Author's note: Ren's backstory is introduced- her life before meeting The Shredder, which Raph is still unaware of. Please read and review!
It had been 6 days (or nights, depending how you count them) since then, and they had continued meeting for the following days. Ren had developed the habit of sneaking out at night to see Raph. It was risky, and being caught by Master Saki would lead to fatal consequences. But Ren did not want to ask him for permission to leave every night; he would soon grow suspicious. And Master Saki had recently been obsessed with some sort of project, which gave Ren the advantage as he rarely checked up on her now, except for the brief glimpse into her room at night. After that, he would leave, and leave her to her period of freedom until the morning, where Ren was expected to head to the training room to spar and hone her combat skills. Ren had grown increasingly tired recently, barely catching a few hours of sleep when she got back before forcing herself to wake in the morning to train, just like what her Master expected her to do.
But to her, it was worth it. Those precious hours where she just talked with Raph, there was never any particular topic to address, just mindless and peaceful conversations, and it made her feel… normal. Talking to him seemed to lift the stress of her shoulders, seemed to make her forget about being a freak, a half-mutant, an outcast. Nothing seemed to matter during that time, and it is then that she feels a sense of calmness and a faint hint of distinct happiness, as their voices resound in the quiet night, with the wind caressing their faces. Ren closed her eyes before she changed to a another black hoodie and the same dark green khaki pants; ever since she had started meeting Raph, she had stopped wearing her hood up to cover her appearance. After all, Raph wouldn't gawk at the markings on her face, or flinch at the sight of it, and that was another reason she liked his company. Like the previous nights, Ren dove out of the window and landed on the nearest roof before racing off again, not wanting to admit, but eager for the company of her newfound companion.
"Hey Ren… Come to think of it… I don't know much about your back story, y'know? And I've already told you mine …" Raph trailed off, cautiously checking Ren's stoic face for any trace of anger or annoyance. Again, they were seated at the edge of the roof, he in a cross-legged position and she with her feet dangling from her seat beside him. They had exchanged varying pieces of information over the past nights, ranging from how well he got along with his brothers (Don: Well. Leo: Depended. Mikey: Mostly during the times when he was not acting outrageously idiotically, which was very rare. Emphasis on the very), to things like his favourite color (Red, because it represented courage, and more importantly, it was cool), his favourite animal (Depended, cat? She had chortled at his answer. When he had asked why, she promptly replied, "I thought it would be turtle,"), and his favourite hobby (Hanging out with his brothers, video games, trashing Mikey, trashing Mikey in video games, fighting, winning and some other fun stuff, he had added when he was too tired to think of anymore).
Raph himself had learnt many things about the mysterious orange-haired companion he had recently made, like her keen interest of weapons which vaguely stemmed from her father (she had been somewhat reluctant to elaborate on the subject, and Raph had let it passed).
Her favourite colour was orange, green and black, colours she deemed that represented herself, and her hobbies were fighting (like him), and winning weapons from battles. He had soon learnt of her habit of hunting down weapons and winning them as a form of battle trophies in fights, as well as the cursed day of her mutation, or, as she liked to say (or hiss, to be more accurate), the day she turned into a freak.
She had mutated when she was 11 or 12, and had been unable to advance to high school because of it. That had been the only piece of information she had been willing to relinquish; her life before and after her mutation had been a mystery. But Raph had hoped that today, that mystery would be solved- partially to satisfy his new curiosity.
"Yea, guess it's time you knew, huh," She commented briefly, combing her fingers through her short orange hair
"Before my mutation, well, I guess I was normal. As a kid I lived in Japan. Oto-san (1), I mean, Dad, was a well-known blacksmith. He forged the best weapons, and I loved watching him craft shapeless metal into beautiful weapons." Ren raised her head and smiled calmly while Raph stared at her silently. "That was how I got my liking and knowledge for weapons. Then he met Oka-san (2), Mum, and we moved here." She spread her arms out wide at the emphasis on 'here'.
