Title: Blurred Lines (2k12 – Spoilers for 'Annihilation Earth')
Rating: T
Love and hate. The two had always been intertwined for Oroku Saki. Ever since he was a little boy living on the countryside of Japan, the two concepts had been almost one in the same. He never felt one without feeling the other. He loved his mother because she took good care of him, and he hated her for allowing his father to treat her as he did. Oroku loved his father because he provided for them as best he could and had taught him strength, and hated him for making his mother cry countless times. He had loved school when he finally got the opportunity to go. He loved learning simply because he hated being at any disadvantage. He rose through the ranks of his ninjutsu clan because he hated playing second fiddle. He loved practicing ninjutsu because it afforded him physical dominance over most people, but hated that he was not number one in his clan.
Oroku Saki loved Tang Shen, but hated that she chose Hamato Yoshi over him. He even loved Yoshi, but hated that he seemed better than him in almost every conceivable way. He loved himself for always taking the initiative and being a true survivor, and he hated sometimes the way he achieved his goals. Take Karai for instance. It was his love of her mother that drove him to take care of the small girl, but it was also his hatred that spurred him on. He loved Karai for being an extension of Tang Shen, and he hated her for being an extension of Hamato Yoshi. For him Karai was the physical embodiment of every conflicting feeling at the heart of his thirst for vengeance. He would mold her, he would shape her into the emotional and physical weapon that would finally break Hamato Yoshi in the worst ways possible and he would love the results.
So when Yoshi the rat came to him to plead for his help in saving the world, it was the infinite dance between love and hate that made him agree. Splinter had appealed to Saki's love for Karai which was more than enough to make him gather his forces to help. It would he his absolute and all-consuming hatred for Hamato Yoshi and the very air he breathed that would inform his last actions in this world.
As he fought alongside Yoshi old feelings came rushing back to him. How many times had they vowed to fight evil together as brothers? Too many for Oroku to count. As he slashed his way through the Triceraton brutes, it felt good. It felt good to fight side by side with Yoshi, to for once not be opposed to him but allied with him. Some small part of him even acknowledged that Yoshi's disgusting 'sons' were some of the best ninjas he had seen in a while once he was not on the receiving end of their combined skill.
Then Yoshi did it. He had sealed his own fate and had not even realized it. Saki had been holding the hatred at bay, assuaging it, telling it that now was not the time. He told it that if he saved the world now, revenge would be so much sweeter later, but it wouldn't listen. Yoshi had broken that last flimsy chain that held back Saki's fury. Yoshi had called to him to act. In the heat of battle Yoshi had spoken to him as a comrade, his voice devoid of any rancor or reservations concerning who he was speaking to. It held only trust. Blind, stupid, and foolish trust. Yoshi was trusting that he would see this thing through. He was trusting that even if just for this one moment, Saki could see past their feud and work for the combined greater good. Yoshi was trusting that if nothing else, Saki's love for Karai, and love for power and control over the very world being threatened, would make him act on an impulse other than blind hatred. That trust had been misplaced.
The moment he pierced Splinter's body with his blades, Saki felt both euphoria and an emptiness so profound that it broke his psyche. He watched the rat's body fall to the ground, and he laughed. He'd actually found it within himself to be amused. The world was literally crumbling around him, but he had prevailed. His henchmen were rendered speechless in their last moments of being, but Shredder was tickled pink. He had won, and not even the blinding light of oblivion could take that away.