Before long a girl came panting to the last step before the gate. To Leo's surprise, she looked to be around their age. Her long black hair was held up in a pony tail, and Leonardo recognized the school uniform she was wearing. He'd seen them for sale around Hachioji while they'd been flying over rooftops at night on baby-supply runs. She took a deep breath and looked up.
"What?!" she cried, shocked. Was she in the right place? Hinata fairly gaped at the shrine. It's stone floor was swept clean. The temple was clean and shining. The water in the temizuya was clean and fresh. The dippers were no longer cracked. Even the gate seemed to glow with a new coat of paint, and the Shishi by them were free of moss. "This has got to be the wrong place." She murmured. But when she looked back, she saw what she always saw from the shrine. The long steps, the road below, Hachioji in the distance. She turned back. "Hello?" she called. "Is anyone there?" When no one replied, she walked cautiously towards the temizuya and began cleansing. When she turned to face the shrine, Hinata noticed something even more strange. A shadow sat behind the screen, where a diety would sit. But it was different. It was larger, for one, and the shape was unfamiliar to her. Other than the sillouette seemed to be sitting, it looked too odd to be a god. Hinata forced the urge to peek at it around the screen and simply clapped her hands in prayer. "Please let my grandmother get better." She murmured. Hinata then looked back at the gate, then shook her head. Usually, she couldn't get out of the shrine fast enough, but this time. . . she wanted to explore. There had to be a reason why everything was so clean. Besides, she felt she should thank whoever it was that had cleaned the place up. Her grandmother was going to be thrilled that her favorite shrine had been so beautifully restored.
Hinata walked around the temple portion of the shrine, slightly surprised to see a housing complex a little ways away from the temple. Really, it made sense, but she had never stayed long enough to notice it. Cautiously, she called in the open doorway. "Hello?" no answer. What was she doing? Spying on someone who had cleaned up the shrine? They wouldn't be pleased. She turned to go when all of a sudden a gooing sound called from inside the home. "Is that . . . a baby?" Hinata muttered, and without another thought she slipped off her shoes and walked into the open door. "Is anyone here?" she could still hear the baby, but it seemed to be somewhere above her. Hinata looked up out of curiousity, and screamed.
On the ceiling, like some sort of giant spider, was a large, green turtle, wearing a red mask and holding a baby. He gripped the ceiling as if it were nothing, but his eyes grew wide and his mouth set in a grim line when she screamed.
"Way to go, baby. Some ninja you are," Raph said in English, before dropping to the floor. Hinata continued to scream, but her voice began to grow weak with fear as the monster. . . the kappa . . . approached her. Legend or no, this thing was huge and strange and terrifying and it spoke in another language! Hinata belatedly caught a word she recognized. "baby." Was it speaking English? Did it understand Japanese? She sucked in her breath and sat down, scooting towards a corner of the kitchen rapidly. The Kappa continued to talk to the baby as if she weren't there.
"I guess I'd better go put you down before we deal with this mess." Raph said to Miwa. The baby just smiled up at him. Raph felt his heart grow soft. It was hard to stay angry at her. She was, after all, just a baby.
"Don't give me that smile, trouble-maker." He said, gently tousling her hair with one large finger. The turtle then looked at Hinata. "Wait here." He said in Japanese, then left to retrieve the basket from the corner of the room where he had stashed it when he'd heard the warning that a human was approaching. He placed the baby gently in the basket and gave her the rattle that lay next to her before turning back to the girl.
"What kind of person invades someone else's home?" he asked in clear Japanese. "Isn't that supposed to be bad luck?" Hinata's mouth fell open. She didn't know what she'd expected from the Kappa, but it hadn't been a scolding. "Seriously, you should be more careful. What if someone had been waiting to kidnap you or something." Raphael went on. In his opinion it was pointless to pretend she hadn't seen him, and even more pointless not to talk to her.
"I. . . I'm deeply sorry for intruding." Hinata said, kneeling up and bowing. Her body shook, but she hoped the kappa wouldn't see. "I noticed that the shrine had been cleaned up, and I wished to thank the person who had done so. My grandmother has visited this shrine for years, and this cleaning will surely bring her much joy."
"You don't have to talk so formally." Raph said. "And I guess that makes sense. Plus, I guess you can't really ignore a crying baby." Raphael smirked and called over his shoulder in Japanese, "Hear that, Donnie? Someone ELSE is happy you're a god!" An exasperated sigh followed and within moments a tall kappa in a purple, black, and white kimono with a purple mask walked through the door. "Raph, what happened to being a silent ninja? Or did you forget how to be one in the last ten seconds?!" he said angrily. Hinata looked at the newcomer with wide eyes. He looked different from the first kappa, and not just because he was clad in a handsome kimono. He seemed to her eyes to be slightly glowing. But right now he was glaring at the other kappa, hands on his hips.
"Donnie's right, Raph. You should've just moved." Yet another turtle joined the glowing purple one, this one with a blue mask around its face. Finally, a shorter turtle with what looked like freckles on his cheeks and an orange bandana around his eyes walked in, smirking. "You stink at being a ninja, Raph." The turtle teased.
Raphael felt his cheeks get hot. "It wasn't me, it was Miwa! What was I supposed to do? She looked RIGHT AT ME." Leonardo sighed. It couldn't be helped. They had been seen. However, it was oddly comforting. Being in a foreign nation was strange enough. Even if it was giving their rusty Japanese a workout, it still didn't feel like home. Maybe a friend would change that. He turned to the girl.
