Chapter 6

Nightmares and Bad Blood

Yoshi felt relaxed and content at his family home in Japan. He was sitting by the back door with his wife as they watched their five children goof around in the garden. Everyone was happy and laughing under the flowering cherry blossoms trees.

But then his beloved wife stood abruptly pulled away. "Yoshi…" she said in a soft plaintive tone.

Yoshi looked up to see what was wrong, and his eyes widened in horror at the sight.

Tang Shen was standing with her back to him, facing into the house. As he watched, her back began to ooze with blood, too much blood, from long gashes cut into her back.

"Tang Shen!" he yelled, leaping to his feet. But before he could reach her the house erupted into flames, and Tang Shen was dragged screaming into the fire right before his eyes.

Horrified, Yoshi could only watch as the flames spread from the house to the garden, separating him from his children, who were now crying out in alarm.

He tried to make his way trough the flames towards them, and they were doing their best to pick through the burning bushes and trees to reach him as well. But no matter what they did, there always seemed to be a wall of fire between them.

Then all of a sudden a familiar shadow rose up above Michelangelo. When his youngest turned to see who it was, Yoshi only had time to shout a warning before the Shredder grabbed him and dragged him away into the flames.

"MIKEY!" yelled Raphael, and he rushed towards where his baby brother was last seen, desperate to save him.

As he scanned the flames, he somehow failed to see the Shredder rise up behind him.

Yoshi and his other three children shouted a warning, but Raph only had time to look over his shoulder before the Shredder struck out with his blades, making Raphael fall into one of the burning bushes.

Donatello, Miwa, and Leonardo took up defensive positions around each other, their eyes scanning their surroundings for their enemy.

But their efforts were in vain, as once again the Shredder appeared and struck, directing a devastating blow at Donnie's head, and dragging a screaming Miwa away into the smoke and ash.

Only Leo was left standing, and Yoshi doubled his efforts to reach him in time.

But it was all for not, as the fire between him and his eldest son leapt even higher than before, blocking any path they could have taken to reach each other.

"Father, Help!" yelled Leo, coughing as the smoke filled his lungs, and the flames drew ever closer to him.

But Yoshi could do nothing watch as the Shredder appeared before Leonardo. The remaining teen gripped his swords tightly and rushed at his enemy, determined not to go down without a fight.

But the boy was hopelessly outmatched, and the Shredder soon had him at his mercy.

Yoshi could only watch in horror as the Shredder's bladed gauntlet came down upon his oldest son's throat, knowing there was no way he could survive the blow.

"NO!"

"NO!" bellowed Yoshi as he sat straight up in bed, his body dripping from sweat as the nightmare remained fresh in his memory.

Beside him, Tang Shen shifted, and sat up. "What is it?" she asked sleepily in concern.

Yoshi didn't say a word, he only gripped his wife in a tight hug, before climbing up from their futon to check on his children.

Once he was sure all of them were safely sleeping in their own beds, only then did he let his wife comfort him.

As he listened to Tang Shen's gentle murmurs as he drifted back to sleep. There was one thing he knew for sure, he was not going to let Oroku Saki try to take his family from him again, not if he had anything to say about it.

The next day, Yoshi called his children's school to excuse them from class for the week, claiming they had a family emergency.

The five teens had been grateful for his doing so, thinking he was giving them time to recover from their injuries before they had to go rejoin the public. Or that's what they had thought, until their father spent the day drilling them in their techniques.

Then he did the same the next day, and the day after that. Once their injuries had mostly healed, he had them start sparring against himself and each other all day, only pausing long enough to switch partners before starting again.

By the end of the week the five teens were exhausted, and Tang Shen was beginning to get worried for her husband. It was very unlike him to be so harsh, or for him to train their children for so long without rest.

So when he finally allowed their children to go to bed on the last day of their week off (after Michelangelo passed out in the middle of training), Tang Shen quietly confronted him about it.

Yoshi looked at his wife imploringly. "The last time the Shredder came to our home, I nearly lost you. I nearly lost Miwa. Now he has found us again, and seeks to take you all away from me a second time, and I fear that this time he will succeed."

Tang Shen wrapped her husband in a tight hug. "Saki may seek that, yes," she said comfortingly. "But that does not mean it will happen. You are strong, my love, and our children are strong as well. If the Shredder believes he can take us, he will have to fight tooth and nail for it, because I know none in our family would ever lay down and let him."

She then pulled back, and looked at him sternly. "But you cannot continue to train our children like this," she scolded. "If you keep wearing them into the ground like you have been doing, you will make them too exhausted to even stand before the Shredder, much less fight him."

