"I love you, April.
Endlessly, incredibly, and beyond, to the one-hundred-thousand lightyear reigns of the galaxy consisted of dust, gas, and dark matter. You, beautiful, are the answer to my near-impossible theories of pure happiness, the bubbles to my favourite soda, the key of beauty to my resourceful yet needing soul. So, please, would you consider... liking me back?"
Orange blades of hair, so full of life, so... special, that it's unrelenting glow propelled the air with the bite of its colour, more effulgent then any other of the identical stars sprinkled like dust all across the abyss of space. It was the way the entrancing, adorable red strands set an unbelievable contrast with her cosmic, divine ponds of the blues that flared bolder than the skies over Ancient Japan. A joy never so true before cascaded through Donatello's approximate thirty-four pulsing veins as her sweet laugh tickled through his ears.
Then, came the slightest twitch of her small mouth.
All intensified. What would be her answer? Yes or no? What would it be?
What will be your answer, April?
There was a breath. And the first hints of a word that would either crack all apart or bind it together with love. Finally, came out her final answer- her final answer- please yes, please yes, don't say anything else, please-
"Yes, Donnie, I love you oh-so very much, let's kiss and get married and then get two children and never ever, ever break up-"
Yes! Yes! Yes-yes- he'd done it- guessed it-! Her answer was yes, oh, god, thank you so much- she likes me-no- loves me!
Just the honeyed sound of her speaking careened his dancing heart into the spiralling hole of infinity- so lovely, so gentle yet at the same time so confident, so high... but... was her voice usually this high? And... urk, did her breath usually reek this often? He meant- he didn't mind girls with slightly odd breath as he was a gentleman, but... April's breath was usually perfectly fine, even when she had lived in the sewer, so fine that every time she whispered in his ear that her pink lips would curl up at the edges so he couldn't see anything else but her-
Oh.
A shriek cracked the air after Donnie's angular hand thumped on the ginger dimwitted, grumpy, annoying brother's spiky head. Mean brother. Witless. Pretending to be April. But it made sense. Technically- his strong brother acquired the fiery gleam of their eye-catching hair, and the same feisty aura, same like April.
Not the same like April.
Nobody's the same like April.
Never the same like April.
"Bubbles to my favourite soda- that made my heart melt!" Mikey, the little blondie who nearly broke the girl into distressed tears just a single day ago, was absolutely laughing his head off on Donnie's left. "So, I say, go for it, dude!"
Under the dark hair soothingly stroked by the affectionate silk of wind, Leonardo poked Raphael with his elbow in the corner of Donnie's eye. Oh man. There was a possibility of over a hundred percent that they were going to laugh at him for having a crush. Again. "And you call Space Heroes cringe? I mean, his speech is probably gonna scare her away in a second."
"Scare her away?" Raph's dubious snort spiked claws of panic on the outskirts of Donatello's humiliated mind, tempted to set it aflame as the realization sparked again that the ginger girl was not too far away in front. Don't let April hear, don't let April hear! I swear if she hears- "If he can even manage to talk to her first."
Don't- "Hey!" The taller gap-toothed boy's reply rocketed out on the account of flaming instinct. "I've talked to her plenty-" he risked another glance at the gorgeous girl, approximately, probably eight metres away by a pure measure of vision, chatting with Renet... the two seemed, somehow, in some way, to be literal best buddies in an instant... "-more than any of you guys!"
"By 'talking', you mean 'stuttering,'" Raph's meathead voice blatantly commented.
Donatello was precisely just wildly about to calculate in his spinning brain how long it would take to soar out his whipping bo staff from behind and bonk it on his audacious brother's April-different hair once again when there was an interruption as Leo rotated his head a tad, smiling... But what for? "You'll get there someday, Donnie."
Someday. When would she answer? In five years? In ten? Twenty? A thousand- that wouldn't be possible, but probably not ever. Not even after they both die and melt into the graves. But if they had graves, how he wished and hoped that they'd be planted next to each other for the rest of the birth and rebirths of time-
"Girls are like birds." Girls? Birds? From Leo? When the heck-? "When you feed the bird, you want it to come to you without any sudden moves," the leader enlightened, a teaching stick clamped around his white gloves that tapped on an invisible board with 'how to get a girl to like you' sprawled across it. "If you drop a random 'I love you' nuke on the bird, it's gonna fly away, D. Easy as that."
The thing that was shunned by Donnie's fog of a head was the gleam in Leonardo's upturned eyes, almost knowing, as if he were the professor of dating. Contagious puzzlement stamped against Mikey and Raph like an infection- exactly when had the nerdy Space Heroes fan become such a...
