Chapter Text
Father lied.
New York City is unbearably boring.
Not that he’d promised it’d be exciting, but during his latest monologue Karai distinctly remembers him saying the city would be the “site of their final victory” and “an end to the stain on the legacy of the”- she sort of stopped listening after that. Point being, it’s been almost three weeks of pigeon-filled patrol and staking out rival gang territory. She’s snoring at the very thought.
She misses Tokyo. Not only did it have twice the attractiveness and four times the excitement as this rat-infested prison, but she had people there.
(One person- Shinigami had been forbidden from accompanying her to America, courtesy of good old Dad, who insisted she not have any “distractions”.
When he met her coming off the plane he already had a speech ready:
“My daughter,” Hand on the shoulder, helmet still on- she hasn’t seen it off since he came to New York. “It’s good to have you with me again. I have a task for you.”
“Anything.”
“An old enemy of mine has resurfaced in New York. Hamato Yoshi.” He’d growled the name, two words she’d never heard uttered without hatred, ones she’d assumed she’d never put a face to. “Your mother’s killer.”
“...He’s alive?”
“Alive, and training ninja of his own. I want you to track them down. After all these years… we can have our revenge, Karai. Make right what he took from us.”
That first night she’d barely slept, imagining all the ways she might finally meet the man who tore her family apart. Father never told her much about him, but what she knows she hates. The ragged burns that trace the Shredder’s hands and arms, face and neck, were at his hand.
The coward still hasn’t shown his face, nor have his supposed trainees, so for now her anger is simmering, overpowered by a boredom-induced blasé.
She out on patrol. Predictably, nothing's happened.
There’s a rustle of fabric next to her. One of her soldiers points down to the rooftop below.
A figure’s pacing there. He’s muttering to himself, kicking at various vent hoods and satellite dishes and fiddling with the straps of the two scabbards strapped across his… shell.
Obviously this is one of Hamato’s minions, if the swords and wrappings are any indication, but apparently he’s also a… well. He looks like a turtle. A turtle with a mask and weapons, walking on two legs.
This might be interesting.
She waves the soldiers down, hanging back at her perch on the billboard. He’s good- he has his swords drawn before the Foot even land, all four on the ground in barely a minute. Unconscious on the ground, not a scratch on them. So he’s a goody-two-shoes to boot.
He grins amidst the crumpled forms of her soldiers, going to sheathe his swords. “Hm. I feel so much better.”
It’s time to make her entrance. She lands almost soundlessly on the rooftop and smirks under her mask as his eyes widen, katana and wakizashi drawn hastily back in front of him.
“Not bad.”
“Uh… thanks?" He seems to recover from his confusion, raising an eyebrow (or whatever the turtle equivalent of an eyebrow is). "You should train those guys better."
“I guess so, if they get their asses kicked by the likes of you. You might actually be a challenge.” She could take him down now. Not bad doesn’t mean better than her. But why would she give up some potential leverage so soon?
So, she blinds him, slamming a knee into his plastron and then a foot into his chest. “Guess not. My name’s Karai.”
"You- huh?" He actually seems surprised at the offense, which is obnoxious, but it means he’s trusting.
Even better.
“I’ll see you around.”
**********
It becomes a sort of routine- she meets Leo on a random rooftop, at a random hour, and they both pretend it’s an accident. They fight, she beats him (or he gets the opportunity to beat her, but doesn’t take it), rinse, repeat.
She hasn’t told Father about their rendezvous’.
Karai doesn’t like lying to him, per se, but it’s not the first time and it won’t be the last (she cares less now, now that there are missions she goes uninformed of and meetings she’s excluded from- there used to be a sort of understanding between the two of them, and if he’s going to break it than she can too). He’s too shortsighted to understand what she’s doing; this is her way to Hamato, his soft spot.
She just needs to build a little more trust in Leo, maybe worm some information out (besides the seemingly involuntary babble about his brothers and their latest escapades), and then they can take the whole clan down. But in the meantime, their unofficial spars have been kind of… fun?
You’re the first thing in this city that doesn’t bore me.
It wasn’t a lie.
And besides. If Father’s going to send her across an ocean away from her only friend, she has a right to make some entertainment for herself.
She meets his family, and can finally put some faces to names. “Raph” first. He’s certainly not the picture of responsibility Leo is: more volatile, his fighting less restrained. Still, he’s far from ruthless. Her first encounter with the other two- Donnie, the smartest of the bunch (he fights like he’s enacting computer code- complicated, precise, but so predictable) and Mikey, who despite his capability in battle has all the maturity of a cartoon character marketed towards nine year olds- reveals the same.
