She stepped from the shadows. Her hair had grown out some, the blonde completely faded. She only wore black now; she blended in a lot better without armor. She was even more dangerous than she had been before.
She watched as a group of men loaded several boxes onto a van. Eventually, one glanced up, and saw her.
"Oh, no! Guys, it's her!" he yelled. His comrades dropped the crates they were carrying. One leaped into the front seat of the van, attempting to radio for help. As all of this happened, she began walking slowly towards them, drawing her katana. She always took her time, just in case someone—something—else showed up. She wasn't stupid. Also, she enjoyed scaring them; they knew that any help that might come wouldn't show up in time.
She stopped when a screeching noise filled the street. The men, each a member of the Foot Clan, looked in the direction of the noise. While they were distracted, she slipped back into the shadows, and scaled a building. She watched as a graffiti-covered subway car came to a jarring halt next to the van. Then, she vanished.
She had been in hiding for two years now. She was stronger than she had been, more ruthless, and more cautious. She still didn't feel ready to face the Shredder; she wouldn't ever be ready. He had trained for a lot longer than she had. She also wasn't ready to go to Splinter. She wasn't ready to fill the role of 'daughter' for someone other than the Shredder, as weird as that was.
She wasn't sure if she'd ever have a family again.
As Leo exited the Shellraiser, he thought he saw a person-shaped shadow run across the nearest roof. He blinked, and it disappeared. Great time to start imagining things, Leo. He took in the fight scene before him. His brothers seemed to have things handled pretty well. Mikey was shouting and whipping his nunchaku around, fighting two of the Foot at once. Raph had already taken down three, and was working on number four. Donnie wasn't fighting anyone, instead, he was working on prying the lid off of one of the crates that were near and inside the van. Strange, they had already dropped them when we arrived... I wonder what startled them... That was when he saw a seventh ninja, in the van, on a radio, no doubt calling for help. He went up to the driver's side door, and pulled the guy from the van.
When the fight was over, mere moments later, Leo noticed that the person at the other end of the radio was still speaking. "Where is the girl? Repeat, where is the girl? Where did she go after the turtles showed up?"
Leo immediately knew who they were talking about. A few times, Donnie had found out about something that Shredder had been planning, but, when they arrived to stop the Foot Clan, no one was there. There was almost always evidence of a fight, but not a single person around. Another time, they had snuck into one of Shredder's hideouts, and had overheard some of the members of the Foot talking about some girl who kept wrecking their plans. Apparently, this time, she had been about to stop them, but had left when he and his brothers showed up.
"H-hey, Donnie! Come here a second."
"Leo, you are not going to believe what was in those crates! I'm still trying to figure out what the Foot could possibly want with it bu—"
"DONNIE! Shut up! The guy on the other end of this radio was talking about some girl. She was here!"
"She was? I wonder why she didn't stay and help... You don't think she ran off because we showed up, do you?"
"I think so... Maybe she doesn't want people to see her, just like we don't want people to see us."
"Maybe..." Donnie looked like he was deep in thought.
Raph walked up to them. "Hey, Leo! You know who we haven't seen in a while? Karai. You haven't run into her anywhere, have you?"
"No, I haven't seen her since before the techno-drome thing."
"Dude, that was two years ago! I thought you liked her!"
"Yeah, well... She almost always found me, not the other way around... I haven't even really thought about her in a while... I wonder where she went?"
Boy, I know how to show myself a good time, she thought sarcastically. She was sitting on an old water tower, her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms crossed and placed on her knees, her chin digging into her forearms. She thought of this tower as her lookout spot. This is where she watched for Foot Clan activity.
She drew her katana, and stared at her reflection in the blade. She looked terrible. She didn't wear make-up anymore, and her hair hadn't been cut by a professional in forever. She hardly ever had money, usually had to steal just to get food. She'd lost a lot of weight.
She re-sheathed her katana, and turned her attention back to the streets before her. She sighed.