Unfortunately, it seems that FanFiction does not support HTML and links in works as of yet, otherwise I'd have added anchor links for all the story notes.

Ninja Tales

Volume 1 - Snowfall

Chapter 1

It was a quiet night in New York City. Unseen by the citizens of the 'City that never sleeps', shadows zipped along the buildings as figures seemingly danced through the air, moving from roof to roof.

"Cowabunga!" one of the figures yelled.

"Shut ya trap Mikey!" another hissed.

"Oooh...Raphy-boy is getting angry." Mikey practically sang.

"That's it Wise Guy..." Raph growled, "I'm gonna-"

"Raphael! Calm down!" a third voice called in a hushed tone.

"Yeah Raph. You're way too hot-headed." Mikey cood.

"Michelangelo!" the third voice snapped, "Raph is right, you know. This is supposed to be stealth training."

They stepped out into the moonlight to reveal three humanoid-turtles, each wielding a weapon and wearing a belt, knee and elbow pads, and a different coloured bandanna.

"Sorry Leo. I got a bit carried away..." Mikey, the one in orange wielded twin nunchaku, apologised before frowning, "Uh, wait a second…where's Donnie? Wasn't he with you?" he asked, causing the one in blue, with twin katanas, to tense up.

"He was right behind me a minute ago..." Leo frowned as he looked behind him, but seemed to stay calm, "I hope nothing happened to him."

"What if he was abducted by...aliens..." Mikey asked dramatically, his hands on his cheeks.

SMACK!

"Ow...Raph! What was that for?" Mikey glared at the Raph, in red with twin sais, as he rubbed the back of his head.

"For being a bonehead." Raph stated matter-of-factly.

"What? We've had actual invasions before..." Mikey pouted sourly.

Raph facepalmed and Leo just shook his head.

"Mikey, you read way too many comics." Leo groaned, "Come on we need to look for Don. Raph you cover in that direction and-"

"Mikey! Leo! Raph! Look what I found!" a voice interrupted them.

"Donnie!" a trio of relieved voices answered back.

A turtle in purple, with a wooden bō staff, joined the other turtles.

"You guys have to see this..." he pulled out a small, cloth-wrapped bundle, "My radar was picking up some strange energy readings that kept on stopping and reappearing at random..."

The bundle seemed to vibrate in his hands for a few seconds, before settling again.

"When I went to investigate, it turned out to be...whatever this is."

He undid the bindings and wrappings, revealing a small silver medallion. On the face of it was a delicate, almost calligraphy-like design of a flame in red.

"Oooh..." Mikey exclaimed as he moved closer for a better look, "What do you think it is?"

"No idea." Donnie shook his head, "I'd like to get it to the lab as soon as possible."

The medallion started glowing softly as it started vibrating again, causing Mikey to shriek in a comical way.

"Hmmm..." Leo frowned, "Odd..."

The vibration and glow had barely subsided when it started again, more powerful than the previous time.

"It's getting more frequent..." Donnie mused, "And more powerful..."

"Are you sure this is safe?" Leo wondered.

"I'm not sure..."

The pulses of glow and vibration kept on increasing in frequency and intensity. The brothers readied their weapons as the medallion as they watched a figure emerging…

Meanwhile, somewhere near the border of Land of Fire...

'I'm getting so sick of this! I wonder if I'll ever have a normal life...'

A young woman in her early twenties was running through a forest as her shoulder length silvery-white hair whipped in the wind behind her.

'Seriously ? Is fate out to get me or something?!'

She dived into some shrubs and with a quick roll came to halt in a crouching position. A second later four shadows whizzed past. She remained crouched for about three minutes before relaxing.

'That was way too close for comfort.' she thought with a suppressed sigh, 'Thank goodness I learnt how to suppress my chakra...'

She wiped her forehead before settling down into a crouch, and remained like that for a few minutes as she got her breathing under control.

'Well, looks like I'm safe for the moment so I better make the most of it.'

She silently stalked out of her hiding spot and moved as quietly as she could while avoiding a series of carefully set up traps. She suddenly felt a tiny chakra spike followed by a small shuffle and a twig snapping behind her.

'Oh, just great...Orochimaru's suck ups sure don't let up.'

Picking up her pace, she failed to see the trip wire in front of her, and her face had an incredibly unpleasant meeting with the ground.

"Over there! In the wire traps!" a voice shouted from behind a big tree.

'Ah crap!'

Managing to get up, she jumped up into the closest tree.

'Whaa...Why am I so clumsy?!' she almost cried, 'For goodness sake, woman, you're a bloody ninja!' she berated herself.

Jumping to the next branch, she slipped and had a second hard meeting with the ground. She winced as she pushed herself up and braced herself for the wrath of the Sound-nin on her tail. Just then she noticed a tree in front of her was hollow and scrambled inside.

'Guess this is the best I can do for now...'