Yoshi frowned, but then looked ashamed of himself. "I just- I want them to be prepared for when they inevitably face him again. Even I would have difficulty fighting him, if they aren't strong enough, he will slaughter them."

Tang Shen lowered her head. "I know," she said softly, Yoshi had not been the only one having nightmares recently. "I agree you need to step up their training, but not in the way that you have been doing, my love."

Yoshi sighed, and bowed his head. "I know."

The next morning, Yoshi allowed his children to return to school, and while he was still training them harder than before, he was far less harsh than he had been over the last week.

The five teens were greatly relieved by this, though they didn't fully understand why their father had acted as he had, they were grateful he was now back to himself.

After their initial meeting with the Shredder they did not see him again as they continued to run patrols in the evening, as well as search for April's father.

They did, however, run into a transformed Bradford (whom Mikey promptly named Dogpound for his new canine nature) and his army of Foot Ninja while trying to get April's stolen phone back from some Purple Dragons.

"You work with these lowlifes, Dogpound?" called Miwa as she dodged one of the gang members coming at her with a bat. "Why does that not surprise me?"

"Yeah, and I thought you couldn't get any lower," Leo added, making the canine mutant snarl and attack harder.

Unfortunately, their actions that night brought Baxter Stockman (the inventor they had stopped from breaking into TCRI) to the Foot's attention, and reluctant employ.

After that they heard that there was a new mutant lurking in the sewers. Deciding to investigate, they found a mutant alligator fighting against a horde of Kraang. Mikey had insisted they take him home with him once it had collapsed after finishing off the Kraang and roughing the teenagers up a little.

"Mikey, he's a big green monster!" Raph had protested when their youngest brother first suggested bringing the gator home.

"And he had me by the face, Mikey!" yelled Donnie in distress. "My face!"

But the orange wearing ninja could not be budged on the subject, and the others reluctantly began the difficult task of bringing the alligator home with them.

At first it had seemed like the alligator would be just as much a mindless monster when he woke up as before. But then Tang Shen arrived on the scene and, miraculously, was able to calm the reptile down till he was practically purring in her lap.

"It was not that different from calming Raphael's temper tantrums when he was small," she explained when asked. "Once I calmed him down he would react to in a similar way as well," she added, stroking the now placid alligator's head.

Raph turned scarlet at that response. "Mother!" he complained

The mutant gator then explained to the Hamato clan that the Kraang had experimented him on for most of his life, leading for him to have an unadulterated hatred of the aliens. Even the mention of his name was enough to set him off in another fit of temper (where he kept grabbing Donnie by the face, much to the genius' dismay), only for Tang Shen to need to calm him down again.

Once he regained his senses a second time, he agreed to tell them how he had escaped the Kraang, and managed to bring along a power source of theirs with him, setting back the Kraang's invasion plans exponentially. After some convincing, they managed to get Leatherhead to show them the power source, and the gator led them around the traps he had set to keep the Kraang away.

The power source turned out to be a glowing crystal unlike any found on Earth (according to Donnie). But while they were examining it, they began hearing crashes coming through the tunnels as the Kraang began picking their way through the traps to come after their power cell.

With the forewarning that they were coming, Donnie managed to rig Leatherhead's abandoned subway car of a home to use the power cell as a power source, and speed them away to safety.

Once they were a safe distance away, Donnie was able to wrap the power cell in lead to keep the Kraang from tracking it. Then, with Leatherhead's permission, he hid it in his lab for experiments.

Mikey then offered to let Leatherhead live in their basement (much to his siblings' distress) but the gator turned him down, and returned to the sewers. He feared his temper was still too uncontrollable to be in a domestic setting, and he did not wish to harm his new friends. But at Mikey's insistence, he did agree to visit often through the secret passageways to the sewers.

After the fiasco with Leatherhead, the Hamato clan barely had a few days to recuperate before the next disaster hit. On one ordinary day, rats began spewing out of the sewers in droves.

After having to save April from being trapped on a power line, the Hamato clan was clueless as to why this was happening, or how. The rat attacks were too organized to be random, but who could control every rat in the city like this. It wasn't until Leatherhead called them into the sewers that they found out what had happened.

The gator had been searching for a safe place in the underground to make his home. During his search he stumbled across the charred remains of an abandoned lab, with some of the remaining partially singed paper having rambled science babble written on them discussing research yielding a psychic connection to rodents.