"I went to school, made good friends, had a... guy that I liked," her eyes closed at her last words, and her brows creased slightly, which Raph recognized as a sign of incoming headache. His own fists tightened around his sais and he felt a twinge of something in his heart at the mention of a crush. Raph passed it off as surprise. It was probably difficult for him to imagine Ren having a crush on someone- given how she seemed capable of kicking any boy's shell (not literally) with her strength and knowledge regarding weaponry. Any guy she had feelings for would probably have to be strong enough to match her skills- and the fact that someone like that existed brought forth a slight stab of annoyance in Raph. But he kept silent as he waited for her to continue.
"Then it changed. On that day," Ren opened her eyes, and they blazed with anger and hatred as she gripped her sais tightly. "It was Christmas, and we were about to have our dinner, but there was an explosion of some sort suddenly. There was smoke everywhere." Her hands were shaking now, gripping her sais on her lap. "Took Dad and Mum a while to react but we made a run for it to the room. Or at least, Mum and I did. Dad stayed to fight off the enemy after locking the room. But Dad lost," Ren closed her eyes again and shook her head agitatedly, her brows creased. Evidently she still struggled to believe that her father, who she referred to as 'Dad' in conversation, the strongest swordsman in all of their village, had lost to the enemy. "After a while, they busted down the door and threw a smoke bomb in, I couldn't see anything. Then the enemy got mum, and before I could even blink or run them through with my sais, she was dead. Stabbed through the heart." Raph opened his mouth, wanting to tell Ren that she could stop already, but Ren, seeing his gesture, shook her head. "I want you to know. I trust you." Ren took a deep breath, feeling slightly calmer.
"The enemy sprayed something into my eyes when I tried to attack with my sais, to blind me. Then they pressed some chloroformed hankerchief to my mouth and the world went black. When I woke, I was in some surgical room. They injected the mutation serum before I could ask anything, though, they seemed to have the habit of doing stuff before I can react," Ren shook her head. "The pain... It was like my cells were rearranging themselves, like something was being ripped out of me. I couldn't stop screaming," Ren tried to force away the haunting memories of her mutation, but they flooded in relentlessly and suddenly, she was back in the cold white room with harsh blaring lights. The mutation serum worked its way through her and her face and arm felt like they were burning; melting. Even her teeth seemed to be reshaping themselves. Her screams echoed, like a desperate animal crying in pain, and she trashed until she broke free of her bonds. Stumbling about with a blind right eye, she dodged away from the white-clad scientists, the enemy that did this to her, and grabbed her sais from the kicked-over table. Then she ran, for goodness knows how long, away from the chasing figures and into the snowing night, until her bare feet were sore and numb from the cold, until she was soaked from head to toe in her black hoodie and long khaki jeans, until she could no longer feel anything...
"Ren.. REN!" Ren broke from her trance in a start, sweat pouring from her brows, her hands poised on her sais as she turned wildly, preparing to strike. But Raph's hands were on her shoulder, and she was not in that hated room on the day she was turned into a freak, but with Raph on the roof somewhere in the middle of New York City. She looked dumbly at Raph, who stared back, and for some reason, she had a sudden urge to pull away his bandana so she could see his face better. "Curiosity kills the cat," she mumbled hazily.
"Huh?" Raph was at a loss of what to say.
"Nothing, but, well, I ran and escaped. I was broken, torn, scared, cold and alone. But through some way I managed to track my friends down. I went to Toby for help first," Ren's voice caught a little at the name, and Raph had an inkling that he was the crush she spoke of briefly earlier. Annoyance washed over him, then confusion. Why was he feeling this way?
"He... He didn't recognise me when I snuck into his room."
"Ya mean his house?"