She ran her fingers over the soft soil and felt something cold.

'Huh...what's this?'

She picked up the piece of metal and nearly gasped when she saw the design, but remembered not to give her location away.

'I feel like I've seen this somewhere…' she frowned.

As she turned it over to inspect it more, it started vibrating in her hands. Her surroundings began to fade away as she felt herself drift into unconsciousness…

The glow died down, and the emerging figure turned out to be an unconscious young slender woman with shoulder length, silvery-white hair. She was dressed in mostly black, a sleeveless top, three quarter pants and open toe boots. A small bag was strapped to her right leg.

"Oh...it's a...girl..." Mikey gave a relieved sighed.

Donnie frowned as he moved closer to her, noting that she was covered in light cuts, scratches, bruises and dirt.

"She looks like she got beaten up." Donnie frowned. "I wonder what happened to her."

"Looks like she's been through hell..." Leo murmured.

"Poor thing. Who the heck even does this to a girl?" Mikey frowned as he knelt down next to her. He suddenly shrieked, causing everyone to jump. Raph was just about to whack him over the head when he realised that Mikey was pointing at her in an overly excited manner.

"LOOK GUYS!" he exclaimed, "LOOK WHAT SHE'S HOLDING!"

Upon closer inspection, they found that she was holding a small metal object.

"It's the same medallion..." Raph noted when he took the object from her hand, "So was she transported here through it?"

"It's highly possible." Donnie agreed.

A small groan came from the girl, and she mumbled lightly. As soon as she opened her dark grey eyes, she practically flew to the opposite side of the roof, landing in a defensive stance.

"Anta, dare?!" [1] she demanded sounding extremely suspicious.

"Heh?" Mikey quipped, "What she say?"

The other three visibly deflated and stared at Mikey in utter disbelief.

"Mikey." Raph hissed through his teeth, "How? JUST HOW THE HELL DO YOU STILL NOT UNDERSTAND THE MOST BASIC OF JAPANESE?"

"Don't you pay any attention to Sensei's lessons?" Donnie facepalmed.

"Uh..." Mikey grinned nervously, "S-sometimes?"

"Ano...sumimasen..." [2] the girl spoke again, seeming a bit more relaxed as she looked them over in confusion.

"Hai?" Leo aked.

"Ano...dare ka? Eto...nani ka?" she asked.

"Eh...that was..." Mikey nudged his brothers.

"Guess it can't be helped." Raph sighed and begrudgingly started translating, "She asked 'Who are you? Or rather...what are you?' ."

"Isn't it more polite to introduce yourself first?" Leo asked her, causing her to bow her head in slight shame.

"Right..." she murmured "My name is Seiji Yuki." [3]

"Please to met you Seiji-san. I'm Hamato Leonardo, and these are my brothers..." he pointed to the three behind him, "Donatello, Raphael and Michaelangelo."

"Hi!" Mikey waved

"Uh...actually just Yuki is fine." She smiled nervously, "And what exactly are you guys?"

"We're mutated turtles." Donnie explained, and when she perked up at the answer he added, "It's a long story. A VERY long story."

"Ask her what happened!" Mikey whispered impatiently.

"Ah...your scars..." Leo started, a little unsure how to broach the subject, "What happened to you?"

"Oh, these?" she asked as she only now seemed to notice how bad she looked, "I managed to escape from the facility Orochimaru had imprisoned me."

"Orochimaru?"

"He's a trairtor...a missing nin...bloody cold hearted bastard who would do anything to get what he wants, mostly through experimenting on others..." she placed her hand over her heart as her eyes started tearing up, "...and because of my naiveness, I'm marked for life..."

"Sounds an awful lot like a certain agent we know..." Raph grumbled.

"I almost didn't make it..." she sighed, "Orochimaru's cronies had me backed into a corner. I found this...this thing...and the next thing I knew I woke up here..."

"You mean this?" Donnie asked as he held up the identical medallions.

"Yeah..." she nodded.

"Donnie found one of them earlier, and you appeared shortly after." Leo explained, "We believe it might have transported you here."

"I see..." she murmured. "Where is 'here', anyway?"

"Manhattan, in New York City." Leo stated

"Uh..." she gave him a questioning look.

"In the United States of America..."

"..." her expression became more puzzled

"...Earth..."

"Ok..." she frowned, "So how far away is this from the Land of Fire?"

"Land of Fire?" Leo gave her a questioning look "I've never heard of it..."

"Crap."

NOTES:

[1]
Anta dare?! (あんた誰?!)
A somewhat rude and forceful way of saying "Who are you?".

[2]
Sumimasen (すみません)
An extremely versatile Japanese word meaning somewhere along the lines of "sorry", "excuse me" or "pardon me".

[3]
Yuki Seiji (清治 雪; Seiji Yuki)

Yuki (雪) means snow
Seiji (清治) means refreshing/pure/clean + rule/govern