Naiveté runs in the family.
Leo won’t give up on his theory that “there’s good in her!”, that “she doesn’t have to take this path!” (he talks like he’s in a corny seventies sci-fi, god), all based on the fact that she hasn’t finished him off after her countless victories.
He talks like Shredder’s evil.
It gives her pause.
Her father’s never been the gentlest of people, and he’s downright ruthless to his enemies, but he does what he does for their clan. Their family. She doesn’t doubt that he would do anything to keep her safe by his side. Anything.
She doesn’t expect this… acquaintance to serve a real purpose until she properly discovers what those pink blobfish in robo-suits want. It looks like the turtles’ quarrel with them is less on moral grounds and more on “fate of Earth being endangered by planet-hopping aliens” grounds.
A look at the bigger picture says that revenge can wait: these extraterrestrial parasites are a little more pressing.
But, of course, Father can’t see past the nose of the kabuto to acknowledge the threat they pose.
“I want to help you fight the Kraang.”
It all snowballs from there.
**********
Six months later
For the first time, Karai really, actually wants to hurt the turtles.
Before they were just… pawns, pieces in a game between Shredder and Hamato that she could move around if she liked. Collateral, in a way, and Leo was a- not a friend.
She’s smarter than that. He tried to kill her father. In front of her.
She finally got a glimpse of “Splinter”, the day the Kraang attempted their invasion of New York, and scaredy-rat wouldn’t even fight her himself.
He looked at her like it hurt, like she’s a wound in his side that can’t heal right. She relished in it; he deserves to hurt after what he did.
Here on the rooftop, Splinter and the terrapin brats are tied up and waiting to be sent off to her father (He’ll be so proud. So incredibly proud, and she did it herself).
“Miwa-” She hesitates this time, at that name spoken in such a desperate voice. But-
“Karai.” Oh, great. Space Hero is yammering again. “Karai, don’t do this. Splinter- he’s your father. Your true father!”
No.
No, that’s too far.
To think that the murderer who splintered her family apart, who left her father bitter and angry with too much hurt to give out and not enough people to give it to- to think that she could ever be his.
“LIAR! You’d say anything to save him!”
Leo shakes his head frantically, eyes wide and pleading- she didn’t give him enough credit before. He’s a good liar. “No! No, I swear it. He’s your father- Hamato Yoshi!”
“If you won’t be silent-” She draws her sword on him, and for the first time he looks scared underneath its glare. “Then I’ll silence you.”
And she swings.
CLANG!
“Ugh- what-” Tiger Claw. If this fucking cat steps in her way one more time she’ll make him into a fur rug.
“Master Shredder desires them alive. He wants the pleasure of finishing the turtles himself.”
So she does the work, and he gets to make the kill. Funny how that works.
“...Fine. Let’s deal with the rat first.”
Raph starts to life at that, struggling violently in his bindings. “Leave him ALONE, Karai- argh- or you’re gonna answer to me!”
Ooh, she’s really scared. Regardless of birthright, it seems the turtles really do think of Hamato as their father. At least enough to disregard their own safety, which is wearing down at the same rate as her patience.
The rat sways woozily as she stands over him, head bowed. He reaches into his robes with one clumsy hand, and- oh.
“My sons- go, NOW!”
And she loses the turtles.
Now… she might be scared.
**********
“I will ask you once more. Why are the rat’s ninja not tied up with their master.”
“It wasn’t my fault! I had them, I swear, Splinter just- he-”
“He bested you. Even with Tiger Claw at your side, the greatest assassin on an entire continent, you’ve failed me.”
Her eyes burn at his tone. Indifferent. Disappointed. Not a word about how she took down his enemy of over a decade with that dart, delivered him faithfully when she could have ended them all then and there. “I got the rat.”
“Silence. Your sympathies for the turtles have gone excused this far, but no longer. You’re distracted. Unbalanced. And your place as my daughter does not excuse that carelessness.”
She bites her tongue until she tastes blood.
“Follow me.” He strides into the great hall without a glance back at her, eyes fixed on Splinter where he lies curled on the ground. He’s convulsing faintly, eyes half-lidded under the poison’s influence. “Bradford, Xever. Leave us.”
Then, his fists clenching: “Hamato Yoshi.”
Karai glares down at him with as much hate as she can hold.
“So you have come to this- a wretched rat man waiting to be put out of his misery.”
“At least I do not wear a mask… hh- hiding what little humanity I have left.”
“It is because of YOU that I wear this mask!”