Donnie managed to recognize the handwriting on the papers, and he realized that Dr. Falco had returned, and his psychic research had succeeded in giving him new powers. It was him leading the rodent attack on the city.

After searching the remains of the lab, they were able to deduce where Falco was hiding, and the five ninjas and the alligator all went to stop the madman.

They arrived to see Falco drastically changed from the scientist they had fought last time. His experiments had mutated his appearance to resemble that of an Egyptian mummy, complete with bandage wrapping around his most of exposed skin. His eyes were hollowed out and blind, and he had been apparently using the rats to see. He had also decided to call himself the Rat King, much to Mikey's displeasure ("Dude! I'm the one who names stuff!").

After beating their way through Falco's rat minions, they were able to take down the former scientist fairly easily. Without his telepathic powers to tell him what they were about to do, and no more minions to fight for him, he was fairly easy to beat. Unfortunately, once he was knocked unconscious, a swarm of rats carried him away before they could take him to the police.

All in all it, had been a hectic few weeks, but nothing prepared them for what would happen next.

It started when Snakeweed had resurface (apparently he had survived being electrocuted and blown up on the night they'd met), and was snatching people off the street for an unknown reason.

Unfortunately, their chasing of the giant plant man ended up bringing about another of what was now a common argument between Leo and Raph.

Raphael had been jealous ever since Leo had been appointed their leader, and that jealousy most commonly showed itself with Raph questioning Leo's authority, or outright disobeying his direct orders. Depending on the situation, sometimes their siblings followed Raph's example rather than Leo's, and it was upsetting the whole team dynamic.

They had managed to corner Snakeweed in an alley, and Raph had wanted to go charging in guns blazing, but Leo wanted to follow a plan he'd come up with to stop the mutant, a plan that Raph believed was too slow.

And so, when they finally followed Leo's plan, they arrived to see that Snakeweed had already escaped, which resulted in the current bickering.

Miwa had grown fed up with the constant shouting matches after the first argument, so when it looked like the two of them would be there yelling all night, she took her leave from the rooftop.

Only Donnie and Mikey acknowledged her departure.

"Where are you going?" Mikey called after her.

Miwa didn't bother to stop, but instead called back over her shoulder. "To find some trouble, preferably far away from those two idiots."

"Keep your phone on you in case you need backup!" was all Donnie said. They both knew there was no way they could stop her from going.

Miwa gave him a thumbs up. "Will do, let me know who wins!" she called as she hurried out of sight.

She was fairly certain the bickering pair hadn't even noticed she'd gone.

A few minutes later she was several rooftops away when she got a text from Mikey. 'Leo said that if Raph is leader now since he thinks hes better than Leo,' said the text. A second later she got a text from Raph. 'Keep an eye out for Snakeweed, call us if you see him,' was all it said.

Miwa rolled her eyes and put away her phone. "Boneheads," she muttered to herself.

She suddenly realized that she wasn't alone on the rooftop. She drew her tantō and wheeled around.

Standing before her was an entire patrol of Foot Clan ninjas.

She grinned viciously. "Hello misplaced aggression," she said as she darted forward to attack.

The Foot Ninjas were good, but Miwa was better. In a few minutes all the Foot members were laying knocked out on the rooftop, and Miwa was standing over them smugly.

"Thanks for the fun, boys," she said to her unconscious foes as she turned to leave.

"Most impressive," said a sinister voice behind her.

Miwa paled as she recognized the voice. Turning, she was just in time to raise her tantō to block a blow from the Shredder's gauntlet.

She flipped away as the Shredder made to strike again, throwing shuriken at him as she did so.

The Shredder blocked the shuriken, but made no move to attack her a third time.

But Miwa was not about to let her guard down. She stood with her tantō at the ready and glared fiercely at her family's enemy, while simultaneously searching for a way to escape the rooftop and call for backup, or to just get out of there alive, period.

But the Shredder only studied her up and down. "You fight well," he said. "Clearly you have your mother's spirit."

Miwa's glare turned venomous. "You have no right to talk about my mother!" she snapped, remembering the terrible marks on Tang Shen's back. "Not after what you did to her!"

The Shredder actually hung his head in shame at that. "Believe me, child, there is nothing in this life I regret more than your mother's death."

Miwa's eyes widened when she heard that. "Her-" she breathed softly.

He thought she was dead. The Shredder thought that Tang Shen had died in that fire.

Then that meant he didn't know that the others were her brothers, which explained his choice of words when they'd met, and why he'd been so focused on her over them.

