Sins, Debts, Years, and Foes--Chapter 4
Deviation Actions
Literature Text
The Shredder kicked at his assailant, his leg moving so swiftly that it was a blink of a movement, his leg was on the ground, and then his leg was parallel to the floor, and the Foot ninja went flying across the dojo. Bradford came at him next, not a challenge by any means, but better than the warriors that were being thrown at him like paper balls. At least with Bradford, he was able to do a few moves before sending him flying across the room. Morning practice was not having the effect he wished it to. He did not have to concentrate, everything was too easy, and he had not yet been working physically long enough to have exhaustion quiet his mind for him.
His thoughts had run last night after Nikka had left until he fell asleep, and this morning had been little better. Flickers of memories danced before his mind’s eye, waking up, during morning meditation, during practice. He had now, after his muscles began a slight burn for a period of time, been able to quiet his mind enough to have an entire memory play out before another one took its place.He did not want any memories swimming around in his mind. He wanted his mind to be blank.
It was so hard to get it blank. Anger swelled in him, bursting from just below his throat to the end of his fist, colliding with Bradford’s ribcage, crushing the breath out of the mutant. Since Karai’s mutation he had not been able to keep his mind still. Memories plagued him like a creeping madness, from his youth, from this adulthood, from his middle age, now almost half way done. He had hoped that recapturing Karai would calm his frenzied brain. All it had done was make it worse, stoking the flames of rage with every passing day. With the Kraang gone, he had to rely on Baxter Stockman, that sniveling fly, to create a retro-mutagen. Once again, Hamato Yoshi had ruined his life, turned his beloved daughter into a monster.“No, Saki,” Nikka’s voice drifted into his head as his fists swung and his shoulders rolled. “You cannot let yourself think that way.” When despair was waiting to take him, sitting on the sidelines waiting for his anger to subside just enough to fit through the crack between calm and rage to overtake him, she had the uncanny knack of fighting it away. Her fighting was gentle, not a great battle of wills or of wits, but a soothing that spoke the truth.
There were so few who spoke the truth to him anymore. He could count them one hand. Tiger Claw. Bradford. Nikka...he swung his leg with ferocity at the ninja that came at him, catching him with the inside of his calf. The man went tumbling across the floor once his arc through the air was complete. At least the man tried to recover, he’d have to remember that one might have promise.He had to keep Hamato Yoshi out of his mind, or else he would permanently damage one of his sparring partners. Sparring partners, pffaah! he thought. They were punching bags, collections of muscle and bone to be thrown around with ease, such ease that he could still think, that he could still tell himself not to think. He had to be honest. They were pathetic.
He had not expected, when he had first come to Miyabi’s estate so many years ago, for a practitioner of geijutsu to be honest. He had assumed, having never knowingly met one, that they were inherently dishonest people, the word did not have the connotation ‘to act’ for nothing. There were those who were dishonest, and it was those who were not great. Many of them were not even good. The great ones, the few who now lived and practiced and taught on a level that would rival that of medieval Japan, were honest with those around them. It was that trait itself, that made the them great. It was that trait that had surprised him to such an extent when he came to Miyabi’s house so many years ago.He had been walking the outer hallway with her, she was speaking to him about his past, he couldn’t remember exactly what it was now. He had been listening intently, determined to remember every word that woman told him of his true heritage. He had been waiting impatiently for weeks for her to say something, but all she had done so far was ask him questions. “Tell me about your military service,” she would say, or “Tell me of your ninjutsu training,” or “Tell me of your first love.” She had, of course, asked for the details of his ‘argument’, as she put it, with the Hamato Clan early on in his stay. He had been obliged to tell her, with the least amount of details possible. She hadn’t asked for details when he omitted them, but she had not answered his questions in return. She was tall, the top of her head came to his nose, even back then her hair was dyed black, and the dark red lipstick she wore about her lips would begin to smear into the wrinkles of her lips by the end of the day. She knew so, so much that had been kept from him his entire life. She knew the truth, and she spoke the truth, she spoke it to him, and it was like sweet water running down a parched man’s throat.
They had turned a corner, both walking with their arms behind their backs, spines straight, eyes ahead of them. As they rounded the bend, he saw a light brown haired white girl sliding along the hardwood floor in her socks toward them at an impressive speed. Her legs were in the position of a skateboarder, as if she had something underneath her. Asakami Miyabi, whose eyes were staring straight at the girl barreling toward them, did not even stop in her stride, she continued walking smoothly as if the girl wasn’t there. Saki had thought for a moment, only for a moment, that the girl was going to knock the older woman down, and that would be quite a sight, to see the great geijutsuka sprawled on the floor by a child. But the girl had more kinesthetic talent than it looked with her hallways sliding. She changed the position of her legs, to one that resembled her standing gently with one in front of the other, and slowly came to a halt directly in front of the walking pair.She’d stood up straight, and put her own hands behind her back, bringing an exaggerated expression of innocence to her bright blue eyes. The girl was a young teenager, just beginning to fill out enough to hint at the kind of woman’s body she would become. Her long light brown hair swayed slightly as she stopped, and she pursed her lips together.
