No, please…

There is no turning back. I found the answer. Life should return to its origins, and embrace the truth.

That isn't true.

You, like me, need only what was lost.

Stop it.

I will release the uncontrollable rage that lurks inside them…the fury of the demons.

No!

Across a barren sky of stripped clouds, a line of crumbled and half-buried buildings along with other structures jutted out of the sandy surface, populating the barren landscape like trees made of metal and concrete. The edges of those buildings appeared to be flayed with damage, partly by erosion but also by external third-party damage, as indicated by the numbers of individual bipedal life forms scattered on two sides of a barren strip of land among the ruins.

On one side of the field was a group of scaly lizards of an iguana-like nature, hinted by the spines lining their bodies. On the other side was a group of four turtles wearing different colored bandanas and one human female with black hair wearing armor. They were keeping watch against the lizard-like bipeds on the opposing side, but the female member found herself distracted by the visor she wore, which detected the presence of a cylindrical structure sitting at the center of the field below. Lingering on it momentarily, she turned her head to face the humanoid turtle next to her wearing a blue bandana.

"I've never seen anything of that nature," she quietly commented.

The turtle with the blue bandana looked back at her. "What is it?" he asked her. The female human proceeded to take off her visor and hand it to the blue-masked turtle. He placed the visor over his eye and looked past the crumbling concrete barricade he and his female partner hid behind. In his view, he zoomed in on the lizards positioned on the other side, his visor labelling the lizards as the 'Scale Tail Clan.'

"Imperius Reptilicus is present," his female partner noted to him.

Shifting his focus to the cylindrical structure his female partner made note of before, the blue-masked turtle magnified the view and waited for the visor to scan it for information, but all he got was a static-filled message saying 'No Data.' Seeing that he could learn nothing of the object from where he was at the moment, he raised his three-fingered hand to give a series of signals to his other three comrades. All three of them were turtles just like him, except they wore bandanas of different colors being red, purple, and orange. The red-masked turtle hiding behind a concrete barricade affirmed the signal and drew from his sides a pair of pointed Sai blades, spinning them briefly before securing them in his grip. The orange-masked turtle, hiding behind the corner of a crumbled wall, flipped out a pair of nunchaku, unfolding a kusarigama blade from one of them. Finally, the purple-masked turtle crouched behind an earthen mound pulled out a long staff from behind his shell.

With one more hand signal from the blue-masked turtle positioned forward, the other three turtles zipped from their hiding places and sprinted down the slope. Just a couple seconds after they moved, the last turtle and his human female partner readied themselves to join the others. But just before they began, the female partner told the turtle quietly, "New recruits are always available, but a leader is irreplaceable. Remember that." The turtle leader gave a small nod before leaping into the fray. As he dashed down the slope, he reached behind his shell and in his hands swung two katanas. The black-haired female was closely behind him and whipped out her tanto blade. All five of them ran, even sliding down the slope as they got closer to their opponents. The lizards of the Scale Tail Clan also jumped out of their hiding places and dashed towards their enemies.

The blue-masked turtle swiftly hid behind another broken wall and crouched. He readily continued holding his swords, but he jolted slightly at suddenly hearing a vibrating chirp. He looked straight up to find a tiny magenta-skinned turtle with a spiked shell sitting on top of the wall, staring down at him with deep-tinted eyes. He didn't have time to examine the strange creature, for he had to turn his attention back to a Scale Tail Clan lizard dashing around the barricade to take a swing at him. The turtle immediately ducked and rolled away, causing the lizard's blade to get embedded in the rock, giving him the chance to strike down his enemy with a swing of his sword. He did the same with a few more lizards that came his way. Another lizard from far away shot out a few crossbow bolts, but the shots were intercepted by the black-haired female who threw several shuriken stars in their path. Only one bolt made it past her and embedded itself in the wall near the blue-masked turtle. The turtle leaped away as the bolt exploded only a second later. The blast still managed to keep him from landing on his feet as he tumbled onto his side. His gaze sharply turned to the sky to find a small number of lizards leaping into the air with their weapons raised to slay him. He pulled out his own bundle of shuriken and flung them at the aggressors who immediately fell from the sting of the flying blades. The turtle, however, found more lizards taking their place, leaving him no time to throw more stars. But they also fell as they were intercepted by his three turtle compatriots zipping through the air from all directions, each making a blow on every lizard as they leapt back and forth. After taking care of them, the blue-masked turtle and his four teammates flicked out small bombs of their own and launched them into the air towards the opposition. The remaining lizards shot out more explosive bolts and hit the bombs, causing a massive aerial explosion. The smoke and fire from the explosion cleared away shortly after, but the blue-masked turtle still held his swords in his hands, watching the lizards that were still hidden behind their barricades. The cylinder-like structure at the center briefly pulsed with a sickly glow that emanated in colors of black and green.

"Warning to the Scale Tail Clan:" the purple-masked turtle spoke through a small portable communications device, with the signal obviously being sent towards the lizards, "Remove the unidentified object at coordinates 2314 5873. Failure to comply will be deemed an act of war." A brief pause hung in the air as the team waited for a reply.

Then, the lizard known as Imperius Reptilicus spoke: "Warning to the Kikyōmon: Remove the unidentified object at coordinates 2314 5873. Failure to comply will be deemed an act of war."

