[A/N: It means sunrise...Just so you know! X3]
Taiyou
"I thank you, Karai, my daughter! This is the final proof of your loyalty!"
Her brain screamed at her to move, but Hun was still a guy weighing over two hundred pounds, and there was no time for a plan B. She realized that she was going to die, and it scared her stiff.
The next second, however, the big brute let out a cry of pain and released her, grabbing at his elbow where a thin, metal object with a red handle had dug itself deep into his flesh.
Before Karai had a chance to make use of her newfound freedom, something swooped out of the bushes next to them and tackled her off the table. She heard her father's roar as her savior rolled her out of harm's way.
Her survival instincts being the current ruler of her mind, Karai grabbed the alien body and pinned it down in the silt that covered the roof.
"Hey, take it easy!"
"You?"
The youngest Hamato smiled up at her, blood smeared over his cheek and a nasty bruise on his temple.
"Mikey at yer service, miss! Can you let me up now?"
Another loud scream made her turn her head back to her father. She couldn't see much of him, however, because her vision was blocked by a figure in black who had jumped up on the piece of rock that would have served as a sacrificial altar. Leonardo used the advantage of high ground and the length of his swords to keep the armored man away from him, but he still had to jump in the air as the more experienced man cut at his legs.
The sound of metal against rock told her that Hun had pulled the sai from his arm and was about to rip its owner apart. Michelangelo pulled himself out from underneath her and grabbed the wooden sticks in his belt. Still, he didn't have time to leave her side before she had made a headcount.
"Where is Coral?"
He looked at her, a bit startled by the panic in her voice. Then, he looked to his brother and the blond ogre, torn between reassuring Karai and helping out.
"She's fine! We left her in the dojo! Sprained ankle!"
With that, he took off, not about to let Raph fend for himself while Leonardo and Donatello were busy trying not to get shredded.
Karai forced air into her lungs. She needed to calm down, but her heart was beating like crazy. Being so close to death was not good for anything, but she could make use of the adrenalin. Just as soon as her legs could carry her again.
Coral was fine. She had been immobilized, but she was alive. They would not have left her if she was unable to defend herself. Deep breaths.
Karai pushed herself up and surveyed the situation. What was the best tactical solution?
The most dangerous opponent at the moment was her fath… Oroku Saki. She bit her lip. It would take more then two or three teenagers to take him down, but they could not leave Hun unattended.
Why am I hesitating? I made this choice a year ago. If I cannot keep them safe, I will at least fight beside them!
The determined kunoichi took off like a bullet from a gun, stepping up on one of the decorative stones and landing with her heel on a key vein in Hun's neck. He dropped like a sack of flour, almost crushing the other boys. For a moment, she felt like grabbing him by the chin and snapping his neck, just to make sure he didn't get up, but she ultimately decided against it. She stood, meeting the hard glare of Raphael.
They had a lot to work out. She had hurt the two people that mattered the most to him. He didn't care about her reasons; the results were all the same. Fortunately, it was not important at the moment. He was the first to look away, picking up his sai.
"Let's get this over with, then you and I need to talk..!"
She doubted he meant with words, but she said nothing and ran with them towards the second fight.
Mikey was first there, just in time to catch Don as he was pushed back. Raph had to roll out of the way as the blades on Saki's arm almost took his head off. The older man growled at the miss and stepped after his prey.
Karai leaped off the branch of a low, twisted tree and kicked at the metal-clad back. She hit, but not as hard or as accurately as she had hoped. The man who had raised her ducked and she fell to the ground in front of him. Before he had the chance to straighten up again, Donatello swooped in with his bo-staff and aimed at Saki's neck. It was caught by Saki's hand but then released as the madman protected his face from Raphael's zai.
Saki roared in anger and stood, forcing both the brothers back.
Karai was about to throw herself at her father again, unwilling to let him have a moment's rest, when suddenly an arm blocked her way. She was about to push Leonardo out of the way when his hand found hers and she felt the weight of a sword settle against her palm. She looked at him, questioning, but his eyes were settled on the armored man. She grabbed the silk-wrapped handle and took her stance beside him. It felt good, in a way, to have him trust her with his own sword; trust her with a part of his soul.
"I'M 'ONNA TEACH YA NOT TO MESS WITH OUR FAMILY!"
Raph tossed himself into the heat of battle once more, accompanied by Donatello.
