "And why are you holding an ice-pack?" Now, he was near enough to place a hand on the back of her neck. "Are you okay?"

"It's…" She shifted to face him. Blue eyes widened. "It's just a little break. No big deal. Nothing serious."

His huge, calloused hands cupped her face cautiously, tilting her head slightly to see past the ice-pack. "Karai…" he crooned quietly. Wide, reptilian lips brushed the damaged appendage, and she smiled. "How did you break it?"

Raph sighed heavily. "We were sparring in the dojo, and-"

"I hit myself in the face with the hilt of my tantõ," finished Karai hastily.

Leo tutted playfully, but lifted her into his lap. "Well done, stupid."

The red-banded turtle watched uneasily as Karai batted at Leo, who gathered her into a cuddle. Throat choked, he admitted, "That's not true, Leo. She lied about the tantõ to protect me. Truth is, we were sparring, and I lost control of my temper. I… I pinned her down and beat on 'er until she started bleeding. That was when I realised I'd gone too far." He sighed again. "I'm sorry, Leo."

There was an awkward silence, followed by, "I don't think I'm who you should apologise to."

Raph groaned. "Right again, Fearless." He knelt to be eye-level with Karai. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have lost control like that."

"I deserved it."

"No, you didn't," Leo denied immediately.

"Yeah, she did," Raph argued. "She turned her back on us and ditched us to go after Shred-head. And she gave up on us when the retro-mutagen didn't work." Karai nodded solemnly at each point. He turned to her again. "That's why I did it; I was angry."

"Is that why you wanted to spar with her?" questioned Mikey timidly.

"No." He shook his head firmly. "I wanted to spend some time with her, but I couldn't think of anything other than ninjutsu that we had in common. I thought I'd be able to control myself, but obviously not."

The kunoichi didn't reply, but when her eyes met Raph's, her emotions were displayed clearly in them. The turtle saw understanding and forgiveness among the amber, along with hope.

Leo sighed regretfully, and placed a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Raph… I understand that you're sorry, but you can't treat people – especially family – like this."

"I… I know, Leo, I just-"

"Leonardo, don't worry. He's explained himself with valid points, and I know as well as anyone how badly emotions can spring up and control you." Karai touched Raph's arm. "I forgive you, Raph, if you can forgive me."

He ruffled her hair. "I already have, sis."

She dipped her head in gratitude, and Donnie fussily re-adjusted it. Raph's mouth quirked upwards as he carefully tucked his arm around her.

After a few moments, Mikey tentatively raised his hand. "Uh… I hate to be the downer, but what're we gonna tell Master Splinter?"


You know, I really didn't want to make Raph a complete A-hole in this, but I think I kinda did... so, sorry. The idea is that they've all forgiven him, so I'm hoping that you readers will, too ;)

Anyway, thank you all for reading, and if you review, then thanks for that too. Not gonna lie, they totally make my day xD