Midori: Chapter Five
***
Midori winced as they stitched up her shoulder. When Taro walked into the room, she turned her head. She couldn't meet his eyes, not after she had failed. She was still in conflict over the entire situation. Taro had taken her in, fed her, trained her, and a part of her felt obligated to pay him back for that. But where did that obligation end?
Taro placed his hand on her uninjured shoulder. "How are you?"
Midori shrugged off the hand and watched as the last stitch was put in her shoulder. "I'll be fine."
Taro didn't fail to notice that she was avoiding his eyes. "I'm not upset with you."
"I failed."
Taro waved his hand, as if tossing her words away. "So did everyone else. I was very impressed by your abilities, Midori. It was never my intention to destroy them this night."
Midori finally looked up with a confused look.
"Tonight was an introduction, and a warning as to what they will be dealing with. If they are smart, they will not stand in our way."
Midori blinked, unable to determine whether he was telling the truth, or just trying to comfort her. Maybe he was trying to convince himself. That was the problem here, everyone was trained to lie so well that you could never tell who was being sincere when. Midori learned to simply distrust everyone. Why was she staying in such an environment?
***
Leo looked over Don's shoulder as he worked. Don's fingers moved quickly over the keys. Numbers and symbols flashed across the screen although Leo had no idea what any of it meant. "Anything?"
Don started. "Geez, Leo, warn me before you do that!"
"Sorry."
"Okay, here's what I've got. She's sixteen."
"Our age?"
"Uh huh, and guess what? She has the same mutagen compounds in her blood that we do, and it has the same decay ratio."
"Meaning...?"
"That she was mutated about the same time we were."
Leo let Don's words sink in. "You mean... she was mutated with us?"
"Not necessarily. Maybe there was another canister that effected another turtle at the same time we were mutated."
Leo nodded, understanding how unlikely that would be. "So then why didn't Splinter take her in?"
Don shrugged. "If we assume that it was the same canister, then it's still possible for her to have left the scene before Splinter got there, or she could have been mutated after Splinter led us away from the scene. Or that some of the mutagen was washed away."
Leo looked to the side, considering his options. On one hand, this was a mutant like them, who had been changed by the same circumstances as they were. On the other hand, the Foot had her, and that made her the enemy. He barely noticed that Don was still babbling on.
"This is fascinating. I mean for sixteen years we thought we were the only ones, and now this other Turtle shows up. And she's a female! Wow, I mean, if we ever get to the point where she's not trying to kill us, we may actually see some action..."
That snapped Leo out of his trance. He glared down at Don, who leaned away from Leo, blushing. "Um, I meant..."
Leo just turned and left the room. He'd been thinking about Midori from a warrior's viewpoint. She was the enemy, and they had to find out as much about her as possible. Now, thanks to Don's statement, he realized that his brothers were also thinking about her from a teenage male's point of view. They couldn't afford that.
***
Midori walked out onto the catwalk to where Taro stood overlooking the warehouse. Below them, moving like ants, were teens, going about their work of transporting stolen goods to wherever they needed to be.
"Why do you need all this?" Midori asked.
Taro glanced over at her. "When my father was banished by the Japanese Foot clan all his funding was cut off, so he had to turn to stealing to fund his new empire. It's now as much a part of our ways as our ninjutsu practices and our feud with the Turtles."
At the sound of that last word, Midori stiffened. The fact that there were more of her kind was probably the only thing she couldn't get used to. She wanted to learn more about them, but was smart enough to know that anything Taro told her would be biased at best. And as long as she was part of the Foot, there was no way she'd be anything but an enemy to them.
She tightened her grip on the hand bar. "I don't think I can do this anymore."
Taro gave her a questioning look.
"I'm very grateful for all you've done, for all you've taught me... but I think it's time for me to move on." She waited for his reaction.
Taro simply nodded. "I'm actually surprised you stayed with us this long. It'll be a shame to lose you, you aren't like all the other street urchins we've taken in."
"Taro..."
He placed his fingers over her mouth to silence her. "Go, if you feel you must."
Midori backed away and bowed, then turned and walked off the catwalk.
***
Midori packed together her few possessions into a bag along with some food and other essentials. She took one last look around, pausing on the full-length mirror for a moment.
What made her think that she could ever live like this? Among humans? She pressed her green fingers against the glass and sighed. This wasn't her place, it never was and it never would be, she knew that now. This entire situation had felt bad from the beginning, she should have listened to her instincts.
She hiked her bag over her right shoulder but the movement still upset her injury. Maybe she should wait until she was completely healed. Those stitches would be hard to remove on her own, but she'd made up her mind.
A movement in the mirror caught her attention a microsecond before the gunshot echoed through the room.
***