The others followed, trying to keep up with the veteran fighter. Karai had never known to the full extent how powerful of a warrior her father was, but she learned quickly. He was fast enough to hold all of them at bay, and he didn't seem to be running out of steam.
She also noticed how brilliantly the brothers had put up their teamwork.
Raphael and Donatello stayed beside each other, just as Leonardo stuck by Michelangelo's side. That made two pairs, both with one long-range weapon and one short-range. It also gave them one hothead and one tactician. Karai doubted that they actually thought about it, for it was probably something they did naturally.
But this was not a training-session. This was real. In real fights, people get hurt.
Raph's hot temper finally got the better of him, and the opening did not pass Saki by. The longhaired boy let out a scream, more from anger than from pain, and fell. Donnie protected him from his aggravator the next second, and Leo roared in to avenge his brother's hurt.
"I have tired of playing with you little children!"
Leo's face collided with an iron-clad fist, and Donnie was kicked into Mikey's chest. Saki then moved for his daughter.
Karai ducked low and cut at his waist. The impact forced him a step sideways, but the blade simply slid against the tough armor. She then cut at his throat, the leather covered part under his mask, but she was blocked by the blades on his wrists. Being both shorter and lighter, she was pushed back against the thick rail that edged the roof, the only thing between her and a concrete kiss.
"I HAVE YOU NOW, LITTLE KARAI!"
A hand grabbed her throat and she was pulled off her feet to hang over the edge of the easily fifty-storey building. Saki's blades swung high in the air and aimed once again at the delicate veins in her neck, determined to extract the lifeblood from her body. Karai could hear Leonardo scream, but the little sparks dashing in front of her eyes kept her from actually seeing him. The lack of oxygen in her brain made it difficult to figure out how to get away without falling off the roof.
"NO!"
Suddenly, a heavy body slammed into hers, the grip on her collar disappeared, and something warm and sticky splashed over her face.
The would-be sacrificial lamb was pulled down to kneel on the safe ground. With the cool air rushing down her lungs, she tried to recover from her second near-death experience within minutes.
"Are you unharmed?"
She stared at the old man that was still holding on to her with one hand and covering the left side of his face with his other.
"Master… Splinter?"
"You bothersome RAT! I WILL KILL YOU THIS TIME!"
Saki got on his feet from where he had fallen. The powerful kick to the tycoon's chest had had saved Karai's neck, but apparently not the old man's face. Blood dripped down between Splinter's fingers at a rapid pace, making Karai's stomach turn with worry.
"DAD!"
Splinter simply wiped the blood from his eye and held up a hand to stop his sons from coming closer.
"Stay right there..!"
He placed one hand on Karai's shoulder and pushed himself up, blood still running from the two wounds on either side of his eye. The brutal claws had just missed his left eye, one of them crossing his eyebrow and both running into his grey hair.
"I will finish this!"
Saki laughed, loud and mocking.
"You think you can beat me, rat? Then by all means, let's dance!"
Splinter took off faster than Karai would have ever guessed, and he moved with a speed and grace that seemed impossible for someone his age. Still, despite his agility, he was almost blind on his left side, and Saki was not about to let such an opportunity go.
"I will not let you harm anyone again! You have caused enough grief!"
"You are in my way! I will destroy you!"
Splinter received a hard blow to the temple on his blinded side, and the upcoming Shredder knocked him against the hard concrete rail, about to gut the grey old man.
"YOU DIE TODAY, OROKU SAKI!"
It was almost like watching a slow-motion action movie as Splinter grabbed Saki by the sash and pulled so hard that both of them tumbled over the edge. A loud shriek exploded in Karai's ears, and it took several seconds before she realize that the voices belonged to the faithful brothers. In those seconds, where the two fathers were still hanging over the edge, not fully caught by the ultimate force of gravity, Karai leaped forward and grabbed for the hand, the one that she could not let fall.
The firm hold of a wrist against her palm sent a burst of relief through her mind. That is, before the laws of nature tugged them both down so hard that she was sure she must have broken a rib against the railing.
Splinter's hand was slippery from blood and it seemed like the blow to his head had caught up to him. She was about to call out, but then several things caught her attention at the same time, totally overwhelming her wracked brain.
The first was the sight of all the white cars with blue and red lights that took up every last inch of the street beneath them. She wondered later how they could have missed the noise of all the sirens in the midst of battle.
