A/n: Back in 2009 and exactly 10 years ago, I played the Mini Ninjas game on Xbox 360 when it first came out. Although I haven't played the game since 2011, it was definitely one of the best third-person ninja game I've played. About a few weeks ago (Jan 2019), I accidentally came across Disney Channel XD and got to find out that the Mini Ninjas have become an animated tv series, and in the name of reminiscing my childhood, I proceeded to watch the episode and later on, went on Amazon to purchase the entire season 1. It was just that good!

Of course, the premise of the animated series seems to differ quite a lot from the Xbox game, but nonetheless, the episodes were just as entertaining and funny too! Looking around FF and seeing not many Mini Ninjas fanfiction (only 2 in fact), I've decided to add on this multi-chapter story to contribute to the fandom. This story will be based on the animated series rather than the game itself, however.

I've decided that before I start off with the story, I might as well give a brief introduction of the characters in case any of my followers, who chanced upon this story through email notification, are not familiar with the series. Enjoy!

Protagonists:

The Mini Ninjas: A group of young orphans of different ages whom the Ninja Master found when they were infants (at different points of time). He raised them on his own and taught every one of them the art ninjutsu, three of whom have completely mastered the Art and were qualified to be called ninjas. The other children are regularly seen to be training with the Ninja Master to achieve the same title as their comrades. The entire Mini Ninjas consist of:

Kiyoshi: An OC of mine. A 14-year-old boy who is a recent, new addition to the Mini Ninjas and undergoing extensive training with the Ninja Master. Basic appearance information; he has spiky black hair with a slender but robust built. He wears a fitting black kimono with long sleeves and black hakama pants (both similar to Hiro's) that outlines his arm and leg muscles. More description of him will be revealed throughout the story.

Hiro: A 10-year-old boy and ninja who has been a long-time student of the Ninja Master. He's the main protagonist in both the game and tv series. Like Kiyoshi, he dons a black, long-sleeve kimono, black hakama pants and wears wooden Japanese slippers like the other ninjas. His hair is flat but tied in a Japanese fashion at the centre of his head. His weapon of choice is a ninjato (a type of sword). His ninjato is made of metal in the game, but appears to be made of bamboo in the series. The bamboo ninjato, however, appears to be just as effective as a metal one. A small boy with a big heart, but unfortunately with an even bigger ego that has frequently gotten him into unnecessary trouble throughout the series. He's the only ninja besides the Ninja Master who possesses knowledge on Kuji Magic.

Suzume: A 10-year-old ninja and one of two females of the group. Her long hair is tied in a ponytail with two strands of hair hanging at either side of her face. She wears a sleeveless black kimono and sports a red headband with a Kanji character on it. She also wears a thin necklace around her neck. Her special weapon is a wooden flute which she uses to play tunes that have the ability to enchant enemies and also summon the help of nature, ie. playing certain tunes will cause nearby branches and vines to mysteriously lengthen in size and help hinder or trap pursuing enemies. The most matured of the group, she often comes out with brilliant solutions during hostile situations and often makes snarky and witty remarks whenever Hiro screws up. She appears to have somewhat of a brother-sister relationship with Hiro in which she acts as the older sister despite them being about the same age.

Futo: A bulky 11-year-old ninja who's easily the biggest and strongest of the group. His robust built and big arms allow him to wield his favorite weapon of choice; an oversized wooden mallet/hammer, easily without much effort. His head is shaved bald and he wears a grey legged kimono with the sleeves torn off and mesh cuffs around his wrists. He is best friends with both Hiro and Suzume, and the trio are often the centred characters in episodes throughout the tv series. Despite his massive size and appearance, he portrays the typical 'gentle giant' character with his soft-spoken manner of talking and only displays violence when he is either angered (which is rare) or when faced off with enemies. With great size comes greater appetite, and he's shown to have the biggest portion of rice during mealtimes and munches on apples at the most random of times. Always lugging his hammer wherever he goes, he usually has no problems fighting off enemies that dare to engage him in combat. However, there were times where he had been heavily outnumbered that resulted in him being captured by enemies, although he would always somehow find a way to escape captivity using cunningness that he had learned from Suzume.

