Greg hunched over the kitchen table, staring at the sandwich he'd fixed about half an hour ago. His body craved sustenance, but he'd barely choked down three bites. The day had been full of both elation and discouragement. He was relieved that Brandon was out of the bedroom and interacting with people, but he couldn't stand the sight of his friend's inconsolable tears.
It doesn't seem like there's a middle ground, he thought ruefully. Either Bran's dead to the world, or he's completely overcome. I want to help – we all do, but I'm not sure that we can.
Greg rested his head in one hand, massaging his temples. His head had been pounding for two days with a stress headache he couldn't escape. When his phone vibrated on top of the table, he glanced up from his hand to see who it was. A glimpse of the number on the display made him snap up the device hurriedly.
"Sayuri." No other greeting was necessary. "Thanks for getting back to me so quickly," Greg said.
"How could I not, Greg-chan?" Concern tinged the Asian woman's voice. "You said it was a matter of life or death. What is going on?"
Greg sighed anxiously. "It's kind of a long story, Sayuri, so bear with me."
"Greg-chan, you sound…what is this in your voice?"
"It's called 'fear', Sayuri. Give me a couple of minutes, so I can get the whole story out."
Greg relayed the events of the last eight days as evenly as possible. Shame was already creeping over him for not filling the woman in sooner, and it made it easier to understand Leonardo not calling him immediately.
It felt like Sayuri was a world away in Okinawa, and Greg had been biding his time before he had to call her to share news about Donatello. The Asian woman knew he had been on assignment on the open sea, and she probably hadn't given a second thought to his lack of contact.
Sayuri's in law enforcement too, she understands what it's like to be undercover. But I wasn't working, I was hiding. This is the woman I claim to love, and I intentionally kept her out of the loop. That was wrong.
By the time Greg was finished catching Sayuri up, it felt like despair was leaving a bad taste in his mouth. He waited for a response from the woman, letting over a minute pass before he checked if she was still on the phone. "Sayuri?"
"I am here," she said faintly. "But I don't know what to say to all of this. I can hardly fathom that such things could happen, Greg-chan. The Akiudo are back inside your city, when they should have been all but wiped off the face of the Earth?"
Sayuri Kimura was the only person in the world who knew more about the Akiudo than Greg and the turtles did. The gang was in fact the reason that he'd connected with the woman altogether, in his quest for information on the Akiudo the first time they'd turned up in New York City.
After the Akiudo's initial route on American soil, he and Sayuri had maintained a long distance contact concerning their joint effort to find out what had become of the slavers after they left the States. The man could never have pictured where the polite working relationship would eventually lead.
They'd both held one another at an arm's distance as colleagues in the investigation, having never even been introduced in person. It wasn't until Sayuri got too close in her research of the Akiudo and turned into their number one target that the entire game was altered.
That was when Greg and the turtles had thrown caution to the wind, and had traveled to Okinawa to hunt Sayuri down. There had been a rush to locate the woman before her desperate recklessness in persisting with her research against the Akiudo ended up getting her killed. More things had gone wrong on the trip than he even wanted to recall, but a firm friendship had finally been forged between Sayuri and the clan. His and Sayuri's efforts to remain in touch had slowly developed into a relationship unlike anything Greg had ever experienced.
"We thought they were wiped off the Earth, Sayuri, but we were wrong," Greg said with frustration. "It's apparent that some of them not only survived the flood, they managed to escape before the police showed up. We left so little room for that opportunity, but it appears we weren't entirely successful."
"This nightmare is supposed to be finished!" she said, more forcefully than he'd expected. "You are telling me it is starting over?"
"I don't know, Sayuri. I wasn't around for the assault on the Club, and I didn't meet the guys' so-called 'informant'. I'm just as confused as you are."
Greg heard her sniff and exhale shakily on the other end.
"And Donatello-san…"
Greg shook his head automatically. "I don't have very much to tell you for certain. There's definitely brain damage. Whether it's the type he can heal from, the docs can't tell us. They're in the dark like the rest of us, waiting for something to happen. The only encouraging thing we've seen on that front was that they were eventually able to alleviate his intracranial pressure. I know this is difficult to process, especially the way we're separated—"
"Difficult to process?" she interrupted. "Greg-chan, I am at a complete loss! I don't know what I am going to tell Hisui, let alone Shunshi. This will crush the boy. You don't realize how much he idolizes Donatello."
Greg was able to conjure up an image of the ten-year-old Shunshi in his mind. The boy had been attached to the turtles at the hip when Sayuri had brought them to visit the family in North Carolina around New Year's. Shunshi had possessed an especially strong affinity for the purple-masked turtle ever since he'd discovered a hypothermic Donatello on the beach of Iriomote, part of the island chain of Okinawa.
"I don't know what to tell them, Greg-chan. You must help me."
Sayuri rarely sounded so unsure of herself. Greg felt a pang of deep longing to be with the woman, to assist her in conveying the bad news to the adopted children she'd welcomed into her home. She's done a lot better with Hisui and Shunshi than most people believed she would, but I'm with her on this one. I don't know the right way to tell the kids either.