"Nope, room. On the second floor. I climbed the tree." Ren cleared her throat and continued. "Anyway, when he saw me, the first thing he did was freak out. Then he chased me out screaming insults. I fell out of the second floor window, more broken then ever, called a freak by the boy I loved and grew up with in New York City. I was an idiot thinking he would help. I was a freak," she spat, slamming her fist onto the ground. "I didn't stick around too long, I made a run to the alleyway. Then I found a piece of mirror in the trashbin and saw myself for the first time. My right face was scarred, covered with scales, and so was my left arm. It was... horrifying." Ren retracted her legs and hugged them closer to herself. Raph hesitated before placing his arm over her shoulder. He took it as a good sign that she did not attempt to shake it off. "I wandered around for hours before I collapsed. It was cold and I was hungry, not to mention confused and alone. I was found by a Japanese man, who gave me a home and became my adopted father. He... He was my father and master, but Dad was Dad. Get it? My adopted father wasn't exactly family, there was just something... off about him, but he was the closest thing I had to family after that fiasco." Ren sighed again, and her body seemed to go limp. "I am grateful to him and all that, but... it's different. There, now you have the whole story." Raph was quiet, letting all the information sink in. Ren seemed rather deflated now.
"I... thought telling you all this would help, make me feel lighter. But... I don't really feel all that better now." Ren now straightened one of her legs, keeping the other close to her, watching her black boot dangle aimlessly from her position. Raph racked his brains desperately for a word of comfort, but his mind drew a big blank as he stared at her silently. "Though, I never got to attend high school, hang out with my friends, new and old, and get a boyfriend and go on dates and all that." her emerald eyes held a certain longing now as she turned her gaze to the sky. Raph continued keeping silent, his face falling as he realised how little he could relate to Ren's wish for a normal life. This was already normal to him after all. And he had thought they would get along well, both being mutants and all... It was foolish. She had previously been a human while he had been raised as a mutant since young. Raph felt unexpectedly sad, wondering if that meant that their fragile and strangely-struck friendship that he enjoyed so much would not last.
"But," Ren, unaware of her companion's thoughts, spoke again. "With you... I feel at ease and normal. You became my friend, and I've always been alone, until I met you. Talking to you makes me happy... feels like I got no more worries. So... I guess.. Thanks," Ren grinned at Raph again, showing her pointed teeth. Raph didn't mind; he thought it suited her. He had gotten used to it by now anyway.
Yet for some reason, this experience was different. Maybe it was the fact that he was seeing her smile at such a close range now, but the turtle felt his face heating up slightly. Aside her stranger features and short coarse hair, Ren still looked fine, and it was not the beauty one got from makeup nor clothes, but more on the... natural side. Raph flushed an even darker red when he realized what he was thinking about, and confusion, again, muddled his mind, making him unable to understand why he was thinking (or even thinking in the first place) this way. Ren had turned her view back to the sky, and (thankfully) failed to see the turtle's reddened face.
"Hey... You really never got to hang out with your friends and all that?" Raph finally stammered out a question.
"Hm? Yea, I mean, Elementary school was just going over to each other's house. I never really had fun with my friends outside. My parents were more on the old-fashioned side too, so all the more." Ren grunted. Raph hesitated for a while as a plan vaguely formed in his mind. If only... No... But what if...? The turtle frowned, deep in thought. Finally he made his decision. He had nothing to lose after all... right? Before he had anymore time for second-guesses, Raph grabbed Ren's wrist and pulled her up. He was going to have to operate on 'gut feeling'. Then he broke into a run.
"H-hey, where are we going?!" Ren protested.
"You'll know soon enough, trust me!" Raph yelled back. Ren frowned for a second before she sighed. Pulling free from his grasp on her right wrist, she quickly slipped her left hand into Raph's clumsy and rough three-fingered paw, clinging on tightly.
"Lead the way!" She grinned as they ran together, hands intertwined, and Raph could have sworn that his hand never felt warmer, no, not even at the time Mikey tricked him into putting his hand into a pot of boiling hot water by dropping his sais into the water too(which had earned Raph an injured hand, Mikey an injured head, and a 4 hour-length lecture for their foolishness).
(1) Oto-san- Father in Japanese.
(2) Oka-san- Mother in Japanese.