The rage in her veins surges. When she was younger she’d trace over the scars on her father’s face, tiny palms flattening over the marred skin, and vow that if she could, she’d bring that pain back tenfold on Hamato Yoshi. She finally has that chance.
Splinter huffs. “All these years, you continue to deceive yourself…” His eyes flick up to Karai, boring into her. “And everyone around you.”
In an instant Shredder’s blades are drawn. “You dare- now, it ENDS!”
This isn’t right.
This isn’t right-
“-No, Father!”
His head whips back to face her. “You would stop me?”
She falters under his gaze, the threat in it. “You’d kill your greatest enemy while he’s poisoned and chained? What about honor? Everything you taught me?!”
Tiger Claw nods next to her, and her fear eases. “The girl is right, Master Shredder.”
“Hmph.” Father draws his blade, hovering over the rat for a long moment before stepping away. “Very well. Gather the Foot; I will offer Hamato Yoshi one last fight.”
She holds her head high when she walks past Splinter, so he’s out of her line of vision.
“Why… did you help me?”
“I don’t know,” She spits. “Maybe because you look so pathetic.”
“You have your mother’s spirit. So fierce, and yet… so scared.”
“NEVER SPEAK OF MY MOTHER AGAIN!” He recoils at her volume. “You ruined my family. You ruined all of our lives.”
As she stalks out of the throne room, she can hear him whisper after her, voice strained and urgent.
“No. It was… Oroku Saki. O- Oroku… Saki…”
**********
These turtles are so damn slippery. She’s lost them for the second time in one day, the rat too, and as she runs she knows that she cannot let them go again.
“If they escape, Shredder will have all your hides.”
Tiger Claw squints at her from the next rooftop over. “And what about you, Karai?” The words are a warning, not a slight.
They do escape.
The henchmen are punished, beaten and berated and promised that the next mistake will cost their lives.
And Karai?
Father doesn’t look at her with pride anymore. Not satisfaction at her prowess, or anger at her defiance, but nothing. His eyes flit over her like a stain on the carpet. This is a temporary punishment, and not an unfamiliar one. In recent years his attention has always been dependent on her successes.
He doesn’t notice when she sneaks out (or maybe he doesn’t care), but in either case she’s crouched just a billboard away from Hamato and the turtles.
“You did it, Sensei.”
“With the help of my brave sons, yes. We all did it.”
Oh, spare her.
“But what about Karai?”
“I still can’t believe that evil witch is your daughter.” Ouch. O’Neil’s got bite. “...um- sorry to be so honest.”
“Perhaps one day, she will believe the truth. But that is her decision.”
So Leo wasn’t lying. At least, Leo doesn’t think he was lying.
She spends the rest of the day milling over the rat’s words. After all these years, you continue to deceive yourself… and everyone around you. How Shredder had seemed so eager to silence him, to stop his eyes from meeting hers again.
Father’s footsteps echo behind her.
“What is it that troubles you, Karai?”
Until she turns, his voice sounds just like it used to, gruff and warm and paternal. It’s like he’s asking her why she’s crying over homework.
But then she faces him, sees just a stripe of mottled skin beneath the kuro kabuto, and the illusion drops.
It’s only them. He never used to wear the stupid thing when they were alone.
“I want to know the truth. The truth about my mother… and Splinter.”
She could swear the temperature of the room drops a few degrees. “You know the truth, my daughter. Hamato Yoshi took your mother away.”
Tiger Claw’s dramatic reappearance interrupts their conversation, and she wishes that his simple answer was enough to convince her, but-
This isn’t right. Something’s not right.
It hits her as she and the assassin are crossing the rooftops away from the lair, still brooding over his special promotion of being the one to end Leo and his posse. “You’ve faced the turtles in battle before and lost! What exactly is your grand plan for revenge here?”
“To destroy warriors such as these, you don’t strike at their limbs.” He stops and turns back towards her, claws glinting in the moonlight. “You go for their heart.”
“Tch- And what does an overgrown cat know of the heart?”
“No more than you, little one. Why do you think the Shredder sent you with me?”
Ah.
He's still shunning her- she's here because of what she knows.
“...Because I know them. I know the places they go, I know their weaknesses, their friends…” She straightens, gripping her wakizashi in its sheath. She’s getting her chance after all. “April O’Neil and Casey Jones.”
“The riders of the worm,” Tiger Claw growls. “They will all pay for what they did to me.”
Her heart’s pounding the entire way over to Murakami’s, jackrabbit-fast by the time the cat holds one talon to the older man’s throat and promises that any words other than the location of Casey and April will be his last.