The second thing was the figure still falling, his curse overwhelming the other sounds, his hands still greedily grabbing for her.
The third was the sun, suddenly shining over the edge of the rooftops, blinding her for a moment.
Even while blinded, though, Karai could hear when the curse came to an abrupt halt, the sound of metal crashing into metal, the terrified screams; and the faint sound of an empty helmet slowly sliding over hair and landing on the pavement with a faint clonk.
It sucked all the energy out of her body, and she almost let go of the limp hand. Then, suddenly, it came to life, and five thin, old fingers wrapped themselves around her wrist. Karai snapped out of her state of nothingness and gripped harder, but she could feel him being pulled out of her grasp. She couldn't heave him up. Not by herself.
Then, loud voices gathered around her and heavy bodies covered hers, hands wrapping over the firm grip and pulling both her and the old man away from danger.
It took Karai several seconds to puzzle together enough of her mind to make a picture of the situation.
She was sitting down on the grass, her back supported by a strong arm and a grey head in her lap. Donatello was on his knees by her side, shirtless and desperately trying to stop the bleeding on his father's head with his purple t-shirt. The hand on the old man's shoulder belonged to the body supporting her, and after a few moments she recognized it as Raphael's. Looking up, she saw Leonardo beside his long-haired brother, his face pale and his eyes wide in fright. Michelangelo was crouching down beside Donatello as small, worried noises made their way out between his clenched teeth.
Then, suddenly, a withered hand covered Donatello's and the head turned to look up at Karai, eyes sober and clear.
"Are you unharmed, miss Karai?"
Her mind told her that she had seconds before her brain shut down, so she stuck to the simplest answer.
"Yes…"
Her voice was thin and hollow, but it still brought a small smile to the old man's lips as he closed his eyes and turned his head back, resting it against her leg. She felt a bit deflated, like a plastic bag in the wind. The image of the falling body was stuck in her mind, threatening to pull her down with it.
To her great surprise, the arm supporting her back pulled her in and gave her half a hug. She snapped her head up and looked at the boy she knew hated her guts.
He looked at her, shrugged, and gave her a lopsided smile.
"Coral is going to eat you, ya know. I've never seen her so pissed before."
It was small talk, and Karai was not really good at it, but Raph was not really expecting her to answer. So, he only snickered and looked away, the tension leaving his body. Karai looked down again, wondering if it had always been so easy to breathe.
They were alive.
It was over.
Karai's brain shut down, and she hardly reacted when the garden was stormed with police officers or when she was helped to her feet and brought down to a waiting police car and taken away from her home.
When she found herself in a small room with nothing but three chairs, a table, and a cup of tea slowly cooling between her hands, she snapped herself back to reality.
"So miss Orok…?"
"Karai."
"I… I'm sorry?"
"It is Karai. Please, carry on."
"Oh… Yeah!"
The officer cleared his throat and looked down at his file. His partner was standing behind him, looking at Karai with a stone-face. Such a typical good-cop-bad-cop team.
"Em, miss Karai, then. Would you like to tell us a bit about your father, and what you might know of his illegal actions?"
"I will. Let me start at the beginning. You see, this all began when my father received an adoptive brother. It is quite a long story, you might want to record it."
She felt a bit sorry for the good-cop guy. He had to leave in the middle, probably to throw up. She was not about to leave out anything, but judging from the look she got from his partner, the entire way Saki had used a mixture of mind-games and well-dosed drugs to literally poison his brother against the Hamatos could have been less detailed in its telling.
When they were done (she had declined taking a break for lunch; she just wanted the whole thing over with), the stone-faced cop placed a big hand on her shoulder as they were leaving the room, nodded at her in sympathy, and then walked after his partner.
She looked after them, thinking of Donatello and Raphael for some reason. Then, she took a deep breath and followed the female officer that was to show her the way to the cafeteria.
The media was going to be all over her the second she set foot outside. She was going to need to build up her strength before that. Things had just gotten difficult. She was now in charge of a multi-million dollar company with branches all over the world, and she was not yet twenty. No worries, though. Compared to the past twelve months, the new tasks ahead were going to be almost enjoyable.
Karai allowed herself a smile, a real smile, for the first time in a long time.
[A/N: No, it is not over! Originaly, I was going to end the story after the next chapter, but since you guys seem to love it so much, there will be two more! Bring on the reviews!]
