The Complicated Love Story of the Snake and the Dragon

Karai had met Kagami when they were only 13 years of age.

Her father Oroku Saki had brought her to Tokyo as part of a formal meeting between their company and Tsurugi Industries. Most of the Foot Clan's money came illegally -- counterfeiting, ****-for-hire, and just plain old theft -- but some of that funding was use to discreetly fund several legitimate fronts, which proved to be a wise move considering their many products practically paid for themselves.

"The Tsurugi Samurai Clan have been a thorn in the Foot's side for countless generations. Many of them have killed some of our clan's greatest warriors," said her father on the car ride over. "I have reached out to Tsurugi Tomoe because they can provide an effective source of funding for upcoming projects. Once we have taken everything we need, we will wipe out their bloodline."

"Yes father."

Karai has yet to kill a person, but she was expected to do so eventually. It was a part of the Foot's graduation ceremony after all, and Karai wasn't too far off from reaching jonin status under The Shredder.

They were invited to the home of the Tsurugi Industries CEO Tsurugi Tomoe. It took every bit of her ninja willpower not to comment that the woman was blind, though a part of her thought that it was one of the reasons he wanted to deal with her, considering his horrific burn scars upset most other high-society types.

Her daughter Kagami gave Karai a respectful bow and Karai took a moment to inspect her before returning it. Kagami had a face covered in freckles and she was still dressed in her school uniform after having just returned home. Karai was homeschooled, so she didn't have any similar uniform on her.

---

It had been a few months since they were introduced and Kagami and Karai spent a lot of time together. They were playdates arranged by their parents, but still.

Karai tried really hard to encourage Kagami to come out of her shell, but all she ever seemed interested in doing is practice her fencing technique. It was three days in did Karai get bored with watching her.

"Let me try," said Karai, having dressed herself in one of Kagami's spare fencing outfits. "Bet I could take you.

"I've been doing this since I could walk," said Kagami. "How long have you been fencing?"

"Never. But I can still take you."

Karai wasn't lying. She's never used a rapier before, but she was a trained kunoichi versed in at least three different types of kenjutsu.

Kagami gripped her sword in first position. Unfamiliar with traditional fencing, Karai stuck with what she knew and stood Koncho-no-Kamae.

The timer counted down, rung a chime and Kagami took the offense. To Kagami's surprise, Karai was able to block her and counterattacked, forcing Kagami on the offensive. They were both took to swapping blows, not one of them being able to make a direct hit.

Karai leapt back and made an Errol Flynn-Flourish with her sword, smirking at the other behind her mask.

Kagami felt both amused and insulted, Karai not taking their fight seriously. She saw a flaw in Karai's stance and lunged. Seeing her taking the bait, Karai raised her exposed leg and stamped onto the blade, pointing her own blade at Kagami's throat.

"And that's yahtzee."

"You cheated!" Shouting Kagami. "You're not supposed to do that?"

"Spoken like a sore loser," retorted Karai.

"I want a rematch!"

"I bet you do." Karai took her foot off the blade. "And I can do it again just as easily."

Kagami inspected her sword, making sure the other girl didn't damage it, before they both took their places.

All according to plan.

---

Every other weekend, Karai and Kagami would spar.

Kagami had plenty of experience against opponents, Karai was the most stimulating opponent yet. Her technique was always different, all over the place, even sloppy in some places, yet she always managed to fight her to a standstill. It was clear that Karai was a born fighter and she was holding back. Kagami wanted to take it personally, but as much as she hated to admit it, she enjoyed their time together.

---

After one particularly intense training session, Karai was cooling down in Kagami's room. It was clean, symmetrical and a little OCD in her opinion. What caught her attention was the bookshelf. A some of it was dedicated to a lot of typical things: school textbooks, fighting manuals, books in business, etc. The majority of the books, almost overtaking the entire wall was...

"That is a lot of manga."

And not just any manga. Shojo manga.

Fruit Basket, Kimi ni Todoke, Skip Beat!, Still Sick, Failed Princess, the list went on.