Hinata watched the proceedings with amazement. The way these kappa behaved was unlike anything she had heard about in legends of old. Weren't Kappa supposed to be tricksters? Didn't you have to feed them cucumbers? Or perhaps these kappa had performed a trick in stealing a human baby, and they were going to kidnap her, too! She gulped as the turtle in blue turned his sea-blue eyes on her.
"Greetings." Leonardo bowed respectfully to the girl. Might as well be polite, since they had to somehow convince her not to run around screaming about how Kappa now lived in the local shrine. "My name is Leonardo. These are my brothers, Donnatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael." Leo gestured to his brothers as he introduced them, and each of them bowed, except Raph, who just nodded.
For a long moment, Hinata didn't react. Then, she moved to a kneeling position and bowed back. "My name is Hinata, Turtle-sama." She paused. "What are you . . . what are you going to do with me?" The turtles turned towards each other silently, then back at her.
"Well, nothing, really," Leo said at last. "So long as you keep us a secret." Donnie added. "We don't exactly want people knowing we're here." Raph put in. "It would make it harder with all the tourists." Mikey said. Leo, Raph, and Donnie looked at him, exhasperated. "What? You think they wouldn't come to see a real turtle-god?" Mikey asked. Donnie rolled his eyes. "To be honest, I hope no one else sees me like this."
"I wasn't talking about you, bro, I was talking about me!" Raph smacked his youngest brother.
"Shut up, Mikey."
"Um." Hinata didn't know how to interact with these beings. On the one hand, they should have been at least a little respectful towards each other. On the other hand, they acted just like a family of brothers would act. There was something very human about these kappa.
"Let's start by having some tea." Leo said, offering a hand to Hinata to pull her up. "How does that sound?" Hinata nodded. She still didn't feel comfortable around these kappa, but something about the way they acted set her at ease. Perhaps it was because they acted so normal, for giant talking turtles.
Over steaming cups of green tea (prepared expertly by Leonardo), and milk (which Raph fed to Miwa) the kappa began their story. "We're really from New York City." Leo started. "We came her to Japan because. . ."
"A training exercise," Donnie put in. "Yeah." Leo continued And we saved this baby girl, Miwa, from a fire. But we saw her mom die, so we're going to take care of her until we get back to New York in a year."
"And along the way, we found this shrine," Raph added,
"And then Donnie became a god and has to grant wishes now, and the Shishi cleaned up the place for us so we could live here." Mikey finished.
"I. . . see." Hinata said. She really didn't but she took another sip of her tea to think on it. "But you are Yokai. Why would Yokai need to train? Why would a Yokai become a god?" From what she had heard about Yokai, they were hardly god-material, as unbelievable as it was that one of them had been named a god.
"Well . . ." Each of the three eldest turtles wracked their brains for an excuse to this, but before they could come up with something, Mikey chose the simplest route; the truth.
"Nah, we're not yokai. We're mutants. We used to be regular turtles, then we got mutated, and now we're mutants!" Hinata's eyes widened. Mutants? No way. That sounded like it was straight out of a manga!
Donnie sighed. No point in going back now. "It's true. We're a combination of turtle and human DNA. We have been trained in Ninjitsu ever since we were young by our sensei and father."
"Where is he, now?" Hinata asked, curious. Even if this was something straight out of a manga, it was interesting, to say the least. The turtles' shoulders slumped visibly.
"Back in New York." Leo said softly. How could they tell her that on top of everything else, they had time-traveled? How could they explain that their sensei was also a mutant rat, and that he was currently in Japan, suffering from a broken heart? No, best to keep the story as simple as possible.
Hinata left it at that and finished her tea, then stood. "Thank you for the tea. And thank you for not kidnapping me. And for telling me who you are. I know my grandmother will be very pleased at the state of the shrine, but this might mean that you will have more visitors, Turtle-sans."
Leo smiled awkwardly. "Thanks for the warning. But I think we can stay hidden."
"So long as miss noisy here doesn't make too much of a ruckus." Raph said, shaking a finger gently at the baby and giving her a mock-stern look. Miwa just laughed. Hinata looked at the scene again of the four boys . . . turtles, she reminded herself, and felt a twinge. They didn't seem like bad people at all. In fact, they seemed like they were her age. To have been trained all their lives in Ninjitsu, then sent halfway across the world….. and to be taking care of a baby for a year! Her heart went out to them despite herself. Hinata didn't have younger siblings, but she had always wanted a younger sister. And this little family made her comfortable in a way that not even her grandmother (of whom she was very fond) achieved. She bowed again.
"I am sorry to have disturbed you. I wish to know if I may visit again, turtle-sans." It was better to be respectful to these turtles, even though she already felt so much sympathy for them. Since she had her head bowed, she didn't see the shocked look each of the boys wore. She also didn't see the growing smiles soon after between each of them, and a shared nod between them.
"Of course. But please, just call us by our nicknames. We prefer that."
The turtles saw her to the gate, where she waved at them one last time before walking down the steps. She turned one last time, but to her surprise the turtles were nowhere to be seen. Hinata continued down the steps and glanced at her watch. "AH! I've been there for an HOUR?!" She'd have to come up with a good excuse for her grandmother as to why she'd spent an hour at a shrine that was supposed to be run-down. And whatever it was, it couldn't be more unbelievable than the truth.
