..
Old, but I'm not that old
Young, but I'm not that bold
And I don't think the world is sold
I'm just doing what we're told
I feel something so right, doing the wrong thing
I feel something so wrong, doing the right thing
I could lie, I could lie, I could lie,
Everything that kills me makes me feel alive
-"Counting Stars", by OneRepublic
CHAPTER 15: RIGHT, WRONG, AND OTHER MISCONCEPTIONS
Karai was laying across her bed playing a game on her cell phone when she heard a light whump from the next room. It was almost quiet enough to dismiss, but Hachiko perked up next to her, tail thumping. She checked the time; just after midnight.
"Is Raph finally home?" she asked the dog.
He wagged his tail harder and jumped down from the bed, then whined at her door.
"Traitor," she accused him.
He looked up at her happily, tongue lolling off to the side of his grinning mouth.
She left her room and opened Raphael's door, letting Hachiko run in as she turned on the light.
"Turn it off!" Raphael yelped.
She flipped the switch back immediately, letting darkness prevail once again.
Raphael had face-planted into bed, one arm draped over the side trying to settle the dog down. "Hey, Buddy, take it easy. Shhh."
"You okay?" Karai asked cautiously.
His overall demeanor was not supporting his earlier text that he'd been enjoying his visit.
"I have the worst migraine…"
A few steps into the room and she could smell the stink of alcohol rolling off of him and wrinkled her nose. "Oh, wow, the hangover must be starting already."
"Did anyone notice I was gone?"
"No, I bored everyone to death with my meeting, then a few of us did a patrol. I think you're in the clear. No one is even bunking here tonight, so besides the guards downstairs, we've got the place to ourselves."
Raphael groaned pitifully and Karai rolled her eyes. For such a tough guy, he really could be such a big baby. "I'll be right back."
She padded into the kitchen to round up some Advil, a tall glass of water, and a fabric ice pack, then bullied Raphael into sitting up to drink down the pills and water.
"It will help."
"It's not a hangover," Raphael said miserably, then seemed to reconsider. "It's not only a hangover. I think I really messed up tonight."
Nerves fluttered in her stomach. "What happened?"
He remained silent, his dark silhouette hunched over with his head in his hands.
"I de-bugged our rooms, so we can speak freely, for now," Karai said encouragingly, but he didn't budge. She sighed and shimmied onto his bed, getting comfortable sitting with pillows against the wall at her back. She put another pillow on her lap and patted it. "I brought ice, too."
Slowly he settled into the foam mattress on his shell, resting his head on the offered pillow. She set the ice pack on Raphael's forehead, and Hachiko snuggled in beside him. She waited patiently, listening as he finally recounted his night. Some of it made her question his sobriety; the part about aliens in particular. He had been mutated somehow, though, and the source of his and Bradford's affliction had to have come from somewhere, so she kept an open mind.
"I don't know what to do," he said at the end of it, sounding truly lost.
"You did get quite a lot of information out of Michelangelo," Karai noted. "I think you have the right idea. He's so eager to know you. The closer you get to him, the more he will open up."
"I can't. I made a fool of myself tonight."
"So you showed him some vulnerability. Some humanity. He will sympathize with you even more."
"I don't want sympathy." Raphael growled, the vibration of it rumbling through the pillow.
She gave his chest a brief, soothing rub with the hand not balancing an ice pack. "Think of it as just another tool," Karai said with a shrug, "to lower his guard."
"I could just drag him in here now that I know where he'll be most Monday nights. I could cut my losses with Casey, set a trap, and force Mikey to tell me everything he knows."
"Is that what you want to do?"
"It's the smart thing to do."
"That isn't what I asked."
Raphael sighed deeply, blowing the stank of secondhand beer into her face.
Karai winced.
"What I want doesn't matter."
"It matters to me," Karai said firmly. There were so few choices they were allowed to make in their lives, and all they had for support was each other.
"No, I don't want to do that," he finally answered.
"Okay, then." She took a deep breath. This whole thing with Michelangelo should make what she was about to tell him slightly less controversial. "On patrol tonight, I had my own close encounter of the Hamato kind. I met Leo."
Karai felt every muscle in his body tighten, but otherwise he remained still.
"He was alone and took out my squad of six in about thirty seconds. I thought he might be a challenge, but all it took was some of that blinding powder you taught me how to make and a few hard hits to put him down."
"Then what?"
"I left him there."
"Alive?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I want him to live with the fact that he is only alive because I thought he was too pathetic to finish off."
"Do any of the six Soldiers know what you did?" he asked, concern creeping into his voice.
"I doubt it, I had to wake them all up."
"Please, be careful."