"Hero boy to lover boy." With a heavy drop of his black-sleeved arm on Professor Dating's shoulder, needless to say, the presence of amazement creeped along Donnie's skull; Raph's voice was coated with lazy, nearly amused sentiments. Wasn't he enraged? "I wonder why." There was a pause of hesitation they all shared. "Are you thinking about Karai again?-"
"No, it's nothing like that." The moment Leo shot back, troublesome images gushed down Donnie's mind like a dense river- Karai. Hypnotising Leo into her little trap, abandoning them in the core of Justin: a mutant mixed of many ridiculously random species, cornered wrath. Intruding in their almost-successful mission of defeating Shredder with a missile launcher, and shoving April an inch to the starless drop to her own death.
It was overlooked. Their sudden and despicable bond. It beat Donatello to the edges of his hole of rage to know that a single apology from the psychotic kunoichi to April was so carelessly forgotten. It was more than unfair. "I just sort of liked... birds... and giving out advice for my bros. You guys just have too much going on in your heads." Leo was hard to trust either if he still had feelings for the maniac.
That was when the annoyance that bubbled in Raphael's interrogation seeped through at least. "Look, Leo, you're really bad at this." At lying. "Just spill it out already."
"Spill what out?" Leo replied dumbly.
Everything about his villain-obsessed sibling was translucent in every possible way; below his silky black bangs fidgeted the nervous blue rings of his sloped optics, to his sucked-in mouth which he acted like his teeth were jewels, to his long legs clunking over the road which melted from lush grass to bare, earthy road. Everything about him was dodging a badly stowed-away secret.
Even little Mikey could see it as his ruffled yellow head bounced out behind Leo's other shoulder, a big smile waved across his mouth. "Who you're smittens for, duh," the smaller sibling chimed in.
The leader with the eyes blue as cobalt crossed his arms, huffing protestingly. "Nobody! Didn't you guys hear me?" Uh-oh, Raph was nearing with the red hot fire in searing across his face- "want me to spell it out for you? N-O-B-O-D-"
"-I!" Mikey chirped expectedly.
Behind the vindictive, blameful jab of Raph's black gloves barbed to Leo's chest was the unwavering, deadly serious burn of Raph's green bullets. Barely nostalgic, the memory drifted to Donnie that the look of the redhead mimicked the scene a year ago when the knowledge of a Karai was a secret between only Raph and his lovestruck brother. "Don't repeat what happened last time, Leo," the ninja growled. "For your own good, too."
Oh, there it was again. "You're just putting words in my mouth- I never said Karai-"
"Oh, and what other emo, female kunoichi villain is there?" That was how it always went. Raph arguing with Leo, and poor Leo trying to defend himself back. A repeated algorithm. "Stop lying, Leo." The tangled atmosphere tightened out of the blue with Mikey just looking back and forth, helpless as it was. "A leader doesn't lie."
"Is that what it's about? Me being leader? Save it, Raph, the only one who can switch leaders is Sensei whose life is on the line right now-"
And they were off again. Bickering so loud that the five-hundred-thousand people who lived in the sixteen-hundreds could catch every single embarrassing word they snarled. Usually, Donnie would tune in and take the correct side, but it was impossible. Not now. Not here. Leo was right. Splinter's life was in their hands. And April...
A warm sensation blossomed through his shoulder and everything blurred as he whipped his head around and there was a blinding flash of white and underneath was the newcomer's gaze staring back at him out of nowhere.
It was Hanzo. The strangest, most mind-twisting thing to ever exist with white hair that wasn't from the birth of an Albino. Yet, after all, he was probably lying about his albinism. Maybe not. Still, the dark grey ninja's mind was always a nutcase to Donatello, and would probably be forever as long as he would live. It was one of the only things that proved difficult to solve, unlike mechanisms and engineering.
What was also a master was how the ancient ninjas voice would reek of darkness and brooding, yet at the same time be lined with ambiguous sophistication and placidity. "Stop always sniffing around-" Hanzo advised- advised? "-making her say only what you want. Wait for her own answer."
Her own answer? It was always one-sided love, always had been. No matter how many dating advice websites Donnie had scrolled through on his lab computer in secrecy each night, none of the guidance worked, unless they were a compilation of head-slamming failures. And surely Hanzo's advice wouldn't either. "What if she never answers?" The lanky brunette's reply was a dense hiss that he couldn't help. "Everyone knows it's the men who have to make the first move anyway."
Through the still proceeding snaps of protest behind the blue and red-masked siblings, the eyebrows of Hanzo rose. Just like Donatello's yearning to be back in his home of lab equipment again, squeezing all the toxic liquid of stress out with each spiral of his special steel drill. "You think she'd answer if she didn't feel comfortable around you?"