In walked Kagami from her personal bath, dressed in a bright-red kimono with a dragon illustrated on it.

Karai hated to admit it, but red was definitely her color.

Not that that's relevant to anything.

Nope.

---

Karai and Kagami didn't have many friends, so they spent a lot of time together. Sometimes Kagami would find Karai waiting for her by her motorbike, just in time to pick her up before her mother's car came.

Being wealthy heiresses, they were more sheltered than the average teenager, but Karai couldn't help but be amused by Kagami's lack of even the most basic of street smarts. She took her out for ice cream and coffee, shopping, and games at the arcade. Karai was in stitches watching Kagami try and fail at Dance Dance Revolution.

To their luck, they were nearly pounced on by three braindead punks calling themselves a "gang". The two practically made a game out of the number of teeth the two of them managed to knock out before the boys ran off.

Karai had the selfie she took with Kagami over the **** boy's body framed in her bedroom.

---

One day Karai had a free day and was waiting for Kagami to be released from school. As the school emptied out, Kagami hung her head low.

"Hey K, what's shakin'?"

Kagami didn't say anything. In fact, she was trying very hard to avoid looking at her. This concerned Karai, as Kagami typically looked straight into your soul without fail. Something was up.

She took off her backpack and opened it up, taking out a box -- right red, held together with a black ribbon, tied up with a bow -- and handed it to her.

"What's this?"

Karai opened it.

Chocolate. The box was full of chocolate. Every piece was different. Different shapes, different sizes, different colors; milky brown, dark brown that looked almost black, white, even strawberry pink and matcha green. The box was made of a velvety material too, the bon-bons shaped in such a way where you could mistake the whole thing as a case full of expensive jewelry.

"Happy Valentine's Day."

She said it so fast Karai almost asked her to repeat what she said as her attention was ripped away from the delightful confections. Before she could, Kagami speed-walked away, picking up speed as she was practically sprinting.

Karai was dumbfounded.

"Valentine's Day? Shit, that's today?!"

Karai just gave her chocolate on Valentine's Day. You were only supposed to give chocolate on Valentine's Day to someone you...

"Oh. OH no!"

---

The next month was a maelstrom of weird and confusing emotions.

Karai ate the entire box of chocolates Kagami gave her when she made it home. In retrospect, these sorts of candies were meant to be shared, especially as a Valentine's gift. In Karai's defense, she was freaking out and she was stress-eating it. The stomach ache it gave her didn't help.

"Come on. She was just doing it to be friendly. You can give them to your friends, right? It doesn't have to be like that! Yeah! I mean, it's not like she likes me like that, right? And if she did, so what? It's not like I like her like that. Right?"

Karai spent an hour pacing in her room, muttering to herself and not getting anywhere.

She wanted to just shrug it off, but it was driving her stir-crazy. She could barely focus on training and her tutors were not the kind to tolerate any kind of slacking.

They kept their interactions to texting and the occasional phone call. The tension was thick as mud and things weren't easing up. Both girls were stubborn in equal, yet conflicting ways.

White Day was coming up. Karai was expected to reciprocate Kagami's gift. She figured it would be the best way to settle this.

---

White Day came.

It was expected that the boys -- and Karai -- who received gifts of chocolate from Valentine's Day to reciprocate with gifts of their own.

Kagami found Karai waiting there outside of her school waiting for her for the first time in a month.

She didn't notice her walking up to her, the Oroku girl pacing around her bike (which had a large, poorly-wrapped box propped up against it), clearly nervous.

"Ahem."

Karai's entire body flinch, looking like she was reaching for something out of self-defense before she realized who it was. She straightened, her face bright red.

"Uh, hey."

"Hi."

Karai put her hands into her jacket-pockets. Kagami starred at her blank-faced.

"S-So, how are uh..."

"They are fine. Mother has scheduled me for a local fencing competition."

"That's... good."

Another awkward silence. They've been avoiding each other for a month and they had no idea what they were doing.

"I-I uh, I got you something. For uh.. for the chocolates."

