The first time it happened was after a particularly bad mission.

They had all started to go back home after a particularly bad fight against the Purple Dragons and were fully prepared to curl up together in their living room and watch movies and eat some pizza and simply relax for a while. And maybe give their bruises and other minor injuries some time to heal a little bit before they found themselves in the thick of things again.

They had just walked into the lair when they were met by Splinter, April and Casey. Splinter had a concerned expression on his face that bordered on apprehension, while April looked anxious and Casey... Well Casey looked as if he were sort of in shock, his expression was one of someone that was a million miles away.

Sighing, the four of them trudged over to the others and began to seat themselves as Leo asked what was wrong. He knew that Splinter, April and Casey couldn't be upset about their injuries considering the fact that they were mostly little cuts and bruises.

Which meant that whatever had them freaking out was something else altogether.

Splinter exchanged a worried glance with April as she replied, "I got a letter from a lawyer today informing me that I now have sole custody of a fifteen in a half year old girl whom is the daughter of an old school mate from college. Apparently he couldn't think of anyone else who might take her in if anything happened to him- so he named me her godmother and guardian. She'll be coming to the city to live with me and Casey until she's old enough to be on her own."

Leo, Don, Raph, and Mikey all simply stared at her as if they were unable to fully wrap their minds around what their adopted sister had just said.

Then again, maybe they were simply in shock like Casey was. It was hard to tell.

Finally after several moments of utter silence, Don managed to ask. "W-What is she like?"

"According to the stuff that my old school mate sent me through the lawyer, she's a really good kid. A little bit of a punk. Tends to wind up in fights, but nothing too terrible. She's well liked by her friends and classmates. She does odd jobs for her neighbors. She sometimes watches little kids and helps out the elderly. She get's excellent grades, her grade point average is almost better than my own was back in the day."

"I'm not going to lie and say that she's perfect... In fact the lawyer told me that she was in a strange incident almost eight months ago where several of her friends wound up disappearing without a trace, two more wound up murdered, and she was beaten and injured so badly that she wound up in a coma for the past six months."

"So...she's in trouble then?"

"I honestly don't really know," April said quietly. "The lawyer said that she had spoken to the police several times and wasn't really able to tell them much of anything about what happened. From the way she talked, she and her friends simply wound up caught in the cross fire of two rival gangs or something. A wrong time, wrong place type of thing. Ya know?"

"The police spoke with three more of her friends who were also involved in the incident and closed the case after clearing them all of any wrong doing. From what the other kids said about her, she tried to protect them and their friends and was simply overwhelmed."

"Do you really believe that story?"

"I-I honestly don't know. Everything that the lawyer gave me indicated that she is a very thoughtful, studious, kind and compassionate kid. I can't really imagine someone with her personality getting into such trouble."

"What else can you tell us about her?"

"Oh! I'm sorry, I guess that I forgot about the other stuff in the file. Hold on a second," April said and she walked off and returned a few moments later with a yellow file stuffed full of papers and such and then sat down on the arm of the chair where Mikey was sitting and opened it and began to read aloud. "Name- Shion 'Ichigo' Kurosaki. Age- fifteen in a half. Birthday- November the tenth. Height- five foot eleven inches. She's a high school student. Father's name is Isshin Kurosaki. Mother- Misaki, deceased. Misaki apparently was murdered while walking Shion home from karate class when she was seven."

"According to the statement that Shion gave the authorities, she never saw the assailant that killed her mother. She was looking elsewhere at the moment of the attack. All that she really seemed to recall was hearing her mother scream and then something heavy hit her from behind and she blacked out."

"When she woke up she couldn't breathe. She said that it took her a little bit to manage to get her mother's arm out from around her neck. Apparently whoever had attacked her mother, had thrown her into her after she had been killed. Shion woke up pinned underneath her body, and upon realizing what was wrong, tried to wake her mother. She was found two hours later by her dad."

Everyone was silent for a moment once April stopped speaking, letting their minds sort through the information that they had just been given when she pulled something out of the file and held it out to first Splinter, who took the piece of paper and studied it for a moment before then handing it to the son sitting closest to him.

Raph took the paper with a scowl and looked at it.

It was apparently a picture of the girl.

She was a gorgeous little thing. Japanese American, in origin given her exotically beautiful features. Everything from the shape of her eyes, the color, her hair, and even her build told him that she was of mixed blood. After all, there weren't many Japanese americans that he could think of with such eerie colored eyes.

Unlike others with similar origin, Shion had neon blue eyes that were rimmed in turquoise. Her dark hair was long, and had at some point been cut and styled similar to a mullet before it had grown out in layers of dark silk that hung in her eyes, around her jawline, and down her back nearly to her waist.

She had soft ivory skin, pale pink lips, a lithe dancer's build.

Humming, he handed the picture to one of the others and let them see it too as Leo asked, "What do you want us to do, April?"

"Well... I was running some ideas by Splinter and we both sort of agreed that you guys would all have to meet her at some point. To- ya know, gauge whether or not she's a threat or could become one sometime on down the line. If you guys met her, and we all got a good feel for her personality, then maybe..."

"Master? You're okay with this?" Don asked as he glanced up from the picture in his hand to look at his father. Splinter was quiet for several moments before softly sighing and then saying.

"April has a point. If the girl is to be around for several years, then meeting her would be unavoidable considering that the Purple Dragons and the Foot clan both know of our connection to April and Casey. Not meeting her, even if it just to warn her of the dangers that she would face just by being close to them- would be irresponsible of us."

Leo and the other considered their master's words for several minutes as they continued to pass the picture around among themselves, each of them studying the girl in it and her features. Committing them to memory along with rest of the information about her in the back of their minds for later use as Leo asked, "When will she be here?"

"Two days from now. She'll be coming with a few friends who've been worried about her since her release from the hospital. I think that they think the stress of moving somewhere unknown might be too much for her."

"Where will she stay?"

"Well, Casey and I renovated the spare apartment in my building because we wanted to rent it out. Our place doesn't really have any more spare room, and I already talked things over with the lawyer and he assured me that if I wanted to rent the place out to her- that she had money to pay for it, plus utilities and living expenses. He also said that we could keep the money that we charge her for rent, or we could put some of it in a trust for her just in case she wants to go to college here in the city or something. Neither idea seems bad. So..."

"So everything is basically set."

April nodded and gave then a nervous smile before saying, "Everything but some furniture is taken care of."

"Okay, so how do you want us to meet her?"

"Well, I thought that maybe you could wait a few weeks to let her get settled in a bit and let me and Casey observe her and get a feel for her personality some. And then we would report our findings back to you guys and Splinter and once the few weeks are up, we'd invite all of you over to dinner with her and introduce you."

"Okay, so we have a plan," Leo said as Mikey handed the picture back to April once he was finished looking at it as Leo then tacked on, "Keep us informed then."

"I will," April said before glancing over at Casey and huffing a little bit before then asking, "Is it okay if I leave him here for a bit? If I try to take him home now, he'll be useless."

The brothers all snickered as Splinter nodded his head and simply said, "That may be for the best for now."