"I do not know what lies my old nemesis has raised you on," the Shredder continued, not aware of Miwa's epiphany, "but I loved Tang Shen more than anything. She should have been mine, you should have been my daughter, but Hamato Yoshi stole you both from me years ago."

Miwa snapped out of her daze and glared at the Shredder again, inwardly recoiling in disgust at the idea of being raised as his daughter. "Well if you loved her so much, you had a funny way of showing it." she snarled. She made no indication that her mother was still alive for her own safety. Miwa shuddered to think what the Shredder would do if he knew she still lived and was within his reach.

But the Shredder didn't react to her ire. "I will have my vengeance on Hamato Yoshi for his betrayal, and for Tang Shen's death," he said casually, as if he wasn't talking about ending the life of her father. "But I would rather you not get caught in the crossfire, if only for the fact that you are her daughter and as such you are the only living piece of her left in this world."

Miwa blinked at him incredulously. "And what, I'm just supposed to stand back and let you do it?" she asked in disbelief. "Did you miss the fact that he's my father!"

The Shredder looked almost amused by this. "He doesn't have have to be," he said holding his hand out to her. "Join me, child, and be my daughter as you were always meant to be. Together we can avenge your mother's death, and make the one responsible suffer."

Miwa was glad her scarf and hood covered most of her face, because she doubted the Shredder would appreciate her looking at him like he was crazy. He wouldn't appreciate her saying it either, so she kept her mouth shut. The idea of becoming this mad man's daughter curdled like sour milk in her stomach, and she didn't think she'd ever been more repulsed by an idea in her life.

The Shredder mistook her silence for contemplation, and he turned to leave. "The choice is yours, girl," he said. " I will be at the Byerly Building at midnight to receive your answer."

With that the Shredder leapt off the building and out of sight, leaving his unconscious soldiers to sort themselves out.

The second he was gone, Miwa bolted from the building, and didn't stop until she was a mile away, and well hidden. Once she was sure this wasn't a ruse to ambush her, she felt her strength leave her, and she collapsed to her knees on the rooftop. It felt as though her heart was trying to beat it's way out of her chest, as all that had just happened caught up to her in one instant.

She curled up on herself and tried to reconcile with the idea that she'd survived her second encounter with the Shredder. But in the back of her mind she knew that a whole new set of nightmares would be waiting for her next time she went to sleep.

After leaving the others, Leo had gone home and received a lecture on leadership from his father, and then been sent back out to find his brothers and his sister.

He was not eager to try and take leadership back from Raph, and the argument that was sure to ensue from the action. So instead he focused on finding Miwa, who had broken off from the group early on, and probably hadn't rejoined them yet.

After several minutes of searching, he found his older sister collapsed and partially hidden on a rooftop, looking like she had seen a ghost.

"Nee-chan!" he yelled as he rushed to her side. Looking her over, he could see she wasn't hurt, but her face was too pale, and her eyes were too wide for things to be alright.

"He thinks mother is dead," she said softly, not really seeming to see Leo in front of her.

"What?" asked Leo.

"The Shredder…" said Miwa faintly, still looking sick. "He showed up…"

"WHAT!" shouted Leo in alarm. He leapt to his feet and drew his katanas, and searched the roof as if expecting the Shredder to appear out of a shadow at any moment.

"He's not here," she said, the faintness slowly fading from her voice. "He was on a building in Chinatown, but I ran, and I'm pretty sure he didn't follow me…"

Leo turned his attention back to his big sister. "What did he do to you?" he asked in concern.

"He offered to let me join the Foot," said Miwa, her face twisting in disgust, "and become his daughter instead of Father's."

"WHAT!" shouted Leo. He was using that word a lot tonight,

Miwa took a deep breath and told Leo what had happened.

By the time she was done, Leo was sitting on the rooftop next to her, processing this new information. One thing was very clear out of all of it.

"He's completely out of his mind," Leo declared.

Miwa nodded in agreement.

"I mean, really, he can't honestly expect you to just stand back and let him kill our dad, much less help him do it," said Leo, still stuck in his disbelief at the situation. "And becoming his daughter isn't much of a consolation prize."

"He's an angry bitter old man who was convinced that Mother would have married him if he'd managed to kill Father fifteen years ago," said Miwa. "I think his sanity took a hike long before either of us were born."

Leo grunted in agreement. "Plus, he thinks he killed the love of his live, no matter how much he blames Father for it," he added thoughtfully. "That probably only helped the guy go even further around the bend."

"We can't let him know that Mother is still alive," said Miwa urgently. "If he knew-"

Leo's face paled at the thought.

