kinkfest | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Splinter/Other) (Reply)

Title: Surpassing
Author/Artist:

lady_ganesh
Rating: PG
Warnings: X-over with Saiyuki
Summary: Splinter learns to push against his limits
A/N: Thanks to

lindentreeisle for beta.

The first time he arrived in the Nexus he was overwhelmed. He had grown up a pet, living in a quiet cage; in the storm drains of New York, the first lesson he'd learned was to stay hidden away.

The crowd was enormous, noisy; too active, too much.

"It's a bit intimidating, isn't it?"

It took Splinter a moment to realize he was being addressed. He looked up to the source of the sound; a tall man with a long grey braid, smiling the gentlest smile he'd ever seen.

"My name is Koumyou," he said. "Welcome to the Battle Nexus."

*

Koumyou Sanzo was like no one Splinter had ever known. He carried peace on his shoulders as surely and calmly as the paper sutras that rested there. He enjoyed the Nexus but clearly saw the fights themselves as no more than a distraction to the conversation, camaraderie, and free-flowing sake that followed.

Splinter began seeking the priest out, saving jokes and gossip to pass on, anticipating the delight of his easy, sweet smile.

When he woke with Koumyou's scent in his nostrils and his fur standing on end, Splinter wondered if he had what humans referred to as a crush.

*

He lost earlier in the rounds than he'd hoped to.

Koumyou, who had also lost, commiserated with him over sake. "I wonder, though," he said, casually, as the night came to an end. "Was that really your limit?"

Splinter had no answer.

At the next Championship, he pushed harder, further. When he thought he would surely die-- rules of the tournament aside-- he gritted his teeth and fought on.

When he reached the finals, Koumyou bought him an extra bottle of sake in congratulations.

For a moment, he rested his hand on Splinter's fur, and it felt like a benediction.

*

That third year, he watched Koumyou fight, and realized with a shock the monk lost intentionally. He felt Koumyou holding back, and it angered him. "You lost," he said. "By choice."

"You've learned much here," Koumyou said, grinning into his sake cup.

"Will you fight me?" Splinter asked. "Without restrictions?"

"Against the champion of the Battle Nexus?" Koumyou's eyes twinkled. "A challenge indeed."

He fought to exhaustion, but never shook the feeling that Koumyou always held the upper hand.

"You are a true champion, you know," Koumyou observed, as Splinter rubbed his bruised arms. "Your students are fortunate."

*

The next tournament, he looked for Koumyou, but there was no sign of the monk. He had made other friends, by then, but none of them had seen him, or had any idea where he might have gone.

"Though," Miyamoto Usagi said thoughtfully, "they say that when you pass away, you also leave the Nexus."

"Ah," Splinter said. The sake still burned his tongue.

"He was...something different, wasn't he?" Usagi asked. "Something unique, even to this gathering."

"He was," Splinter said. He was no stranger to loss.

He just wished-- dearly-- that familiarity would make its sting less sharp.