"I'm fine. Hey, speaking of which," Karai started.
Raphael groaned. "I can't tomorrow, I'm going to need to rest," he said, clearly anticipating what she was about to say. "How about the next day? I'll arrange a long training session."
"Sounds good. I'll be sneaking out that night, too, but it will be late. If the place is as empty as it is tonight, it should be a piece of cake."
"Do I even want to know?"
Karai grinned in the dark. "That katana I lost in the auction? Is going to be mine one way or another."
ooooooooooooooooo
True to his word, Raphael had arranged a lengthy, mandatory training with a special focus on how to defeat mutant turtles to allow Karai time to slip away alone. The best thing about her father and Bradford being away was that she and Raphael outranked everyone else, so they could boss the Soldiers around with little push-back, making their escapades far easier to pull off.
Atop the Byerly Building, she had the perfect vantage point to spy on the high-end condo building across the street. The early evening summer sun was starting to sink, casting harsh reflections off of the tall glass buildings around her. Squinting through her binoculars, she peered into her target's window and grumbled a curse. The beautiful antique katana was on display in full view right there, positioned near the window as if to specifically antagonize her.
One of their tech-savvy Soldiers had hacked into the auction website to get the name and address of the guy who managed to outbid her. A quick search later, and Karai had found the company he worked for, called his secretary to make an appointment with his investment firm, and was informed he would be out of town for the next two weeks. As impulsive as she could be at times, Karai was here to do her due diligence and make sure his apartment was actually empty, that there was no family or mistress to worry about when she broke in.
Redirecting her sights to the lobby, she noted that the main door required a key card and that there was a concierge. When she came back later tonight, she would enter with another resident, maybe even make small talk with them so it looked like she was supposed to be there. Sabotage the security cameras in the hall on his level, pick the lock to his apartment. Easy.
There was a thrill of excitement as her plan and its contingencies came together in her mind.
This sword should have already been a part of her collection, and would have if not for Raphael and Casey's distracting antics after Xever had gone off on them. She smirked at the memory and wondered how long it would take Xever to get over it and resume their bromance.
Karai stretched and turned towards the stairwell that would take her back into the Byerly Building when something caught her eye. A brief flash of green a few rooftops over.
"No way," she whispered to herself.
Raising the binoculars again, she confirmed that it was one of the turtles pacing between a billboard and a large exhaust fan in the fading daylight. Granted, it was only her high vantage point and attention to detail that made this sighting possible, but still. She watched the legs move past the beams of the billboard, the upper half of him obscured by the actual sign.
She smiled as he emerged, pleased to see that it was Leonardo. Alone, again. And he looked angry.
Rushing inside, she took a service elevator down and exited discretely from a back door. Katana temporarily forgotten, her heart beat faster at the prospect of tormenting Leonardo some more. She dashed through the back parking lane and silently ascended the fire escape to the building he was hopefully still pacing on.
Though she popped up onto the roof while his back was facing her, she noticed him go still and clench a fist before turning around. He glared at her accusingly, and she expected some nonsense about the blinding powder or her beating him.
"You're friends with Raph, right?" he demanded instead.
"I've heard of him," she replied flippantly.
Leonardo scoffed impatiently. "Tell him to stay away from Michelangelo. Giving him false hope about having some kind of relationship is just cruel. Even for The Foot."
Karai unsheathed her wakizashi and approached him. "Maybe you should be more concerned about yourself right now."
"Let's see how well you do against someone who can see," he said, likewise unsheathing a katana.
As irate as he had seemed at first, his half smirk was cocky and his anger was not directed at her. In fact, he seemed to be relieved to have an outlet for his frustration.
Time to make him regret that. "Let's see how well you do against someone better than you," she countered.
"Let's see how well you do against…uh." Clearly flustered at his inability to think of a comeback, he resorted to, "Let's just go."
She grinned. He so badly wanted to play the Cool Tough Guy. It was kind of cute.
They settled into their ready stances and Karai leapt at Leonardo, surprising him by attacking from within his guard. It made his full length katana clunky to swing at her while she was in so close with her shorter sword, but he managed to make her back off some and fight where he was more comfortable.
"Juji-ken. Interesting," he critiqued.
She pushed forward and he did an overhand block with his blade as he stepped back, then counter-attacked with a swift sideways slice.
"Kocho-giri," she returned, sounding bored. "Predictable."
They crossed blades and circled, with Leonardo's blade on top of hers and bearing down. She was no match for his raw strength, and knew to duck and weave away, then spun to swipe just past his shoulder. Facing each other once more, Karai stepped back to catch her breath.
"You're good," she admitted, honestly a bit impressed. "It's no wonder we haven't wiped you out yet."