The repetition of the statement caused both the blue-masked and purple-masked turtles to look at each other briefly. The blue-masked turtle decided to initiate the warning one more time. "Warning to the Scale Tail Clan: Remove the unidentified object at coordinates 2314 5873. Failure to comply will be deemed an act of war."

But everyone's attention was caught by the giant canister suddenly glowing even brighter than before. The black and green texture of the canister continued to pulse, gradually doing so with more intensity and even more brightly. Then, a flash of bright light blinked from the sky, causing the blue-masked turtle to look up.

The light streaked down furiously towards the canister, leaving a trail of smaller particles of light. But the gentle appearance did nothing to take away the main light's ferocity as it screamed towards the canister like an enflamed meteor. Before anyone could react, the light impacted the canister, causing it to shatter and erupt with a multitude of ribbon-like tendrils of light before another light-filled explosion followed immediately after. The tendrils of light flew in every direction, every single one making their way towards every person in the vicinity, including all the Scale Tail Clan warriors and the warriors of the Kikyōmon. Each light pierced their bodies, leaving behind a mark of light on the spot where they passed through which immediately began spreading glowing veins across the rest of their bodies.

The blue-masked turtle, feeling the sickly light branching out within his body, felt himself losing awareness of his surroundings. "What is this?" the turtle grunted as he struggled to make sense of what was happening. He cranked up his head to find the Scale Tail Clan lizards also undergoing something similar to his. Just as he made out the lizards twisting and morphing into some unknown shape, he felt his vision being clouded with thoughts. "Can't…stay…eat…in control…eat them…what is…eat…must…eat them all…must find - eatthemalleatthemalleatthemalleatthemalleatthemalleatthemalleatthemalleatthemalleatthemalleatthemalleatthemalleatthemalleatthemalleatthemalleatthemall – [HARAI TAMAE KIYOME TAMAE] – R.Y.Ū.J.I.N"

The visor he had been wearing fell to the ground, with only the lens witnessing the turtle's own transformation. Faintly in its reflection, it made out him crying out in pain as he took on a monstrous form, with fins sprouting out of his head, shoulders, limbs, beastly textures covering his skin, long sharp claws growing out of his arms, among several other forceful metamorphoses. Yelling in agony, he thrashed all around, cutting up some other creatures in his path causing blood to splatter across the ground, even covering the lens of the fallen visor, which just captured him lunging downwards to feast upon the pieces he had slashed off before the view was obscured entirely.

The rain was a dark crimson for a time, with not one creature in motion save for a finned, shelled beast using his jaws to tear away at a minced creature held in his claws.

For a while, it was pitch black, but then a clear blue sky with faint wispy clouds became present, a warm sun shining overhead, before fading into a blinding white.

The blue-masked turtle's eyes snapped open, awakening him back to reality. For a moment, he had a look of soft shock on his face before pushing himself upright into a sitting position. He looked to his left to find two of his comrades, the human female and the purple-masked turtle, coming to as well.

"What happened…? Where…where are the Scale Tail Clan warriors?" the purple-masked turtle inquired as he looked around.

The black-haired human female pushed herself to her feet. "My chest is on fire…," she groaned, coughing a little from the stress. The blue-masked turtle observed the two returning to consciousness, not noticing that his left cheek now bore a strange mark, which glowed momentarily.

"Leader," he heard the voice of the orange-masked turtle calling to him. He turned his head in the direction of the call to find said turtle waving to him. Both he and the red-masked turtle were standing in front of a crater emitting soft rays of light and looking at whatever was the source of the light. He and the remaining two members made their way towards the site.

When he got to the edge of the crater, he gazed down into the brightly lit bottom to find an unusual sight. It was humanoid, a living creature that appeared to be of the same species as his female compatriot. In fact, the being was also female. However, this female appeared to have a different skin tone, being more of a peach color compared to the other's pale tone. And while the female Kikyōmon warrior had black hair, the strange girl below was red-haired. She was lying down on her side, curled up in a fetal position with her eyes closed, apparently asleep.

The blue-masked turtle's gaze lingered upon this girl with almost a sense of wonder. He only looked upon her for so long when he was intruded by the red-masked turtle speaking. "Any thoughts?" the red-masked turtle asked his blue-masked comrade, who apparently was the leader of the team.

"It's strange," the blue-masked turtle answered, "I feel like I've met this girl before." He watched as the red-haired girl shifted slightly, not once opening her eyes.

"I do too," the red-masked turtle affirmed in agreement. "I actually want to know more about her." He turned his head to look at his leader. "I'm sure you feel the same, Leo."

As the five members of the Kikyōmon continued to examine the strange, new red-haired girl, whom they had never seen before, they did not notice themselves being observed by the mysterious little magenta turtle with a spiked shell sitting on the edge of a crumbled concrete wall up above. One thing was for certain: the outcome of the battle had changed, and much remained to be known.

Note: "Harai Tamae Kiyome Tamae" - from the 'Amatsu Norito' (the Shinto purification ritual prayer), roughly means, "cleanse all, purify all" or "purify my soul, wash my soul"; mainly meant to do with purification from the 'True Light,' like the sun/Amaterasu the sun-goddess who's essentially the holy light