"Yeah, let's avoid that as long as possible," he said, shaking his head in an attempt to chase away the thought.

Miwa frowned and stared out over the city. "You know... we know where the Shredder will be in a few hours," she said thoughtfully.

Leo immediately saw where her thoughts were going. "No!" he stated bluntly. "Absolutely not, Mi! There is no way we're going to try to attack the Shredder on our own!"

Miwa frowned at him. "But-"

"NO!" Leo emphasized. "The five of us together couldn't even put a scratch on him! We don't stand a chance with just the two of us!"

Miwa scowled at him. "It would take too long to track down the others, and this is our big chance to end this vendetta before anyone else in our family gets hurt. We can do this, Leo."

Leo looked far from convinced, but he could see the determined look in her eyes. "You're going to try to do this no matter what I say, aren't you."

"Yup," said Miwa stubbornly. If she had the chance to stop the Shredder now before he did more damage, she was going to take it.

Leo let out a sigh of exasperation. Nothing short of knocking Miwa out and chaining her to the basement floor would stop her from doing what she wanted when she was this determined.

"Alright," he agreed reluctantly. "But if we do this, we need a plan. And I need to trust that you will actually follow it."

"I will," she promised without hesitation.

Leo nodded. "Then here's what we'll do..."

When the clock struck midnight, Miwa crept onto the roof of the Byerly Building. She kept her eyes peeled, trying to see if the Shredder was there yet, determined not to be taken by surprise again.

But her attempts were all for not, as once again a voice came out of the shadows behind her. "So, you decided to come."

Miwa stiffened, and turned to face the Shredder, only to jerk back when she realized that he was directly behind her.

The Shredder only looked down at her stoically. "What is your answer, child?" he demanded.

"Call me Karai," said Miwa, giving the alias she would sometime use to hide her identity (they all had one). "I thought about what you said, and you're right. I should do what my mother would want."

For a brief instant she thought she saw the Shredder smile under his helmet. But the moment quickly vanished, as the Shredder wheeled around and landed a kick in the middle of Leo's gut. He had been trying to sneak up on the Shredder, but the blow sent him flying back.

The Shredder then had to turn quickly again and block a strike from Miwa's tantō. He glared furiously at her, and shoved her back.

"You dare try to ambush me!" snarled the Shredder.

"I'm just doing what my mother would want," Miwa snapped back. "And I really don't think she would want me to be a lapdog for the monster who sliced her back open!"

The Shredder roared in rage and attacked. But as he did so, a chain wrapped itself around his ankle. The ninja master only had a chance to look down at the chain, before Leo shoved the heavy weight that the chain was attached to off the building.

The Shredder's feet were yanked out from under him and he was dragged over the side. He took a swipe at Leo as he passed, but the boy dodged it and the man went over the edge.

Miwa and Leo ran to the edge to see if their plan worked, only to gape in shock when they realized that he wasn't there.

"Where'd he go?" asked Leo nervously.

Miwa shot him a terrified look. "I don't-"

The two teens froze as they sensed someone behind them, and dodged just in time to avoid being knocked off the building by the sharp blades of the Shredder's gauntlets.

"I had thought you would be smart enough to see through the lies of Hamato Yoshi, and the rest of his pathetic clan," the Shredder snarled at Miwa. "Perhaps I was wrong."

Miwa gave him a scathing look. "Sorry, but it looks like I'm Daddy's little girl."

"Then it seems I will simply have to educate you how to properly be such," said the Shredder, drawing the blades from his gauntlets.

Leo attempted to strike a blow at the Shredder while he was focused on Miwa, but the ninja master saw it coming, and redirected Leo's course to send him flying into Miwa.

The two teens were sent sprawling in a heap on the rooftop, and the Shredder started towards them with his blades drawn.

Just then Raph showed up out of the blue. "Guys!" he yelled, only to skid to a stop in horror when he realized who was standing over his downed siblings. "What!"

His older siblings were able to use the distraction he caused to throw a smoke bomb at the Shredder and get some distance away from the him, dragging Raph with them as they ran.

"Where are the others?" Leo asked.

"Back home," Raph yelled as they went.

"What?" asked Leo. "We told you guys to come meet us!"

Raph scoffed. "Yeah, I got your text. For the record, 'Come to the Byerly Building ASAP' is not a good warning that you guys are fighting the freaking Shredder!"

"Less talking more running!" Miwa snapped at her younger brothers. "He's gaining on us!"

Leo and Raph glanced over their shoulders to see indeed a furious Shredder was getting closer to them by the second.