She tells herself it’s excitement, pushes down the sick feeling just under her ribs at the way Murakami trembles in fear.
It doesn’t take her long to catch up to April. She’s gotten faster, though.
“O’Neil.”
April draws her tessen immediately, face steely. “You want to do this, Karai? Fine. But I’m warning you, I’ve been training with Master Splinter big-time, and I’m ready to kick your butt.”
It takes superhuman effort not to roll her eyes, but she forces her expression into one of almost frantic innocence.
“I didn’t come to fight. I came to talk.”
The redhead falters, raising an eyebrow. “Oh. Well… I’ve been trained in that too.”
The kunoichi makes sure to take her time starting her confession, lots of guilty stares at the ground and hand-wringing. “All my life, I was raised to believe that Shredder was my father. That Splinter was the enemy. So when Leo told me that Shredder had lied, I couldn’t accept it. But then-”
She swallows, glancing away in earnest. “I began to have doubts about his honor.”
“Doubts about the evil leader of the evil ninja clan? Really?”
Oh, save it. “Yes. Even now, he's sent Tiger Claw to destroy the turtles. He’s trying to use me to set a trap for them. But- I can’t… even if it means betraying the Shredder.”
April’s eyes widen. She stays stock still for a moment, never looking away from Karai. It’s like she’s analyzing something, feeling out this new information, and for a moment the older girl is actually a little nervous.“...I actually-”
“GET AWAY FROM HER!”
Donatello and Leo clamber up onto the rooftop, the taller turtle immediately pushing towards Karai, but April stops him.
“Wait! You- I can’t believe I’m doing this- you have to listen to what she has to say.”
“I believe you, Leonardo,” Karai cuts in in a rush. “...I believe that Splinter is my true father.”
This feels easier than it should. Almost honest.
She’s always been a good liar.
April glances between the turtles. That feeling of being sized up is back, even though the girl’s back is turned. “I believe that she believes you.”
“I believe… April.” Donnie adds lamely.
Karai lets her gaze land on Leo, watches as he visibly fights with himself. He may have finally, actually learned. A strange part of her hopes he has.
“This…”
He looks up, brightening. “This is great! I knew you’d come around.” He hurries over and takes her hand, practically radiating excitement. “We’ll take you to the lair to see Master Splinter.”
Idiot.
Before she knows it, she’s being tugged along behind him, April trailing with an amused smile and Donnie looking worried at the rear. They’re notably less apprehensive than she expected, but she can count on one hiccup in the plan-
Raphael doesn’t like her.
And he’s not going to like this.
**********
“I DON’T BELIEVE THIS!”
Mikey’s clattering around on the other side of the lair trying to spoon-feed an unconscious Casey some soup, but he peeks over at Raph’s yell.
“What have you guys done?!? What world do you live in that it’s okay to bring the princess of the Foot Clan to our secret lair?”
Leo frowns, distracted. “...What happened to Casey?”
“Tiger Claw threw him off a building. And YOU-” Raph wheels back around to jab a finger at the eldest’s plastron, “-just brought his partner in crime home for dinner!”
There’s no need for her to defend herself against his hate, but for some reason she feels the need to. He’s looking at her like she’s about to…
To destroy their home, family and friends? Where could he have gotten that idea-
“Shredder lied to me!” She falters, trying to compose herself. “I didn’t know.”
“Did you know that I’m about to stick this sai right up your-”
“Raph, cut it out!” Leo shoves him back, putting himself physically between the two of them. “She understands now.”
Karai pulls the communicator from her gauntlet.
“She gets it. She knows the truth, Raph.”
Tap.
Tiger Claw will arrive in less than ten minutes. She’ll have her revenge in less than ten minutes.
Leo's voice is rising in frustration. “Will you just listen?”
…In less than ten minutes she’ll lose the only semblance of a friend she’s had here- stop it. Father will be happy. He won’t have to hurt over this anymore, and neither will she.
“I’ve heard enough from you and your girlfriend,” Raph snarls, brandishing both sai. “She’s probably leading the Shredder here right now!”
“Enough!”
Everyone straightens to attention at the voice, steeped in authority. The rat. Karai sees as his eyes land on her, widen and then narrow almost imperceptibly. “Miwa.”
“Splinter.” She bows for good measure, even as a voice in her head screams wrong! He doesn’t deserve that respect!
“...”
“...Come with me.”
The dojo she follows him into is sunny. There’s a tree, a real tree, rays of light filtering through its leaves to give the room a soft green glow; nothing like the training room at home, dark and metal and lit by candles.