"It's not like Shredder hasn't been trying," complained Leonardo.
"I know!" she exclaimed, letting real exasperation into her voice. "It's all he ever talks about. He needs a hobby."
They clashed again and his blade came perilously close to her chest before she was able to bat it away and land a kick to his jaw. He paused to rub the spot she had hit with the back of his hand and smiled, seemingly impressed with her as well. It was a heady confidence boost.
"Not bad, but I've seen better," she taunted, wondering how far she could provoke him.
"With one blade, maybe, but not with two," he said daringly, pulling the other katana from its scabbard.
Karai grinned. She was game. Time to stop holding back.
He came at her fast, slightly more agile than what she was used to from training with the bulkier Raphael. What she was used to, however, was dodging fists and feet of enormous proportions in comparison to her, so it didn't phase her at all when he started incorporating other strikes into their battle.
"I don't think you're as bad as you pretend to be. You could have finished me off on the roof the other night, but you didn't."
She retorted by throwing a handful of shuriken at him, and was able to kick him against a wall as he was blocking them. She got in close again, trapping his arm so one sword was pointing out past her back uselessly, and his other was straight up between them nearest his head. He dared not move the latter because she had her wakizashi sideways against it, lined up neatly across his throat.
"And I," she said, panting lightly and pressing in a little tighter, "don't think you're as good as you pretend to be. Bet you are just dying to cut loose a little."
His superior strength had him breaking out of her hold an instant later, and the tip of his sword was at her throat.
"I win," he said coldly.
She ducked under the blade and launched herself forward, knee slamming against his plastron to knock him off-balance and reverse their positions. The pain in her knee was worth the startled look on his face when he realized he was at her mercy once again.
"Are you sure about that?" she purred.
Making a snap decision, she stepped back and sheathed her weapon. "Meet me on top of the Byerly Building at midnight tonight."
"Why?" His confusion was palpable, and he suddenly looked more nervous than when she'd had a knife to his throat.
"I want to show you something," she said, perhaps a bit more suggestively than was strictly necessary, but she really did love watching him squirm.
ooooooooooooooooo
Karai walked into the dojo at the Watchtower just as Raphael was finishing up. He was sparring with five Soldiers at once, encouraging them to work together to beat him, but he shrugged them off as soon as he caught sight of her. She was feeling amazing, her energy buzzing through her with confidence and pride. She beamed at him and he smiled back at her, looking pleased that she'd had a good time.
"Do you need a hand with anything?" she asked.
"Sure," he answered. "We can go over a few one on one attacks…"
He trailed off and his face fell into a neutral mask as she approached him. She gave him a questioning look but he ignored it and was all business for the last ten minutes or so while they did their demonstration. Then he dismissed everyone and brusquely left the dojo.
"What the hell, Raph?" she asked, jogging out after him.
He took the stairs up to the main level, his footsteps slapping on the barren marble floor.
"Did I screw up your lesson or something?"
He stopped and turned on his heel so quickly that she almost slammed into him. Anger emanated off of him, but there was hurt in his green eyes as she looked up into them.
"I can smell him all over you," he growled, low and quiet.
"Leo?" she said blandly.
"That is what I covered for?"
"No, I was scouting the building I'm planning to hit later. It was a chance meeting, and yeah, we fought."
"Sure, a fight. Funny how I don't smell any blood, and you looked so damned happy when you came in."
She narrowed her eyes as his inflection tapered off into a sarcastic drawl, entirely irritated by his implication but choosing to ignore it. "Can't have that, can we?" Karai hissed. "Guess I should only ever be covered in the blood of my enemies and miserable."
Raphael had the good sense to look chastised, and stared at the floor next to her. "That's not what I meant…"
"Not that I should have to justify this to you, but I wanted to test myself against him, since everyone else seems to be having such a hard goddamned time," she said, her voice an exasperated whisper. "And you know what? I could have finished him, twice! He only had me once."
"What, like a game?"
"I guess so. That isn't how I intended it to go, really. It just kind of did, and it was fun in a weird way," she admitted.
Raphael's jaw clenched visibly. "You can just spar with me if you want a challenge. At least you know I won't kill you."
"Exactly! I wanted a real challenge, with the possibility of real consequences if I wasn't good enough to beat him. How is it any different than you and Mikey sparring? You enjoyed that challenge as well."
"It's completely different," he insisted stubbornly, unable to meet her eyes.
The next quip from Karai's mouth stopped short as she realized. "Are you…jealous?"
"No!" he insisted way too loudly for being in a place where they couldn't talk securely. "Of course not," he denied at a much lower volume.