Karai grabbed the box and wasn't sure to just hand it to her so that she could open it or place it somewhere for her to open it here.

Kagami starred at it before accepting it.

"What is it?"

"Well..."

Kagami started tearing at the paper, revealing a large, featureless box. She found the end of the packing tape and opened the top.

"I might have over-bought. I mean, I wasn't sure what you wanted and I didn't want to miss anything so I just kind of gotten you--"

As Karai rambled nervously, Kagami was stunned by her gift.

Art supplies. Kagami had gotten her art supplies.

Packs of graphite and ebony pencils, colored pencils, sketchbooks, sets of oil, acrylic and watercolors, sets of canvases and paper-pads. Boxes of brushes and ink and pens. Even a few textbooks of various Italian Renaissance artists.

For Birthdays and Christmas and every other holiday, her mother only ever gave her things with practical purposes. School supplies, fencing equipment, another set of stiff business attire. Nothing Kagami ever actually wanted.

Something Kagami always wanted to do was take up drawing. It was her secret passion and she always wanted to take an art class, maybe even illustrate manga some day. Her mother never approved, saying that she lacked the talent for it and it would be a waste of time to pursue it. It was something she told Karai.

And Karai remembered.

"I love it."

Karai halted her rambling.

"Really?"

Kagami got up and gave her friend a hug. Karai's face was bright red. She reciprocated the hug.

The next few weeks were still awkward, but it was a pleasant kind of awkward they were willing to share.

A month later, they were officially girlfriends.

---

Karai and Kagami both had their first times together.

It was Karai's 16th birthday and she brought her to her apartment.

Karai didn't actually live in it. The Shredder had a lot of property all over the country used for front organizations or hideouts or safe-houses. Karai kept a list of them and she found this one particularly handy as part of her cover. Or when she needed some alone time.

Karai's sexual education was extensive and affirming. Not out of a basic concern for her general health or anything like that. "A kunoichi's gender could be just as deadly a weapon as any sword" her tutors said. Karai couldn't help but gag at the idea of seducing some guy with his brain in his balls, but when their make-out session went to third base, she found a way to make her girlfriend happy in new, unexpected ways.

A part of her felt guilty. She knew there would be a day when her father would tell her to end the Tsurugi bloodline once and for all and she would be powerless to disobey him. She had been counting the days since she and Kagami actually became friends.

---

Karai hadn't seen her ex for over five years and she still never really got over it. She didn't think about it very often, but when something reminded her of Kagami, whatever good mood she was in evaporated instantly. This time it was when Karai was fiddling with her phone, having nothing to do as she waited before nightfall for a mission.

It was a picture of her taking a selfie with Kagami, her girlfriend giving a nervous smile. It was within their first year as a couple on Valentine's day. Karai actually got her chocolates that year.

Karai knew that the time was coming up. Thankfully, her psychotic "father" decided to pull everything to a screeching halt when he got wind that Hamato Yoshi was alive and now living in New York. From Kagami's perspective, her girlfriend had moved away without telling her and ghosted her entirely.

It pained Karai to do it, but Kagami was a fighter. She would move on, maybe find someone else. She was safer that way.

There were days when she thought of finding Kagami and explaining everything to her now that her father's Sword of Damocles wasn't hanging over the two of them. But what would she say to her? "Hey Kagami, I was only your friend because my evil ninja father wanted me to kill you. Except he wasn't really my dad, my real dad was a talking rat. Meet my brothers! They're mutant turtles! Did I mention I'm a mutant, too?"

She saw the last of the museum goers leave and the night guard change.

The Sword of Nowhere is a legendary sword that originally belonged to the Foot Clan before it was stolen by New York's Italian Mafia. With Don Vizioso now facing life in prison, she managed to track it down to the Louvre of all place, having been donated by an "anonymous benefactor" that allegedly worked in New York, only to move to Paris conveniently around the time the Don was arrested.

She pulled the mask over her face and opened the roof entrance, unaware that a sword-wielding hero in a bright-red mask saw her a few buildings away.