“Hajime!”

The word echoes in Leonardo's head as he leaps forward, sweeping his katana towards the attacking foot ninjas. One precise cut and his adversary drops his weapon, clasping his bleeding hand with a pained cry. One of the remaining ones doesn't hesitate, moving forwards to stab Leonardo in the back. But the black-clad turtle is faster – the ninja falls, ankle shattered by Leonardo's heel. 

And so only one remains. 

The shock of seeing his comrades taken down so easily is quickly overridden by pride, as he throws himself at Leo. A valiant effort, but fruitless. Soon he is also on the ground, the edge of the katana blade hoovering over his forehead.

“Yame!”

Leo sheathed his sword, bowing first to his opponents before kneeling in front of his master.

Oroku Saki observes him, taking a small sip of his tea. He does not look pleased. “Slower than yesterday, Leonardo. You disappoint me.”

Leo's cowers a bit at the words. “Forgive me, master. I will strive to do better.”

The man doesn't look convinced. “I hope you do – for your sake.” He turns. “Raphael, it is your turn.”

Raphael watched Leonardo carefully as he took out the three foot ninja. He was good, but Raphael was determined to be better.

He couldn't help smirking as he watched his clan brother being berated by their master. He quickly dropped his smirk as Oroku Saki turned his attention towards him, returning to the focused ninja he was expected to be.

He bowed respectfully before puling out his twin sai, twirling them in his hands in anticipation as he waited for his master to give the word for him to begin.

Leonardo couldn't help but send Raph a small glare, taking his place next to the Shredder's adopted daughter, mistress Karai. Three new Foot soldiers stepped out, circling around Raphael. 

"Hajime!"

Raphael charged forward at the same time at his opponents, dodging out of the way of a katana he managed to trap the foot ninjas wrist between the prongs of one of his sai. A quick twist and the sound of bones shattering before Raph kicked him away announced that he'd broken his opponents wrist. 

He spun his other sai so that the blade rested against his arm, blocking a sword that was atempting to slice his arm off. He jumped into a spinning kick and his foot connected with the foor ninjas temple, knocking him out instantly.

The third ninja had attempted to catch him by surprise. Coming up behind him and slicing downwards. Raph rolled out of the way, tripping the foot ninja and on pure instinct drove the tip of his sai into his chest.

"Shit!" He hadn't set out to kill that time.

"Yame!" 

A group of foot soldiers went off to the wounded warriors, attempting to save the one who Raph had stabbed - but to no avail. A mere minute later and he was lost. Shredder took another sip of his tea, giving Raphael a look of displeasure. "As usual, Raphael, your lack of self-control brings me shame."

Leo would have smirked if he wasn't above that kind of behaviour. Lack of self-control? More like bloodthirsty and full-on crazy.

Raph's heart was hammering in his chest as his eyes followed the foot soldiers attempting to save his victims life. This wasn't the first time his instincts had unintentionally killed someone.

“Forgive me master I… Did try to hold back.”

He wasn’t lying. He could have easily killed the first solider, and he’d been tempted to crush the second ones windpipe instead of knocking him out. He couldn’t help himself, they’d been trained to use violent methods to take down their opponents but he couldn’t stop himself from crossing the line between painful and fatal.

His hands clenched and relaxed against the handles of his sai nervously as he waited to hear what his master would deem his punishment for his lack of control. His eyes locked on the bloodstained metal to avoid seeing his masters disappointment in him.

"There are no excuses." The man rose from his seat, a quick gesture with his hand to indicate that he wanted Raphael to step closer.

Raphael wondered if it was possible for his heart burst of his chest, it was beating so fast he wouldn’t be surprised if it did.

Tucking his sai back into his belt he only hesitate a moment before walking towards his master, bowing his head as he stopped in front of him.

Saki raised his arm, backhanding Raphael roughly across the face.

Raph’s head snapped to the side with the force of the slap, stumbling back slightly but he didn’t try to defend himself or avoid it. He was being punished for shaming his master, he wouldn’t shame him any more by fighting against him.

The foot ninjas carried their fallen and wounded comrades away while the Shredder sat down once more. "It is unfortunate that two of my best soldiers are so incompetent."
Leonardo's fists clenched tightly, feelings of shame rushing through him like a knife to the chest.

Raph’s eyes followed the dead ninja before his eyes snapped back to his master. It hurt to hear the disappointment in their masters voice, it completely masked the comfort of being called two of his best soldiers.

What hurt the most was that that had been one of Raph’s better performances, if he’d have just pulled his sai away at the last second then he wouldn’t have brought Shredder any shame. He was sure that he’d been faster then Leo as well.

"You may sit down, Raphael. We have important matters to discuss."

“Hai Master.” Only taking a step backwards Raph sunk down to his knees in front of him. Head bowed respectfully.