Automatically, the moment Donnie's vision spun in on the sweet girl sharing affable conversation in front- holy crow, she was looking right at him. Looking at him with her head angled sideways at forty-five degrees, the corners of her cosmic eyes which written with the unravelled feelings of... pain? Confusion? Misery? Regret? A broth, an ever so pitiful broth of the darkest ingredients of emotion anyone could find, all splashing and smacking over each other into an ugly green mixture, aimed at only one person.
Aimed at him.
He liked her. Even loved her. And she despised him.
Who was he?
He was Donatello, a Kraang-made mutant turtle.
The biggest, most laughable failure known of nothing to mankind who just took the advice of a sixteenth-century stranger.
Because she didn't love him back.
You're still a mutant nerd, and she's a human girl, he informed himself with the exception of empathy.
"Come on," enthused Hanzo, somewhere on the walls of Donnie's mind, where the messages of his ears refused to send and where his brain declined to take in. "Lighten up. We have some place to be. Another clan, an ally of the Hamato Clan that would never hurt us.
The Tori Clan."
***
"This is the Tori Clan?" Donatello's words that slithered under mesmerised, soft breaths spoke for the whole static group as they stood in front of the colossal, unescapable beam of beauty that wasn't April.
It seemed like such a lie that the grey, monotone history books attempted to portray what blossomed upon their tattered feet.
Admist the identical brothers and sisters of green trees which possessed what seemed to be the world, intruded a hidden secret- divine in every way. Angelic dove-white stone drank in the blessing of sun, slicing Donnie's optics while caressing them with satisfaction harmonically.
Above each block of the gleaming walls of stone were smooth, symmetrical yet subtle curves meeting each other in the middle, moulded into majestic silver roofs that were the definition of heaven in contrast to the deafening, angry city. The Japanese castle tilted it's head skywards and commenced its spine its full height where it stood marvellously tall. Ethereal wings of the castle unsheathed its glamour across the whole world from the welcoming blue ether of the young, stretching arms of sky.
The way her lips curled up at the edges once again melted the margins of Donnie's unguarded heart. "I've never seen... anything like it," she marvelled, a slender hand wafting upwards into the blessed air, feeling it, absorbing the whole gorgeous sensation that breezed around its aura. "It's so beautiful."
The click-clack of boots consumed in volume until the silver headpiece of bubbly Renet glistened on the side of Donatello's sight. "I really wanna stay in this place in time forever," the apprentice sighed, her slim face tipped sideways, brown gaze nailed on the castle. "Scrap the future."
"Same, Renet," her boyfriend, Michelangelo, agreed, because they both liked each other, didn't they? Or, at least, Renet still spoke to him like any other person. Still and all, it was obvious Mikey wouldn't want to stay here, anywhere, forever unless there was daily pizza and television.
Sudden, wild flames of abashment blasted through the smaller brother's freckled face the second frustration rippled from Leonardo's eyes. Standing in the centre of the group, defined side profile veiled by the relic of light angled to the castle, he questioned, "Are you sure they have horses?" Hanzo nodded in response to Leo's obvious question. Well, duh. It was the Sengoku era, where every single clan was thrown into war every second. Of course they'd be stacked with horses- mostly sturdy Kisouma, native horses ridden by samurai, which were usually stub faced, long haired, shaggy-
Beneath the features of Renet seething with burning determination, his black boots glistened as they stepped forward along the bare earth road. "Whatever we do, we're gonna get those horses," a shared, assertive look with Leo revived their earlier argument from the sheer sight of scenery, "and ride to Splinter's clan as fast as possible." Red hair whipped as the sanguine ninja poised his slitted gaze across the cross-armed, ancient warrior. "Well done-"
Raphael didn't finish his sentence, abandoning Hanzo's name, because he only ever called him the 'stranger', didn't he?
Curiosity overflowed Dontallo's spellbound, prying brain. "It must've took around twenty years to build that," he breathed, gliding his gaze across the innocently white walls that journeyed down the lush green hills as alleys, to the proud, arched roof without a single dent scratched at the top. "There should also be trade routes, roads, and rivers here too, since castles are usually placed for military-"
"FREEZE!"
The sharp bite of an arrow that would drop you dead in less than a second snarled in the centre of Donnie's vision before the waiting burn of panic flared to life, crashing and roaring everywhere as there was not only one, but about a hundred loathing beasts of arrows already ready to eat through their souls for death-
"It's me!" All of a sudden the ridiculously calm footsteps of Hanzo arrived until he trailed to a stop right in front of the castle, as if greeting a casual friend. It was stupefying, as the white-haired boy pulled down his thick mouth-covering cloak before plunging his left hand high. "Hanzo."