Saki had felt a surge of anger toward the girl. Her game had interrupted the Shishou, she was forced to stop speaking in order to reprimand this little brat. This was what he was here for, for this information, for this connection, and this little thing had destroyed his first taste of it.Miyabi stared down at her, her face impassive. She held her hand out, as if asking the girl to give her something. The girl’s shoulders drooped, and the innocent expression left her face. She bent down and took her socks off, and placed them in Miyabi’s open hand. As she did, the older woman’s face became slightly annoyed, and she said in English, “Let me see your feet.”
The girl turned around, and lifted one of her legs behind her, to show the bottom of her foot. Saki had noticed it was a well care for foot, the pink of her heels and the balls of her foot were smooth, and the nails painted a light blue. Miyabi threw one of her hands back and slapped the girl’s sole with a loud thwack. Saki saw the girl grimace at the contact, but she put that foot down and raised the other one to receive the same treatment. She then turned back around, and Miyabi held her socks out to her. She took them meekly.He had the impression that he had seen something intimate, something that should have been private, but that Miyabi had chosen to pull the curtain back and allow him a glimpse of.
“Oroku Saki,” she said, still in English, as if the small reprimand in front of them had never happened, “this is Veronika Heathcock.” Still looking at the girl, she continued, “Nikka, this is Oroku Saki, my guest.”Veronika had nodded, and then turned to Saki and bowed. She looked him straight in the eye when she did, and smiled, a little smile, despite the smacking she’d just gotten. “Will you be staying long?” she asked politely.
“Longer than you will,” Miyabi answered for him, and began to walk forward again. If Nikka had not moved, she would have simply been bowled over by the taller, older woman. As it was, she seemed to know what to do, and stepped in line on the other side of Miyabi, a little behind her, holding her socks in her hand. Then, the great geijutsuka continued on with her truth-telling to him, the girl trailing a little behind, listening or not listening, Saki could not tell.It had not been long after that, that he’d been saddled with the girl, punishment, he had presumed, for some slight he did not know he had committed. It had taken him a while to get over that, to quell the anger at what he saw as injustice, and see what, exactly, it was that Miyabi was trying to do.
“The children of my womb may be dead,” she had told him one evening, after, perhaps, too much wine and too much truth-telling of his true past, “but she is a child of my heart, and my favorite, Saki.”That was when he understood.
He let his fists fly at Bradford as the mutant came at him, moving them in a pattern to strike so eloquently and smooth that even his prize pupil could not defend himself against them, and he was sent sprawling once again.“Ppphhaaa!” he growled, turning away from the dojo suddenly and walking toward the shoji doors. Pathetic. They were all pathetic. None could compare to him, none could come close to him. He stood on a mountain top where few could climb, and even those that could had a difficult time getting there.
Bradford was at his back, he could feel him walking behind him. The Shredder strode, with his long strides, down his lair, to Baxter Stockman’s lab. Karai, his beautiful Karai, with her face like her mother’s, with her spirit like her mother’s, was trapped in the body of a beast which he had to keep caged in a terrarium. The scientist insisted he was working on a retro-mutagen, that was close to being able to change his daughter back. The vision of her emerging from the tank of mutagen, the awful knowing that her black haired head would not be there, but something else flashed before him. The elongated white and purple head, the slitted eyes, eyes with no intelligence in them in, the eyes of an animal, stared back at him from his mind’s eye, taunting him.He stopped when he came to the landing that entered the large laboratory, as he always did, to survey the chamber. Stockman was at the center, doing whatever it was that he did. The Shredder did not know what, nor did he care, as long as the job he was assigned was completed. His eyes moved to where Karai’s terrarium sat, and in front of it was Nikka, staring into it with an almost vacant look on her face. She was wearing a small, tight t-shirt and black yoga pants, her hair was up in a ponytail, the remnants of her own morning exercise.
“Leave me,” The Shredder instructed Bradford, not even turning his head to look at him. He heard, and felt, the mutant move away, back the way they had come, far enough to have ‘left’ but not far enough to be ‘gone’. Just as he was supposed to.The sound made Stockman look up, but Nikka kept her eyes at the cage. The fly flew to where The Shredder was striding down to the landing that held his daughter’s terrarium, “Mazzzter Shredder,” he buzzed. “Zzzzhhhee has been here--” he said in almost a complaint, and motioned to Nikka with one of his deformed arms.