Just then Snakeweed burst up from within the alley in front of them, hissing and snapping his claw leaves. "I found you brats," he sneered down at them.

"Oh, just what we need," Leo deadpanned as the three skidded to a stop.

They quickly dodged as Snakeweed swung at them with his thorny vines.

Raph turned to Leo and said rapidly. "All-is-forgiven-you're-the-leader-again-welcome-back!"

Snakeweed continued to attack them with his vines, and no matter how many they cut off, they would just grow back a second later.

Leo then caught sight of the Shredder standing on a nearby rooftop, watching the fight for his moment to strike.

He frantically searched the area for a way out of this mess, and smirked when he spotted one. "Guys!" Leo called to the other two, "Follow me, I've got an idea!"

"You're the boss," Raph called back as he and Miwa followed him off the building and down to the street below.

They lured Snakeweed till they were directly under the building the Shredder was on.

"Now what?" asked Miwa. From her perspective, this wasn't the best place to be. With the Shredder directly above them, and Snakeweed closing in in front of them, enemies surrounded them at all sides.

"We charge the Jolly Green Giant," stated Leo.

"Really?" asked Raph. That sounded more like a plan he'd come up with.

"Trust me," said Leo. "Let's move."

Dodging the plant mutant's swinging vines, Leo grabbed some kegs of Antifreeze stored near the building. He shoved one into Snakeweeds mouth, and tossed another up into the air so that it went up to the Shredder's level.

"Guys! NOW!" he ordered.

As one, Raph and Miwa threw their weapons so that they caused the kegs to explode, dousing Snakeweed in Antifreeze, and creating a frigid smoke screen between them and the Shredder.

Before the mist had time to clear, Raph shattered the now frozen Snakeweed with a quick blow and a shout of "Booyakasha!"

When the mist finally cleared, the Shredder was left with the sight of a shattered plant monster, and no sign of his quarry.

He roared in frustration that his vengeance had again been denied to him that night.

When they returned to the Renaissance Dojo, Miwa told her family what had happened that night, as Donnie and Tang Shen tended to Mikey, who had been hit on the head during a fight with Snakeweed, causing Raph to freeze up as leader.

Once the story was told, Master Yoshi stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I never suspected that Oroku Saki would believe your mother perished, but I can see why he would think so," he said, exchanging a glance with his wife. "You were right not to let him know otherwise."

"I can't believe Shredder thought you'd just turn your back on us like that," said Raph incredulously.

Miwa scowled as she remembered their enemy's offer. "He seems to think he has more of a right to me than you guys do, and that I would see things his way. I don't think he's given up on that either."

"Yeah, but we're your family," said Mikey as he munched on a piece of pizza Tang Shen had allowed him to eat.

"But the Shredder doesn't know that, Mikey," said Donnie. "He thinks Mother died in that fire, and that was before the four of us were born."

"So?" asked Mikey.

Tang Shen hugged her youngest to her chest. "So, if I had perished that night, the four of you would not have existed, my son," she said softly.

Mikey's eyes widened as he realized what they meant.

"So in order for him to keep thinking that, we can't let Shredder know we're related," said Leo with a serious expression.

Raph rolled his eyes. "It's not like we're gonna go tell him our life story, Leo."

"Your brother is correct, Raphael," said Yoshi sternly. "One slip could give the Shredder crucial information. From now on, you are forbidden to call Miwa by a familial name while out in the field."

Mikey's mouth turned into a pout. "But we can still call her Nee-chan and Sis at home right?"

The rest of the family had to smile fondly at Mikey's question.

"Yes, you can still call me that out of ninja mode," said Miwa with a grin.

Mikey beamed at her. "Good," he said darting over and hugging her. "Because you're our big sister, not some Foot Clan Witch."

Miwa patted him on the back. "And I wouldn't have it any other way."

A/N It said in the show that the Turtles were being trained super hard for a long while, but I figured Tang Shen wouldn't let Yoshi push them as hard as he did in the show. As you can see, Shredder still wants Miwa as his daughter even if he didn't steal her as a baby. The way I see it, having Karai to care for during those fifteen years gave him something to anchor him, but without her, he went even farther around the bend than he is in the show. He's not the weird Joker kind of crazy, but more the cold calculating insanity that makes him think that the terrible things he does are all within his rights, and anything challenging his delusions with reality can cause him to go into a rage. Miwa turning down his offer to be his daughter is one such challenge, and he's not happy about it.

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Disclaimer: I own nothing.