Karai stared at him but he still couldn't look her in the eye and had started fidgeting. She just didn't have the mental fortitude right now to unpack that. "I have a message for you, from him," she said instead, changing the subject.
Foot Soldiers started spilling out onto the main level, giving their tense tableau a wide berth as they wandered off to wherever they needed to be. She sighed. "Roof?"
"Roof," he agreed.
They made their way outside and scaled the building, then sat side by side on the sloped shingles of the roof next to the giant clock face.
"Anyways," Karai resumed, "Leo wanted me to tell you to stay away from Mikey."
Raphael scoffed. "Shouldn't be a problem with the way things ended the other night."
"And full disclosure," Karai said, "I might be meeting him again tonight."
"That is a bad idea."
"Why? Because you don't like it?" snapped Karai impatiently.
"No, because he might turn it into a trap. Plus, your father will be back here tomorrow, and if he catches wind of this, there will be hell to pay."
She waved her hand dismissively. "I can handle it."
"I can't."
Raising one eyebrow, she turned her head slightly to look at him. Beside her, he was still, staring off at the sunset as it began to paint the sky with orange and pink. "Pardon me?"
"I can't watch you get hurt, especially over him."
Karai wanted to argue, but she understood. Watching her father harm Raphael to teach him or both of them a lesson was worse in some ways than just taking the punishment herself. She tilted her head to rest it on his shoulder, and they sat in silence for a while, watching the sun set.
"What was your plan? Why meet Leo again later?" Raphael finally asked, sounding a lot calmer.
"I'm going to ask him to help me steal the katana."
Raphael huffed. "I can help you."
She smiled. Ever ready to jump headfirst into hijinks with her, as usual. "I don't actually need any help at all."
Raphael pulled away from her just enough to give her an indignant glare, making her laugh.
"I want to get in his head. Make him question his morals and responsibilities, shake up his role as a leader. Seed doubt. When he makes mistakes, they will all make mistakes."
"Why bother when we can just bring him in or kill him?"
She shrugged. "I love a good game of cat and mouse. If our lives have to revolve around a vendetta, we might as well have some fun with it."
Raphael rolled his eyes and went back to looking at the sky. "Typical kunoichi and their mind games."
"We can't all rely on brute strength," she teased. After a moment of thought she added, "You should come with me."
"To trap Leo? Yes, I agree."
She nudged her shoulder into his roughly. "No. You can keep an eye on things from afar when I meet him. With or without him I'll be getting that katana, and then you and I can head back here together. We can go downstairs right now and let anyone who is still around know that we plan to go on a scouting mission later. They're more likely to leave us to it if we both go and insist that we require extreme stealth."
"More likely is not definitely," he pointed out.
She smiled. The resistance was leaving his voice. "Yes, but you'll be there on the lookout."
"Fine, I'll go, but if Leo does anything I don't like, I get to kill him."
"You don't like anything he does! No deal," laughed Karai.
"If he turns this into a trap or harms you in any way, I will kill him," Raphael amended.
"Much more reasonable," she agreed.
ooooooooooooooooo
Karai pressed herself into Raphael's shell, her arms thrown around his shoulders to lock her hands together high up on his plastron. Her knees were tucked up and his forearms supported her thighs in a modified, and admittedly more uncomfortable, version of the piggy-back carry, but she wouldn't trade the ache in her hips and knees for anything in the world.
She felt Raphael collect himself beneath her and he vaulted into the sky, putting way more height into the jump than needed to reach the next rooftop. She squealed with delight as the wind mussed up her short, two-toned hair. The lights of the city below and the stars above shone bright and beautiful, briefly appearing as suspended as she felt as they soared through the air. Then Raphael landed on the lip of the roof, hopped down from it onto the flat asphalt, and kept running.
Karai's face was just to the left of Raphael's head, poking up over his shoulder. She shifted forward so her mouth was just behind his ear. "Faster," she urged.
He quirked his head to the side just enough for her to see the edge of his wicked grin and the mischief sparkle in his eye. Then he straightened out, leaned forward, and sprinted. The wind swept past her ears even louder than before and she smiled. He always had loved to show off.
She tightened her grip as another wide gap in the rooftops quickly approached, clenched her stomach in anticipation of the weightlessness of their flight before he jumped, and there was just…there was nothing else like this. Nothing else that could rival this feeling of ultimate freedom and ultimate surrender. She loved the duality of it, of two extremes entwined. How giving in to total helplessness and trust in turn allowed her to feel so alive and liberated.