Karai and Leo moved to kneel next to him, then Shredder spoke once more: "Last night one of my facilities were broken into and hacked for information. The security cameras managed to capture the perpetrators on tape." 

A ninja stepped forward, holding a couple of pictures in his hands that he gave to Karai, who looked at them before frowning. "Master, these are..."

"Yes, Karai. They do bare an uncanny resemblance to our own... special warriors."

Karai's frown deepened as she passed the pictures onto Leonardo, who'd grown more and more curious from the conversation. The first picture was a bit blurry, but there was no mistaking what it was.

A turtle. A giant turtle. Just like he and his brother.

His eyes widened in shock. "But..." He flipped to the next picture. There was another one - two of them, there was two more of them.

“Shell.” Raph breathed out. He hadn’t been passed the photo’s, his curiosity was too strong to wait, instead he was looking over at the photo‘s in Leo’s hands.

“There’s more of us?” His voice was quiet but he couldn’t hide his excitement. All his life he’d believed that he and his brother were two of a kind, freaks that only the foot who raised them could ever accept. 

His eyes flicked from the photos to his brothers face, wondering what his reaction was to this new revelation.

They were not alone, there were others of their kind, but they were the enemy.

Something caught his eye on one of the figures on the photo. “Master, these turtles are trained.” The photo was blurry, but one of the figures seemed to have what looked like a wooden bo staff strapped to his shell.

"So I am aware." Shredder answered. "A more pressing matter is this question: are they a threat?"

Leonardo was still staring, his heart racing wildly. There were others like them, did they have a family? A people? Did these two know where they came from? What they were? He looked up at his master. "Master, what do you want us to do?"

"Investigate." Saki said, as he gestured for a ninja to fill up his teacup. "I am as curious as you are about your kind. They could prove to be valuable allies."

“We won’t disappoint you master.” Raphael promised. He took one of the photo’s from Leonardo as he continued staring at the giant turtle, trying to get as much information from the blurry picture as possible.

“With your permission me an Leonardo can start the search tonight.” He didn’t feel the need to ask his brother first, if Leo was even half as curious as himself he’d want to be out there as soon as possible.

For once, Leo wasn't pissed that Raph had been so forward, he himself being too excited to care. 

The man nodded. "You may. You will update your progress to Karai."

“Will Karai be joining us?” Raphael didn’t get on as well with Shredders adopted daughter as Leonardo did, but he usually got on alright with her. For some reason he didn’t want Karai too involved with this mission, the appearance of other turtles was personal to him and his brother, but he understood that she would also be curious.

"She will not." Saki said. "But you will keep close communication regardless. The coordinates for their last known location are on the photos. Now go, and do not fail me."

"We won't, master." Leo bowed, before getting up on his feet.

Raph nodded, quickly following Leo to his feet, almost forgetting to bow respectfully in his excitement. After waiting a few moments to see if his master was going to say anything else, he turned to walk back to their room to prepare.

Leo walked in front of him. "So..." He started hesitantly, glancing back at Raph. "what do you think?"

“I thought me and you were the only of ones. I’d kinda given up hope of finding out what we were.” Raph admitted. Even though the two of them were very competitive and fought a lot, Leo had still been the only other person like him until now.

“Do you think there’s more of us?”

"I don't know. Maybe they just look like us." Leo looked down on the pictures in his hand, the blurry images already imprinted into his mind.

“Right, they just happen to look like the only two mutant turtles in the world.” Raph scoffed sarcastically. 

“They’ve been trained.” He reminded his brother. “They managed to hack one of Master Saki’s facilities.”

“Do you think they’re a threat?”

Leo frowned. "I don't know. We'll have to find them and ask." With that, Leo stepped into his own room to prepare.

“Do you think we‘ll have to…Kill ‘em.” Raph very rarely showed any kind of weakness, but there was a slight edge to his voice. He knew he couldn’t always control himself if it came to a physical fight, and he didn’t want to be responsible for stopping them from finding out more about these other turtles.

He hesitated a moment before strapping a katana sheath onto his back. He didn’t use his katana much, he preferred to get in close with his sai, but hopefully the slight distance the longer blade provided would stop him from making a fatal mistake.

This made Leo pause. The thought had crossed his mind, but he didn't want to think it had to come to that. "No. I'm sure we can figure something out." He replaced his katana with the ones he used on missions, they were sharper and stronger.

Raph nodded, still not convinced but comforted by his brothers word. His hand brushed across his mission sai, the prongs were thinner and sharper then the ones he currently carried, more deadly. He pulled his hand back and secured his current ones tighter to his belt, not trusting himself with the others.

“He said they could be an ally.”

"Let's hope so." He strapped on his katana sheaths and tightened the knot on his mask. "Come on, we can't afford to waste anymore time."

Throwing an extra handful of shurikens into the compartment on his belt. Raph stood to follow his brother. Grabbing his katana from the wall and pushing it into the sheath as he walked behind him.