My name is Hamato Yoshi. I have led an extroidinary life, and raised now to manhood four extroidinary sons. I do not regret any course in my life that has led to them. This is a great gift to me now, that I am an old man.
This story is not mine, it is theirs.
Four for one is beyond a fair trade, but you will not see at first why have done what I have done. It was a selfish decision. I cannot bear to lose even one.
I made for them the only choice that I could.
"Master, it's on every channel..." Donatello had raced back from waking me from pleasent, warm sleep, jumping across the back of the couch to sit beside his brother, Michelangelo. My youngest, my baby as Michelangelo's pleading looks often reminded me. He leaned forward now with elbows on his knees, watching the screen even as Donatello flipped between the stations.
"Dude, dude, stop, I'm trying to hear..." Michelangelo made a play for the remote, reaching even as Donatello held him back with a staying hand on his forehead.
" Stop it, both of you..." Ah, Leonardo. Their Ani, my best student, my eldest son. He stood now with his arms crossed as if fearing an explosion should he move a muscle, eyes never leaving the screen for a moment. No window to his soul in light brown eyes, but I saw now the tension in his fingers as he gripped his biceps. No one untouched by this news, if Donatello's clipped report was correct. Neither us or our whole world.
"Turn it up, Donatello." It had been a long time ago that my cane had ceased to be a tool of training and discipline, and more support for aging limbs. I hobbled to a place that opened between my youngest sons, and wondered even now of the fourth. "Leonardo, where is Raphael?"
"With Casey, sensai, they're watching at April's apartment." Leonardo nodded to me, reluctant to tear his eyes from the proceedings I settled in now to take in, as Donatello raised the volume. It was what I have come to know as a "Press conference", though all I see pressed is questions.
"Can you believe this shit?!" Raphael nearly rocked the TV back, exploding from the couch to gesture at it and push at the senators face roughly, leaving a faint palm print on the glass. His palms had been sweating. "They just think...think that's all, that they just tell people and nuttin' happens? You know what's gonna happen!?"
He gestured emphatically once more, rounding back on the couch where April still sat, awed as she watched the news scroll under the live conference again and again. Half human hybrids found in Montana. Stable mutation. Mutants among us. She glanced back at the livid teenager before her. Raphael was staining a deep brown, blood rushing to his cheeks as emotion took over.
"But...Raph, don't you understand? This is you guys chance. You could be...free."
"FREE!?"
"...Hunted, that's what we'll be! Donatello, what are you thinking?" Leonardo turned back after jolting away from the couch where everyone was still gathered. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You think they'll think of us as human? You think they'll ever stop looking, or wondering? What if they decide we're dangerous? What if someone gets hurt? What if a mutant has to defend himself and turns us public enemy number one!?"
None of this is what either of the others wanted to hear. Donatello dreamed of diploma and labs, a chance to study and grow and give back. Michelangelo dreamed of the sun.
"But Leo! What if they don't? I could go to school, you could go to school, we could get real jobs, we could know people..." Donatello half rose as he implored his elder brother in turn, going to one knee on the couch cushion with his hand on the back. The old couch felt gritty and worn under his fingers, despite his best attempts at preserving it after all this time. Careful cleaning, patching, but they needed a new one. What if that new one could actually, for once, really be new?
"No. I'll have nothing of it. Until we know more, none of us will. " Leo shook his head, thin lipped and determined.
"But Leo...the registration...we could meet more of our kind..or...at least like us...someone like us" Years of loneliness prompted Michelangelo to turn as well. Years of watching proms go overhead and wedding bells, New Years parties and Halloween. Other kids.
"They registered all the Jews before the holocaust too, Mikey..." Leonardo didn't bother to raise his voice, meerly folded his arms once more and inclined in towards his brother, keeping his gaze squarely. Donatello had opened his mouth and drawn another breath to break into a spiel on modern healthcare and library books when Splinter raised his weathered hand, drawing all three into silence.
"No more! We will do nothing. We will not discuss this more until I have had time to think on it." He rose even as he spoke, settling his weight into his cane once more. He intended to meditate on the subject long and hard, in his own room, the weight of the world crashing down on him enough without the addition of his son's hopes and fears. When all three seemed prepared to start anew he lifted his hand again, near the thinning fur of his muzzle. "Is that understood?"
Three pairs of eyes darted down, Leonardo's head dipping before the other two. So young, so achingly young.
"Hai, sensai. We will wait for your decision." He spoke first, and the others chorused his answer, however mumbled and reluctant. It only further served to remind him of their youth. Was he, could he now let them go?
"Very good. Leonardo, Michelangelo. Go and await your brother. He should return soon." He turned for the sliding door to his room, trailed by Leonardo. He did not have to look back to know his son had taken to his knees behind him, head bowed as he closed the door before him, leaving the old rat alone with his thoughts.