Shun: A 9-year-old boy who has a niche of being an expert archer of the group. What he lacks in mastering ninjutsu, he makes it up by being an expert marksman with his bow and arrows. He's also portrayed to be an inventor, having a laboratory of his own where he builds various equipment, such as smoke bombs and an improvised bow and arrow that increases his accuracy. He wears a long-sleeved kimono but with green camouflage instead of it being black like the others. He has spiky hair like Kiyoshi and brown eyes. Also, he speaks in a noticeably posh accent, possibly indicating that he sees himself as a genius, although his mannerisms throughout the series suggest that he is quite humble and doesn't show pride in his engineering talents.

Tora: A 10-year-old boy who, since infancy, has always thought himself to be literally a tiger instead of a boy. He would always scamper about on all fours like a tiger would, and he communicates by growling or sometimes by pointing his finger. Hiro could apparently understand his growls and would sometimes translate to the others what Tora was trying to say. Appearance-wise, he has jet black hair pulled into a tight, upward bun and wears the black standard ninja outfit with mesh sleeves underneath an orange tiger-patterned vest. He also wears his tiger claws which he created himself, complete with a tiger-patterned covering to show his affinity for the tiger.

Kunoichi: The second female of the group. In the game, she appears to be about 11 or 12 years old, but in the tv series, she appears to be at least 7 years old, making her the youngest child in this particular story. Being only 7, she is deemed to be too young to wield her own weapon and still has a long way to go in mastering the art of Ninjutsu compared to the other ninjas. However, unlike most 7-year-olds, she has displayed unique acrobatic abilities throughout the series, such as being able to run vertically upwards against gravity to reach the very top of their house*. She is shown to look up to all her seniors regardless (including Tora), and they all treat her affectionately like their own baby sister. Instead of donning a kimono like the other ninjas, she wears a red dress that ends just above her knees along with a bright red headband on her head.

The Ninja Master: He is the wise elderly ninja who found and raised the Mini Ninjas at his camp. He is portrayed to be a very wise teacher who trained the children in the Art of Ninjutsu, of which three of his students have mastered the necessary skills to be qualified ninjas. Despite the lack of blood ties to the group, the Ninja Master sees all of them as his children and accepts them no matter what their background is. Although his age is not revealed in the tv series, for purposes of this story's plot, his age is presumed to be close to 105 years old. He sports a typical "shifu"-style white mustache that droops down past his chin and his head is bald in the centre. He dons a black robe with a cape around his shoulders to keep himself warm and he sometimes wear a Japanese straw hat when having to travel outside the camp. Despite being their master, he sometimes initiate with the children to participate in games such as hide and seek, which he would justify by saying it was all part of their training, possibly indicating that he is either still young at heart, or he just acknowledges the fact that his students are still children and wants to give them the opportunity to enjoy their childhoods. The children, in turn, adores him and tend to listen to his orders and advice, though Hiro would sometimes go against his instructions and often times would land into trouble as a result. Despite being old, he is much shorter than most of his students, his height being on par with 7-year-old Kunoichi.

Antagonists:

Ashida: An evil warlord who appeared both in the Xbox game and tv series as the primary antagonist. He has a few fortresses that he erected illegally across the Island and his sole intention was to take full control of the Island and its habitants by way of expanding his Samurai army, although his plans for expansion had always been thwarted by the Mini Ninjas. He is one of three people on the Island to possess knowledge on Kuji Magic besides Hiro and The Ninja Master. However, unlike the other two, Ashida uses this powerful Magic to 'enchant' and turn ordinary forest animals into his Samurai soldiers and guards as part of his expansion plan. He is bald at the top of his head, with white spiky hair sticking out horizontally, as well as bushy white eyebrows and a goatee. He wears a dark blue kimono under a white vest with brown colored beads around his neck. Interestingly, he is about the same height as the Ninja Master and is presumed to be almost the same age as him.