"I will never be able to hide this now that I know," Sayuri said mournfully. "I can barely stand the thought of Donatello-san in that position or Brandon-san being hurt so badly. It makes me sad beyond measure, but angry too."
"I need you to cling to that anger," Greg directed. "We're going to be forced to launch another investigation into the Akiudo."
"Greg-chan, I want nothing more than to help, but I don't know where to begin. If the Akiudo is still in Okinawa, they are hiding well. I have heard of nothing to suggest their presence."
"What about Takashi? I'd look no further than the big man himself, if I were you."
"That seems like the most reasonable place to start, Greg-chan, but he would be extremely limited in his ability to impact their criminal efforts from inside prison."
"He wants us to believe that, Sayuri, but something is going on with him. Somehow he's exerting power over people on the outside. It stands to reason that the easiest way to locate whoever's holding the reins in his absence, would be to follow Takashi himself."
"Gaining access to him will not be easy. I am not refusing to try and discern what his part could be in all of this. I would only point out that since he is already contained, it may suit me to search out some other element."
"What other element?"
"Another person perhaps, who has both knowledge of the Akiudo and a craving for Takashi's power. It is wholly possible someone is trying to follow in his footsteps."
"You think a copy cat could be responsible for all of this?"
"I don't find it to be impossible, Greg-chan. Someone following Takashi's case could have been intrigued, and decided to pick up where he left off."
"The problem I have with a copy cat is that Daichi was also involved as both a subordinate and a leader of sorts. I don't think he'd be willing to follow the orders of a pretender, and according to Leo, he was definitely getting instructions from someone."
Sayuri was silent for a few seconds. "You are right, of course," she said. "It is just that the mere thought of Takashi being released from prison makes me want to laugh. His appeal is complicated, and his lawyer has the case in bad shape. The appeal could not be moving slower if they were intentionally stalling."
"That doesn't make sense," Greg replied. "We know he wants to return to the US, according to the conversation Leo overheard from Daichi. Why would he want an incompetent lawyer on his team?" Greg paused as the questions continued filtering through his mind. "The guys' informant was adamant that Yukiko was actually calling the shots, but that doesn't compute with me either."
"It is hard for me to swallow too," Sayuri added. "Raphael-san was certain she was dead."
"Then I guess she's either an imposter, or Yukiko came back to life," he said glibly. "If the informant can be believed, that is. Even if he was telling the truth, Daichi could have been lying to all of them."
"Let me go over all of this one more time, to be sure I understand everything correctly," Sayuri said slowly. "Donatello-san is in danger of losing his life. Brandon-san was both injured and tortured. Daichi is no longer a threat, but the other Akiudo are somewhere beyond our sight, and could be planning something as we speak?"
"I think that covers it, Sayuri."
"I can see that I need to take this search seriously."
"I really am sorry I didn't contact you sooner," he said tightly. "I thought about calling you so many times. But every time I picked up the phone to tell you that our world was falling apart, I forced myself to wait. I wanted to have better news about Donny to share."
"I am sorry you are going through these things," Sayuri said quietly. "I wish I was there with you, Greg-chan. I wish I could see Donatello-san with my own eyes."
"You're better off not seeing him."
"Greg-chan, I may not be as close to the turtles as you, but I still care for them a great deal."
"That's why I'm glad you don't have to see this," Greg corrected.
"I guess I need to think about how to share this with the children, and I have to get to work once more. After everything we went through already, I cannot believe I am about to start searching for the Akiudo again."
"Neither can I," he returned. "If things were under control here, I'd be in Okinawa in a heartbeat, helping you look into this."
"Don't think of it, Greg-chan. You are needed badly at home. I will begin fresh here, and start with Takashi's visitors. If he is communicating with the outside, it is likely he is using a messenger. It would not be possible for him to lay out clear plans for strategy over the phone, if indeed he does still have a directive."
"I don't know much about your prison system, Sayuri. Give me some clue of how secure he is."
"You are considering the chance of escape? It is extremely rare, almost unheard of."
"I was under the impression that many of these prisons don't even arm their guards."
"That is true, Greg-chan, but the prison environment in Japan is very different from that of America. Violence between inmates and against guards is nearly non-existent. The prison personnel are also highly trained, with stringent requirements that must be met before they can work inside the system."
"How much good will their training do if they're unarmed against a group like the Akiudo, who favors using explosives and chemicals?"
"Takashi is considered a serious threat, and as such he would not be granted many freedoms that other prisoners get. I will study this matter, Greg-chan. I will acquire the visitor logs as soon as I can; I have a favor I can call in. If the Akiudo is regrouping, I will not rest until they are found."
"I just hope we can get some clue what they're doing before they show up at our doorstep," Greg mumbled. "With their history in mind, I don't know what to expect."
"One thing is for sure, Greg-chan: the days of their slave trading are over. What is next for them is anyone's guess."