Midnight.
There's a hell of a view from here. On a clear night like this, you can see for miles.
They had scattered his ashes here. Seems so much longer than two years now.
Leonardo kneels down and draws his katana, the first katana Splinter gave him, all those
years ago. The blade glints in the moonlight.
He stretches out his arm, touches the tip to his plastron.
Gonna hurt like a motherfucker without a second.
He pushes the blade just under the shell, sucks in air with the shock of the pain.
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew...
He can't do it.
He slumps down to the ground.
After a while he reaches out, gropes for a rock.
He leaves what's left of the blade there on the summit.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
There's an abandoned factory here that looks out on the Foot headquarters; I've been
camped out here for almost a week now.
Stupid to think that I didn't know where I was going, that I wouldn't end up here, staring
at the compound, trying to catch just a glimpse of her face.
Memories that had faded in New York keep sneaking up on me here: the way she moved,
the slight changes in her voice when she went from Japanese to English.
The way her nails would scrape the ridges of my shell when we made love.
Sometimes in New York I could almost forget her; here she always seems to be just
inches away, just beyond my gaze. If I close my eyes I can almost feel her breath against
my neck.
It's cold enough this time of year that I can pretty much go out undetected, and I picked
up a new copy of Spring Snow at a used bookstore. I have a little trouble with the
Japanese, but not as much as I thought I would. At ten I stop reading and go to bed.
I've eaten more dried seaweed in the past two weeks than I ever have before in my
life. I don't dare keep much of anything else up there; it'll just encourage the rats.
I'm paying for half a pound when I feel the fingers brush against my jacket pocket.
I reach down and grab the wrist. Feels like I'm holding bone.
I look down and it's a girl; she looks as bad as her wrist feels.
"Don't call the police," she whispers, "please."
She must be hungry.
I form the rice around the plum, wrap the whole deal in seaweed, hand one to the
girl. I've gotten pretty good at 'em; it's about all I eat at this point. People in Japan used
to eat these all the time; now they're too busy grabbing meals at the local Mickey
D's.
She hasn't looked at me once. Once in a while she'll glance down at the ground before
me, but that's about it. Fine with me; I've kept my cloak on, but if she looks closely
enough, she'll at least get the idea.
"Do your parents know where you are?"
"My parents are dead," she says.
"What's your name?"
"Kireime," she tells the floor.
Pretty eyes. It suits her. 'Course, "half-dead" would suit her, too; she's so hollow
around those pretty eyes it looks like they're ready to sink back into their sockets.
We eat in silence; when she finishes, I ask her if she wants another one.
"Look," she says, "let's just get this over with, okay?"
"What?"
"Do you want me to take my clothes off, or just--"
"No-- no," I say, as I realize what she's asking. "I don't want anything like that--"
She looks even more suspicious than before. "Why are you feeding me, then?"
"You were hungry," I say lamely.
She says, "You don't have to be so guilty about it. I've done this before."
I look at her in disbelief. "How old are you?"
"Thirteen," she says, trying to be worldly, and I fight back the urge to be sick.
I wake an hour or so before dawn; I still haven't really gotten used to the time
difference. She's still sleeping, pretty soundly. They say the best way to get your mind
off your troubles is to find someone with even more problems.
She sure qualifies.
I'd better keep the cloak on; she's still plenty suspicious of me.
A few hours later, I realize she's watching me; I finish the kata, turn to her.
"You're good," she says.
"Thank you," I say, bowing, trying to figure out how much she saw. "Do you want breakfast?"
"Sure. Got anything better than seaweed?"
"If you want to go get it."
"You trust me?"
"I'll trust you once," I say, dig out a few bills, put them in her hand. Worst thing that'll
happen is she'll spend it all feeding herself.
"Thank you," she says, her fingers curling around the money. She pauses just inside the
door. "You haven't told me your name yet."
"Leonardo."
"Leonardo," she repeats, nods. She gets the 'l' right on the first try.
She puts the tapestry up; it covers about half of the holes in the wall. "Couple
more years," she says, "this could look halfway decent."
I laugh and point out the other three crumbling walls. "Wouldn't go that far."
"I'm trying," she says defensively.
"It's nice," I tell her. "I'm just teasing."
"Thank you, sensei," she says softly.
I gotta get her out of here.
I don't know. Maybe I just need somebody to watch over.
Maybe I just need somebody to order around.
She came back to Japan few years ago, she's told me, hoping to find her father's family.
Somehow she ended up on the streets. I've tried to figure out where in the States she was
before she came here, but she's pretty smart. I don't get much. She knew some ninjitsu
before she started learning from me, not a lot, but enough to make me wonder.
Of course, she has no idea where I come from or why I'm holed up here, so I guess we're
even.
You could probably write a novel just with what we don't tell each other. Maybe
two.
But still...I don't know. In some ways I feel I know her better than I ever knew my
brothers. Maybe it's because I never make assumptions with her like I always did with
them.
Add that to my list of mistakes.
She puts the binoculars down, hands them over to me.
"Someone's going in."
I get up, lift them up, get my eye on him. I put my arm around her. "Kireime, you know
where the money is. There's a name there...my family, in America. If I don't come
out...they should be able to take care of you."
"I want to come with you."
"I know. I've got to do this alone." Of you want to know the truth, she'd be a liability.
She's learned a lot, but she still has a way to go.
"Good luck," she says, and hugs me.
I squeeze her and start out the door.
They only sent one assassin; they must be pretty confident.
Of course, if they've got contacts on the inside, they can afford to be.
Sure enough, nobody even patrols by as he works his way inside the compound. The
Americans built it for some factory twenty or thirty years ago, I remember; the company
went under and the Foot grabbed it. Real estate's hard to come by in this country,
especially buildings large enough to hold this many Foot.
He lifts up a ceiling tile, pulls out a ladder, climbs up.
Great. The easy way for me to get caught, especially if he's meeting someone up there. I
grab the edge of the tile and climb after him.
There's only about two feet of space above the ceiling, but I manage to move with him
for a couple of yards. I'm a little bit smaller than he is, so it's that much easier for
me.
He turns, sees me. Shit.
No room up here to draw my katana, but the advantage is that he can't do much either.
He pulls a dagger from somewhere, lunges at me.
His blade scratches the back of my hand, probably poisoned, but I get around him, above
him, the two of us crammed in this tiny space. I grab his wrist, turn it up by his head, get
the blade, jab it into his neck-- I didn't want to kill him, no choice now-- but my weight
on his is too much, I can hear the tiles crack beneath us and we fall...
A Western-style living room; I get up and the room spins and I drop back down to my
knees. Must've been poison; my hand's going numb, too.
People coming; I hear the footsteps--
Karai.
She kneels down at my side and I show her my hand. "Poisoned. Watch the knife. And
you've got somebody inside, a traitor, I don't know who..."
She reaches out, pushes something, takes my hand and draws my katana, cuts the wound
further open. "What kind of poison?"
I shake my head. "Numbness, going up my arm now...I'm a little dizzy, but..." I put the
hand I can still feel up to her face; she's as beautiful as I remember her.
"What are you doing here?"
"Karai..."
"Mama?" a voice says. A little boy, standing above my adversary...he's pulled the shirt
back, revealing the skin, which screams with color.
Tattoos.
"Yakuza," she mutters, and turns back to me. "Leonardo, what are you doing
here?"
"I love you," I tell her.
And everything goes black.