Shoko: Ashida's granddaughter. At least to be 11-years-old and fits the description of a spoilt child. Ashida has given her control of the Samurai soldiers, whom she mostly treats as her own minions. Appears in almost every episode as the main enemy of the episodes' plot as she carries out her grandfather's orders to cause some form of destruction around the Island as part of his empire-building plan. However, as stated before, these plans are often thwarted by the Mini Ninjas who would always engage with her and her Samurai minions in combat whenever they got to find out what she was up to. It is this reason that she has a very strong resentment against them and is always striving to improve her fighting skills with hopes of defeating them some day. She wears a bright red tunic that covers a black, long sleeve kimono underneath and red hakama pants. Her hair is tied in two buns at the back and she has much paler skin than the other characters. Will always angrily demand for a box of ginseng cookies from her Samurai minions (if there are any left) after every time she is defeated by the Mini Ninjas.

Kitsune: Ashida's clumsy and very timid servant. He is a thin, middle-aged man who is mostly seen doing chores around Ashida's fortress such as sweeping the floor, serving tea and getting whatever items requested by his master. He also follows whatever Shoko orders him to. Despite working for the 'evil side', he has, on occasions, shown mild objection whenever he overhears Ashida explaining his heinous plans to Shoko, although he never dares to express it out of fear of his master. He is often a source of comic relief throughout the plots of the episodes.

The Samurai Soldiers: These are the forest animals that Ashida captured and enchanted using Kuji magic to be his soldiers. The majority of the soldiers were initially rabbits, a common forest animal found across the Island. Once enchanted, the animals' forms would transform into armour-wearing beings who dons oversized helmets similar to real Samurais, and they all have glowing yellow eyes in place of actual faces. Their size differs from what animal they were enchanted from. Given that most of them were initially rabbits, most of these Samurai soldiers are about the same size as the children in the series, while the rare bigger ones were enchanted from bigger animals like raccoons. These soldiers do have several things in common, however, such as the fact that they all communicate by making loud and screeching incoherent noises while the bigger ones speak in deep bursts of Japanese. It is also important to note that all these Samurai have "Kuji Spots" on their helmets that, once tapped, will revert the Kuji Magic and turn these beings back to their original animal forms. This is usually how the Mini Ninjas would defeat them and ultimately foil Shoko's and Ashida's plans. Although the Samurai do possess basic fighting skills, they tend to act clumsily during combat, making them rather easy enemies to defeat. The only few times where a Mini Ninja is defeated in the hands of the Samurai is when he or she is heavily outnumbered.

Places of Interest:

The Island: The setting where the entire series takes place. It is a small Island that's several miles off from mainland Japan with not many inhabitants. Its inhabitants would include the Mini Ninjas and their Master; Ashida, Shoko and the Samurai Army; along with some villagers who live in a village located near the centre of the Island.

The Ninja Camp and The Ninja-Craft: A secret hideout where the Mini Ninjas make camp. The camp is a clearing located in the middle of a bamboo forest and right next to a small waterfall. The entrance to the clearing is obscured by two cliffs that acts as barriers from possible intrusion. The camp is where the Mini Ninjas train with their Master and its very location remained a secret even with the Island's villagers, whom the Mini Ninjas had assisted several times against the Samurai. One of the main objectives of Ashida and Shoko's plans was to find the location of the Ninja camp in order to destroy the Mini Ninjas who are hindering their efforts in taking control of the Island, although to date, their attempts of finding the camp were always in vain. The Ninja-Craft is a ball-like structure that floats on the stream next to the small waterfall. It is the place where the Ninjas and their Master live and sleep in. It is usually anchored to the bottom of the stream, although, in one episode, it was shown to have the ability to conveniently sink to the bottom of the stream in order to stay away from view when a flying Samurai (enchanted from a bird) came too close to their camp while it was looking for bamboo. This was done by first fastening all windows and any openings of the craft shut and then letting in some water into a ballast stored at the bottom that causes the craft to sink, a mechanism similar to a real-life submarine.