NI : BLOODLINES

Sitting cross-legged on the thatched mat of his personal training sanctum, smoking acupuncture needles protruding from his nearly naked body, Oroku Saki concentrated on what troubled him. Breathing in the soothing incense as he cleared his mind of all trivial thought, his mind became focused as a tempered sword.

His battles with the Turtles, his resurrection, and the ordeal in Kyoto, Japan nearly a year ago. It was beyond his thoughts of petty vengeance that the root of his turmoil lay.

My mother, sending me to the market. A second chance lost in the name of knowledge. Heitchi telling me the news; telling me to go to hell.

And…Minya.

Saki let his focus dwindle, unable and unwilling to hold his concentration any longer. With all due haste, he began the slow process of removing the needles from his body.

No sooner did he complete this than Dr. Chen’s voice cackled over the intercom.

In a voice low so as not to disturb him any more than necessary, the voice of Chen spoke, "Sir, they are ready."

Saki stood, pleased with the ever-dependable efficiency of his subordinates in carrying out his orders. Since his return they had served him with more dedication than he had seen from them in years.

The Shredder had become more than the leader of the New York Foot. He had become a legend.

Tying his hair back in a ponytail but sparing only the time to throw on his robes, he stepped through the archway of his sanctum. He nodded at the two burly Foot who stood guard on either side, who stood a little straighter at this acknowledgement by their passing master.

Walking through a winding corridor with Foot guards posted in lines on each side, he entered the science wing.

Pimiko was waiting by Dr. Chen. She turned at the sound of his footsteps. "Ah, there you are, Father. We did not disturb your meditation…?"

"I was finished." Beyond the manned computer terminals and laboratory articles he observed the two transparisteel containment units that stood side by side at the far side of the room, each one roughly fifteen feet in diameter and height.

A grotesque, brown-skinned monster stirred in each, both bearing warped versions of Saki’s Shredder armor and garb, complete with steel helmets and blades. The first was seven feet tall, lanky, and rather skinny. Instead of arms it had thick claw-shaped appendages lined with bumps. The second was short—no more than three feet. It had normal enough hands, but its head was hideously out of proportion, nearly the size of its entire body.

"Just what are these things, Father?" The tone of her voice suggested a sense of revulsion. "Abominations you had your scientists grow?"

Saki flinched, reacting defensively to Pimiko’s unknowing words. "Not abominations, my dear. They are two of the three worm clones that were grown from my remains after my first slaying. The third was beheaded by the Turtles, a fate I then suffered myself."

Dr. Chen pushed his glasses up and looked his clipboard over, shifting his gaze between it and Pimiko. "These two were in bad shape when we found them, but it was a miracle they even survived the destruction of the Foot’s Hudson Block headquarters. When approached by Master Shredder’s Soldiers they went, well…"

"What?"

"Berserk, I suppose is the word," Chen decided. "They kept smashing everything around them—even the Soldiers who tried to calm them. They were tranquilized and put in cryogenic freeze until your father ordered them to be released yesterday."

Pimiko smiled. It was seldom she enjoyed such moments of satisfaction. In addition, she couldn’t help but feel a tinge of admiration. This was truly her father that stood before her—the legendary Oroku Saki, the cunning leader of men. "Another part of your strategy for destroying the Turtles?"

Saki tactfully ignored his daughter’s query and approached the containment units. The pair of thrashing creatures seemed to calm upon taking notice of him. When he laid a palm on each of the units, they soothed entirely. "They are part of me, you see," he spoke behind him, knowing Pimiko would not understand. She couldn’t. "My first body—my birth-given flesh and blood—gave them life. I am more than their master, I am part of them and they are part of me."

"Will they serve us?"

It was like an Oroku to think of the business at hand first. Saki had been the same in his youth. When the rage he had been left with after the murder of Nagi, he had made an ambitious Foot Soldier in Japan. Everything he did there, he did for one purpose and one purpose only—the opportunity to enact vengeance on his brother’s killer. This opportunity came when he had earned the task of building the New York Foot, a feat his daughter had similarly accomplished in the gathering and training of her kunoichi. "Yes," he answered. "They will serve and they will obey."

"Good."

"But enough about that," he said, already walking away from the units and back to Pimiko and Chen. The two monsters began stirring again as he left them. "Tell me, Daughter, why did Minya name you so?"

"My mother named me after the sorceress that ruled Feudal Japan with the aid of one thousand women and one man. As I grew up I found it a fitting name."

Saki grimly thought for a moment of the meaning of his own name, "the force of the killer." "And your mother…she was quite a woman." What plans he had for her, Saki remembered, what dreams of happiness. "When she left me I was devastated."

"I am sorry."

Saki prepared to ask the question that had been bothering him the most. "If I may ask, how did Minya’s passing come about? This is a matter that has troubled me for many years."

"Her… passing?" Pimiko gave her father a befuddled look. "I’m afraid you are mistaken—my mother is not dead."

Oroku Saki’s face grew pale with astonishment. "Minya… she lives?"

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