In unison, if it were even possible (but it was,) each arrow that protruded out of the groggy soldiers at the front alley retracted obediently. "Can't believe he actually has friends," Raph muttered from behind. Through all the immense terror, Donnie's brother was right in a way- to make a clan instantly follow a strange ninja's orders was straight-up weird... and mind-blowing.
Hanzo continued, distending his range of voice. "Bring the emperor, please! Emperor Kane!" A soldiers in the middle faded into the darkness of a door after Hanzo's command in Japanese, reappearing after a few, silent, dense heartbeats. A woman emerged- black hair squeezed back behind a blank square face with skin as smooth as butter, engulfed in a intricate green kimono that swathed down to her petite feet. Air was sucked into Donnie's mouth on instinct as realisation struck: his first ever emperor from the books in the flesh. Emperor Kane.
"Nice to know of your new marriage," Hanzo proclaimed, nodding at a... man behind a white dragon mask, smaller and slimmer than the strong-looking woman, arm enveloped around her neck with affection. What a creepy, forceful man who she appeared not to even like. "Me and some trustworthy allies," the dark ninja waved his hands to signal their static, awed group, "are in a vital hurry, which I will explain once we have a private chat inside. If you agree, Emperor, you can trust the Hamato Clan to pay you back for your kind, honourable actions."
Literally, without any questioning, any caution, Emperor Kane robotically nodded her sharp-sided head amongst the tense, agitated atmosphere. "Very well."
Solemnity plummeting into his admiring, almost hyperventilating chest, the purple-streaked boy tilted his head back across the animated green realm they would soon depart from. "That's it?" He whispered to his team, incredulous. Nothing made sense if the world was built on rationality. "I mean- we're an entirely different race from them, and they're not even suspicious?"
Leonardo flashed a smile which melted an ounce to reveal sheets of uneasiness. "Hey, whatever works... works."
The puffs of exaggerated perplexity incessantly burst out Mikey's mouth under his gleaming blonde bush- how come the Japanese Tori Clan wasn't even wary of that? "How come I didn't know anything about a race-"
"Ethnicities, genius," Raph shot right in the shorter ninja's face which reserved its clueless 'Mikey' expression, provoking the redhead to slam his broad hand to his exposed forehead. "And Donnie, stop plugging the line."
Surprise clawed the five-foot-eight brunette before whirling his head back straight once more- the elongated gate with an unnatural twinkling sheen swept open, the white hair of Hanzo tickled by the breeze as he headed inside. Oh god. Hurrying his tall legs across the earth that exported into a satisfyingly smooth stone, the sheer sensation of even walking in a famous Japanese castle even beat the stupendous feeling each time when he talked to April. Wafting through white doors and corridors, the enticing shadows falling in speed behind you shouldn't feel this wonderful. Yet it did.
"Oh, boy..." The shared remarks of Renet imprinted echoes through the finally ending corridor one their thudding hearts that flooded with awe at the first, the first beautiful news they had received through all that bloodshed and trouble, shining like one hell of a big diamond right in front of their eyes.
"Helmets!" A frail man yet with a strong, sparkling soul in his eyes bumped two- get this- black- lacquered iron-plated samurai helmets- clink-clink-clink. His voice rebelled free and rolled down through the countless, babbling isles of markets down the blue atmosphere which hugged them from above. This, disappointedly, but still incredibly, wasn't the inside of the castle, only the outside where they provided food and clothes and weapons and- "Get your helmets here!"
As Hanzo led them around the place steadily, something hurtled on the cryptic borders of Donnie's sight- Raph's hand which hoisted one of the sensational, beaming pieces of armour and dropping them up on Leonardo's head stridently. And, woah- Leo did kind of look like an actual Samurai, even with the helmet unscaled at thirty degrees. "Woah, Leo, it looks fire!" Raph complimented with a hint of torment raking through.
Among the bustling, thick-robed merchants surrounded by vast white stores, Leo glared down as he disconnected the exquisite headpiece and settled it back on the astonished merchant's table. "I don't think they want you to take things without permission, Raph." The black-banged ninja's caution was correct.
And then the noise that conquered all flashed into nothing.
Because through every single head which moved, their expression adamantly jolted frozen, turned to look, look through the markets and the other hundreds of once-busy people sprinkled along each isle, look through Hanzo's obvious white hair and face mask, and looked right behind him. Looked right at the team. Unblinking. Static. Eyes so naturally wide and ominous that the whites cornering their pupils licked out into the recesses of their rugged skin so far that it was almost uncanny.
The eyes and the impenetrable block of screaming silence and the heavy air and the pressure of the staring, brittle atmosphere like fathoms of icy water just went on forever.
ns 15.158.61.54da2