“--I know she has been here,” he said impatiently. “What she does is of none of your concern.”The fly lowered his head, and backed away, “Yezz, Mazzter Shredder.”
The Shredder arrived at the landing, and as he approached, Nikka looked over and smiled sadly at him. Her eyes filled with liquid that did not fall, even when she blinked, and said, “She isn’t in there.”Panic struck him for a moment. What did she mean she wasn’t in there? How could she not be in there? There was no way for her to get out. Everyone was acting as if everything was normal, going about their business, how the hell could she not be in there?
But she was in the terrarium. He could see her torso, the white pressed against the glass as the light inside warmed it up. The girl must be cold, she usually did not press herself against the glass, but retreated from it. At least, she did when a person approached.He understood what Nikka had meant, the panic sliding off of him as it had come upon him, easily and suddenly. “She is in there,” he said, with more confidence than he felt. “She has retreated.” When Nikka said nothing, he spat out, “Would you not retreat to the recesses of your subconscious if this is what you had become?”
Looking at the snake girl in the cage, Nikka answered, “Yes,” in a quiet voice.They stood, side by side for a while, the whirring of the fans to regulate the temperature from the many bodies and machines, the slight buzz of Baxter Stockman as he worked. Their quiet was not oppressive, it was not one trying to outdo the other, but an understanding that neither of them had anything to say. It was refreshing to not have to push so hard, The Shredder noticed, to maintain a stronghold on all around him. He had forgotten the ease with which she afforded him, and it surprised him slightly, despite his talk with her the night before.
“Have you begun the assignment I tasked you with?” he asked, eyes still on his daughter curled against the glass.Her face did not change, it held the same sad, quiet expression it did when he arrived, and her eyes also looked at the snake mutant in the terrarium. “The fly failed miserably,” she said.
After her hand had stayed on his cheek for a few moments last night, clarity had come to his angry mind. In Nikka, he had one of his old allies, one of the allies that had stood by his Clan for generations, whose goals were the same as his, whose desires were the same as his, whose destiny was intertwined with his, whether he liked it or not. He did not dislike it, Miyabi’s house had proven to be a powerful confederate to his Clan as a whole, and Nikka had proven a powerful one to him personally. He had no reason to dislike that the fate of The Asakami and The Foot were braided together.He would have his vengeance, and she would help him.
When her hand had dropped from his cheek, he had immediately come up with a job for her. His men had failed him, over and over, the repeated defeat was beginning to feel like a rhythmic drumbeat. They should not have failed him, not against four teenage boys and their teacher, not against four turtles and a rat. But they did. Her performance at the restaurant had come to him, seeming so easy and carefree. “Find out which of my men can resist The Art,” he had said.“That’s all?” she had asked. “That is a simple task.”
“That is the first task,” he had growled.She had nodded her understanding.
He made a noise of disgust, and looked at her reflection in the glass . “I could have told you Stockman was not worth the time to even try.”Her own eyes met his in the reflection also, looking from one to the other as if he could see out of both, and she smiled slightly. “You did not tell me that, though.”
He turned to her fully, and at the movement, she turned to him also, their reflections in the glass ghosts of their movements superimposed on a white serpent. “And who else?” he asked.She shook her head. “Just the people I’ve come in contact with this morning,” she told him. “None of them have had any response to even balk.”
Again, he made a noise of disgust.“Good help is hard to find these days, I take it,” she joked.
He turned from her, and began to walk back toward the entrance of the lab. She caught up with him, her sneakers not making much noise as she walked. “I am surrounded by weaklings,” he said, his voice was harsh but hushed.“Don’t worry,” she said soothingly. “We’ll ferret them out, and put them in their new places accordingly.”
He made a noncommittal noise.“You don’t think I can do that in three days before I go back home?” she asked, “When I have little else to do while I am here?”
“I have no doubt that you can,” he told her. “That is why I asked you to do it.”
"There are four things that person
has more of than he knows:
sins, debts, years, and foes."
Oroku Saki's past is veiled in mystery. We know only what little is revealed to us by his enemies. But so much more has happened in his life, as he travels his path to fulfill his destiny. This is a look at that path, past and present, as Oroku Saki journeys through fate as The Shredder TMNT2012, through his own eyes, and the eyes of those around him.
<--Chapter 3
Chapter 5 -->
*Start Here*
Another fairly short list for you. Having a hard time putting this down... 'one more chapter' as a bad thing to accede to at 2:30. >.<
from his youth, from this adulthood, from his middle age, now almost half( )way done.
It was that trait itself(,) that made the them great.
he saw a light brown[-]haired white girl sliding along the hardwood floor
Saki had noticed it was a well[-]care[d-] for foot
The scientist insisted he was working on a retro-mutagen(,) that was close to being able to change his daughter back.
the awful knowing that her black[-]haired head would not be there,