On her next patrol night, April feels like someone is watching her. And she knows only one person who that could be. She's cautious all the time, waiting for an attack, trying to be ready for whatever Karai has planned for her. But Karai doesn't attack her, and so April is fine with it. And at some point her watcher is gone.
April is fine with that, too.
The next evening Karai is waiting for her at Murakami's again, and April sits down next to her.
They don't greet each other, just sit there.
"Did I scare you last night?" Karai asks all of a sudden.
"Not really," April replies. "Although I've been waiting for an attack."
Karai giggles. "Yeah, I could see that."
April raises a brow. "Why didn't you? Attack me, I mean."
"I need a bit of a challenge," Karai says. "And it was way funnier to watch you stumble through the shadows."
"I didn't stumble!"
Karai giggles again. "Yes, you did."
As much as April hates it, Karai has a point there. Sure, she is better than common people when it comes to hiding and staying quiet, but April is far from having a kunoichi's skills.
Without a sensei, that's no wonder, she guesses. She never had it in her to keep her training going after that one night that changed everything. It never bothered her before.
Now it does.
Now when Karai looks at her with those amused eyes and that little smirk.
"And you let Leo wait again last night, it seems," April says.
Karai shrugs. "I told you, it makes him do things he'd never do otherwise."
There's something April always wanted to know about their meetings. But she never brought herself to ask Leo about it.
"You seemed surprised that Splinter isn't training me any longer," she says as matter-of-factly as she can.
Didn't Leo yell at you for letting your true father down? Didn't he tell you that what you did was pretty fucked up? Didn't he ask you to at least visit him now that he's broken and more dead than alive?
Those are the questions she really wants to ask, but all she asks is, "Didn't Leo tell you?"
Karai shakes her head ever so slightly.
"We don't talk much," she replies, and then there's something like mischief glistening in her eyes. "It's hard to talk when you have something in your mouth, you know."
April twists her mouth at that.
It only makes Karai smirk as she turns back to her sake, taking one long sip.
They sit in silence for the rest of the evening.
On her patrol the following week, April actually pays attention to her form. It's the first time in years she actually pays attention, the first time in years she actually tries to put more of the things she's been taught into action.
Knowing that Karai is watching her - yes, she's one-hundred percent sure, she is - fuels her ambition.
Maybe she wants to assure Karai that she's better than she thought, maybe she wants to show Karai that she can be as deadly an enemy as the four brothers.
For the first time in years April doesn't settle for being good enough. For the first time in years, she wants to be good.
Again, Karai doesn't attack her. But that's okay. April must have shown her that it's not as easy as she thought.
She's so proud of herself when she arrives at the lair that night.
Because, really, she's a kunoichi after all.