By the time they arrived atop the Byerly Building, they were both breathless. Karai felt Raphael release her legs and she slid down his back. He turned and steadied her with a hand on her shoulder when she wobbled a bit on her own feet with a good-natured snicker. She shook the feeling back into her legs and smiled up at him, shrugging off his harness and sheathed katana from her own back to pass to him. She held it between them, but the warmth of his hand on her shoulder remained, his expression serious.
"Don't worry, Raph."
His eyes drifted to the katana being offered in the scant space between them, then flicked back to hers. "I'll be close," he said.
It was an oddly charged moment. He was acting like he would never see her again or something. She swayed a bit closer to him and tapped his plastron with the hilt. "You're being very dramatic."
He made a sour face and took his gear from her. "I just don't trust him."
"And you are here if anything gets out of control."
His hand left her shoulder and ghosted down her arm, then he turned away and disappeared into the night within moments.
Karai took a few deep breaths to settle the flutter in her stomach and to clear her mind. She had some time before midnight to get her head back in the game, to contemplate what she wanted to say to Leonardo and how to keep an advantage over him. She thought about the possibility of him actually turning this into a trap for her, and was surprised at how disappointed that prospect made her feel.
Leonardo was on time, and to his credit, he appeared to be alone. They made eye contact from across the roof and he approached cautiously. Very cautiously.
I can smell him all over you. Raphael's deep voice and betrayed expression flashed in her mind. Not optimal timing to analyze that moment, but of course. Their senses were keen.
"Relax, he's not here," she said. "He did give me a ride, though."
"You expect me to believe that he left you here alone?" Leonardo replied, scanning his surroundings.
Karai shrugged. "Believe what you want. Do I look helpless to you?"
Leonardo smirked as he came closer, his eyes giving her an obvious once over. "Maybe a little," he replied.
"You must have forgotten all the times I've beat you."
To be fair, she was in civilian clothing – black tights, black t-shirt, and a jean jacket that hid kunai across the small of her back. She needed to blend when she walked into the building with other residents, preferably residents coming home from a bar who were feeling chatty.
"Why did you want to meet me?" he asked, sounding tired.
"Long day?"
"Besides having a big argument with Mikey, and our 'friendly' battle earlier, we then had to fight a giant weed monster that was using human prisoners as fertilizer. So yeah, long day."
Karai blinked and paused for a beat to absorb those words in that order. "You didn't have to do anything, assuming that insane story is true."
"I wish it wasn't," he sighed. "And I did have to save those people, because it was the right thing to do."
"Who made that your responsibility? They would have never done the same for you."
"That doesn't matter."
There was an impatient edge to his voice, so she walked away and beckoned for him to follow her. "I wanted to show you this…"
She positioned him in her earlier stakeout spot, and gave him her pocket binoculars.
He took a sharp breath. "That is the sword of Miyamoto Musashi."
"The greatest swordsman in Japan. The founder of your discipline, Niten Ichi-ryu. That katana doesn't belong with some American who can't appreciate its art and history, just sitting there collecting dust. It belongs with someone worthy of it."
"Like you?" he asked skeptically.
"Or you. It's yours if you can get over your hero complex and help me take it."
Leonardo handed back her binoculars and looked at her incredulously. "Absolutely not."
"Come on, Boy Scout," she teased. "No one will be hurt, just some rich guy's ego. It's likely insured, even. Don't you want it?"
"Of course I do," he answered. "But it doesn't belong to me."
"Well, I'm getting it, with or without you. Your choice."
"I can't. It's wrong."
"Boring," Karai said in an exaggerated tone. "I'm leaving now. You don't have to help me, but are you going to try and stop me?"
Leonardo looked unsure, as if he knew stopping a crime was what the hero would do, but was now second-guessing himself. Perfect.
"Where is your line, Leo? Where does black become white for you? Or will you open your eyes and see that the reality is that this world is nothing but shades of gray?"
Karai started walking away towards the door that led to a stairwell down to the elevator control room and ultimately the private service elevator inside of the Byerly Building.
"Please don't," Leonardo said, grabbing her arm as she walked by.
She had fully expected this, and reacted in an instant to pull him off-balance and throw him to the asphalt. A half-hearted tussle ensued that she gave Raphael mental kudos to for not interrupting, where she eventually allowed Leonardo to get her into a clinch and push her against the closed door.
"You gonna beat me up, Leo?" she asked, their faces inches apart. "You think harming a person is the right thing to do to protect an inanimate object?"
The hard glint in his icy glare softened. She felt his weight press into her a little harder as he sighed in defeat, then he let her go.
"I think we just found your line," Karai said impishly. She flattened her palm against his chest, letting it linger for a moment, then pushed gently. He let her back him up a few steps, in turn giving her space to open the door she'd just been pinned against. "Goodnight, Boy Scout."