It’s beautiful. She actually feels bad they’ll never see it again.
“I retain very little from my old life,” Standing at a set of shelves across the room, Splinter takes a small photo off and holds it out. “But this I will never let go… my daughter.”
There’s a man, presumably the rat- same eyes, same reserved sort of imposingness. And next to him…
.
.
.
Her vision tunnels.
That’s-
That’s her mother. She knows that face so well, knows exactly the way the corners of her mouth crease, how one eyebrow rests just slightly higher than the other, and here she is, smiling…
She knows this photo. One half of this photo, at least. And Shredder had always told her that in its un-ripped form, he was standing next to Shen. He loved her. She loved him. The picture had been destroyed by Hamato Yoshi so that all he had left was this fragment.
Father lied.
She chokes on her next words, searching desperately for some evidence of tampering, some clue or promise that everything she’s known is still real.
“I- I can’t believe it... you’re telling the truth!”
The room tilts on its axis, sunlight filtering up through the floor now, walls twisting in her vision. It’s like her surroundings are some mutilated reflection of reality. Or, more accurately, vice versa.
“All these years, the Shredder has been lying to me.”
“Wait-” It’s the turtles. Leo’s voice has gone all high and confused, the way it does when his trust gets the best of him, because once again it has. “I thought you did believe it! If you didn’t believe it… why did you come down here?”
She swallows helplessly, voice barely a whisper:
“...Father. What have I done?”
“You had to see with your own eyes. You had to learn the truth for yourself.”
“...You knew I was lying.” Of course- how stupid did she think he was? How could she expect to just show up on their figurative doorstep and become part of the family with no questions asked?
No- no, she hadn’t wanted that, she wanted to- she wanted to take them down, she had to-
“No doubt the Shredder’s forces are on their way.”
She can practically feel the air shift, the waves of betrayal and hatred (Raph, surely) and hurt (Leo) seeping in with the guilt and terror. “Tiger Claw is tracking me.”
“I TOLD you!”
“Karai-” The oldest turtle’s eyes are impossibly wide, hand outstretched to her.
“There’s no time to argue! I- I have to get out of here, I can- I- hah- I can lead Tigerclaw away!” Fuck. In one fell swoop she’s going to lose her family, true and otherwise. Why should they ever accept her now? How can she ever return to Fa- to him knowing what he did?
“Go. Take Karai and watch over her.”
…What?
“I will stay with April and attend to Casey.”
Karai lurches toward the door, shame and horror rushing through every vein now, but Splinter catches her shoulder. She can’t look in his eyes. She doesn’t want to see what they might hold.
“You are who you choose to be,” He doesn’t sound like he hates her. She’s tearing up. She still can’t look at him. “Not what others make you.”
The words ring in her head as she sprints through the sewers with the turtles, following Michelangelo’s lead to an underground butcher’s storehouse. It’s far from the lair, about as far as they could get before Tiger Claw caught up, dark, and the heavy scent of deep freeze and raw meat limits his most deadly weapon- smell.
Maybe she underestimated Mikey. Given the circumstances, he couldn’t have given them much more of a tactical advantage.
She stays in the shadows when the cat shows up- as he pretty much pummels the turtles- at Leo’s request.
No sense in you fighting us when you don’t have to, right?
Only once Tiger Claw is looming over the leader, sword drawn, does she drop from the ceiling beams.
“Karai,” He growls, “Would you like the honor of finishing him?”
For a split second, Leo’s gaze flicks up to her.
She closes her eyes, touching the hilt of the wakizashi at her hip. It was her thirteenth birthday present. Under the wrappings it reads, Oroku Karai.
“I have no honor.”
There’s a barely audible intake of breath in front of the two of them. A faint shifting of feet.
Her eyes snap open. “But that’s about to change.”
She leaves the sword sheathed. He’ll expect a slash of it, not a kick. Her foot swings wide of Tiger Claw’s ear. He folds backwards, the meat cutter’s saw skimming the fur on the back of his neck. Swinging down from the rafters again, she braces her sword, aims it right at his chest-
He catches the blade. Slams her down onto the metal table, saw buzzing deafeningly beside her ear.
She springs back up, dodging his claws, and pulls a spinning kick at his head. Blow after blow land, but nothing’s strong enough-
The turtles are stirring again. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Leo stand, settling back into a fighting stance and ready to jump back in. Thank god. Maybe she’ll make it out of this ali-
“AGhh-” A paw punches hard against her chest, hurling her backwards against the storeroom’s metal wall. Ow.
“Ddd-don’t go aft-”
The buzzing of the meat cutter fades.