Chapter 18

Delayed verdict: it could be worse.

Fights were often like that. So intense in the moment that they filled up all capacity for perceiving reality. It wasn't until hours afterwards that the body would get back in touch with the brain and report on how it had fared.

Leonardo was hitting that point now. He thought of one of Don's computers, running a post-crash diagnostic scan on itself. He'd taken a heavy blow to his left thigh; it hurt to put too much weight on the leg. His heel had been sliced by a shard of glass and was tightly bandaged. A sizeable nick on the shell. Tired and sore as hell. Like he said, it could be worse.

Master Splinter had not stopped moving since they'd come in. He had been filling basins with warm water, washing and dressing wounds, fetching things from their stash of medical supplies, and re-checking each of them in turn.

"Drink, Michelangelo," he ordered, holding out a cup of medicinal broth. "Slowly."

It wasn't fair to him, Leonardo thought. Age should be accompanied by less worry, not more. Their sensei shouldn't have to stay up all night wondering whether his sons would come home, and then bustle about in the wee hours of the dawn tending to their battle injuries. But fairness hadn't exactly ever been a governing force in their lives.

Leo's eyes made a slow, assessing circle around their living room. Donatello had a long but shallow gash on his upper arm that had been wrapped up, a gouge down his plastron that would heal lighter and add to the other faded scars, and a swollen jaw that he was holding an ice pack to. He was otherwise uninjured.

Raphael and Michelangelo weren't faring as well. Thankfully nothing life-threatening or debilitating, but they had spent the last two nights constantly on the move and fighting full-tilt, and it showed. Since Splinter had bandaged the chain whip laceration on Raphael's leg, he'd been sitting very still on the edge of the coffee table, no doubt because it hurt to move. There wasn't much to be done for his cracked ribs other than another dose of painkillers.

Mike's knife wounds from the previous night had reopened; the stitches had to be torn out and new ones put in. The bruises on his neck had darkened to yellowish-purple and he'd added sizeable new ones to his forearms. He had his knees drawn up on the sofa, a blanket wrapped around him, as he stared miserably and exhaustedly into his mug. "Is it just me," he asked, "or have the Foot gotten better?"

Donatello shook his head. "It's not just you. Kan must be doing something right. The Foot seem stronger than they've been in years."

Mike dropped his forehead onto his knees, his voice becoming muffled in the space against his body. "Ren... that poor kid." He took a heavy breath that made his shell shudder under the blanket, and said to himself, "He'd only just started working with the hanbo, he wasn't much good at it yet. If I hadn't been so far away..." His brothers said nothing, giving his awkward sadness the space it needed, and after a couple minutes, he lifted his head, his face gloomy but composed. "Do you think the Foot will catch Doshida?"

"I doubt it," Leonardo said. "But they won't give up either."

"Our typical luck," Raph said. "We had to be there on the night of the Foot blitzkrieg."

"Might be luckier than you think," Donatello said. "Those snipers, those bodyguards... Doshida had them on hand to use against us, if we didn't back down." He shook his head. "We would've been fighting them instead of the Foot."

"Instead, now we're up against both," Mike said.

"The Foot and the Rising Hand are two sides of the same coin. One traditional, one modern, but both criminal, both ruthless." Master Splinter finally sat down, drying the fur on his forearms and hands with a towel. "They will, however, be weakened from their encounter tonight. We may have some time, before they are able to regroup."

"So where does that leave us?" Mike asked.

"Where we started before the night went to hell," Leonardo said. "We still have to protect Holly Chambers from being murdered."

He could feel the skepticism hanging in the air before Donatello spoke. "Are we even in a position to do that, Leo? Walking around with a bulls-eye on our shells from both clans?"

"Kill Doshida," Raphael said. "He was ready to kill us rather than call off the hit. The only way to stop him is to take him out."

"Is it?" Donatello asked. "Someone wants Ms. Chambers dead and hired Doshida to make it happen. Eliminating the assassin won't eliminate the client. They could just find someone else to do the job. We can't protect this woman for the rest of her life. We don't even know why she's a target."

Leonardo said nothing. Donatello was right, and he knew it.

Splinter said to him, "Ms. Chambers may indeed be in a predicament that is beyond our ability to defend against." He sighed. "I do not wish to risk our exposure, but we cannot judge this situation until we better understand it."

"Look, I get that we don't want to see this lady offed," Raphael said, "but we just busted out a building full of ninjas trying to kill us, so wouldn't you say we kinda got our own problems?" He stood up, stifling a wince. "We take our eyes off Doshida and he'll disappear like a snake. He'll let us tangle with the Foot until he figures out a way to take us both out, sneaky-like." He locked eyes with Leo. "We put Agete out of business, and we'll be saving more than one person."

Leonardo looked over at Splinter.

Their sensei folded his hands together pensively. "This war between the Foot and Rising Hand endangers us. We have too much troubled history with both clans. Each will consider us a continued threat, as well as a weapon against the rival clan. Raphael is right; we must remain vigilant against their schemes."

"But," Michelangelo interjected, "Holly Chambers-"

"I was not finished, Michelangelo," Splinter continued. "We cannot forsake the daughter of the man who aided us when we were most in need. If it is within our ability to help her, then we must."

Leonardo nodded slowly, turning things over in his mind. "Don," he said, "You and Mike know the most about Holly Chambers right now. The two of you run with the leads you have, try to find her. And figure out why she's being hunted."

Donatello and Michelangelo exchanged an acknowledging glance. Donatello said, "I have an idea. But we'll need April's help."

"And you guys?" Mike asked.

"Raph and I will scout. We'll try to determine what the Foot and the Rising Hand are up to, what their next move is. We'll find Doshida if we can. Kill him if we have to."