My name is Hamato Yoshi.
I was born in a small town near the foot of Mount Fuji, just outside of the Aokiga Forest for which it is known so well. My clan, the Hamato Clan, lived there for centuries along with our brother clan, Ashi. The Foot Clan.
In generations past, there were many of us. Multiple blood lines, multiple families, all woven together into a powerful force of nature, and the same could be said for the Ashi Clan. But as years went on and technology took over, many our ninja left the clan to pursue the world and its advancements. Pretty soon, the Ashi Clan was wiped out, and all that was left of the once mighty Hamato Clan dwindled down to just one family: my own. My father, the last ninja master, had only two sons. Me, the eldest, and my younger brother Hamato Saki.
My father trained us in the art of ninjitsu, day and night. Taught us to shun the technology of the outside world, and to instead embrace the legacy bestowed upon us. From a young age, Saki and I were very close. We fought and argued, of course, like all brothers do, but at the end of the day we loved each other dearly.
As is traditional in our clan, my brother and I were given nicknames to honor our honed skills. Saki with his blade, powerful and swift, able to shred through any obstacles in his path. Me with my staff, accurate and cunning, able to splinter even the strongest of wood. As we grew, our skill did the same, and it wasn't long before we both matched our father in strength and skill, and he named me his Chünin.
Chünin is the highest honor a ninja can have, aside from Master. It's the heir, the next in line to become a master of his clan. And it was I who received that honor, much to my brothers discontent. Jealously grew in his heart in much the same way mold would creep over an apple or decay spreading across a corpse. I was a fool to ignore that dangerous sign, but he was my brother, and we were blood. Together, my brother and I began the most important mission of our young lives, a tradition held by every member of our clan before us: Traversing the dangers of Mount Fuji and facing the trials necessary to reach the top, and to reach The Temple of Kodaibito.
We spent months there, learning things even our fathers father wouldn't be able to teach. Knowledge that is forbidden to know but known within us all the same. The knowledge you, my sons, must one day obtain when your training nears its completion. You will meet a master there, as Saki and I did, and he will show you all you need know.
My brother and I left that temple two different men, and when we returned home all we had waiting for us was the sorrowed passing of our beloved father. With his death, I became the Master of my clan, and it was just me and my brother. As time went on, we grew apart as brothers often do. Saki wanted a family, children to carry on his legacy and a wife to adore. Me? I couldn't have been more different. I longed for adventure, to see the world beyond the walls my father set for me. Then I realized— I could!
I traveled to America— not just America, but one of its biggest and brightest cities: New York. And it was glorious! For a time. With my skill and fitness, I became a quick stunt double, and eventually I was even doing my own movies! I could've almost forgotten about my life back home, had it not been for a message I received from Saki years later. An invitation to his wedding!
I was so happy for him that I immediately took leave and went back to my homeland to meet with him. His fiancé was a beautiful woman named Tang Shen, with long silky hair and beauty enough to rival the sun. And I fell in love, as did she, but I tried to keep my distance. My brother pulled me aside some time before the wedding to tell me something important: He wanted to rebuild the Ashi Clan. He wanted to become the master of his own clan, and to bring back our brother Clan any way necessary. But I refused it of him.
We already had too few members as it was, his and Tang Shen's children would be the next great generation of elite Hamato Ninja. He was furious, but after a time he accepted my decision, so I thought. As the day of the wedding neared, Tang Shen and I grew close. Very close. Pretty soon, we were seeing each other every night, until Saki found us out.
In a blind rage, Saki challenged me to a Desumatchi, a death duel. I begged his forgiveness at the cost of my own honor, and he demanded I either fight or commit seppuku. But I refused. If I was going to die I would do it fighting, and so I accepted his challenge and we were to duel at dawn. I hardly slept that night; every warrior instinct inside me screamed that something was not right. And then I smelled the smoke.I knew immediately that he had committed hitsuke, the act of distracting your enemy with fire.
The plumes of smoke painted the air in the the dojo black, and crept into my lungs like a sickness taking hold. A ninja relied not on sight; the stinging in my eyes were but a minor drawback. Then came the coughing, the disorientation. I searched and searched, but for the life of me I couldn't find an exit— or even saki! I truly thought I would die in that fire.
Somehow I managed to crawl my way out of the ashes and into the night air. It was there I found Saki waiting for me, blade in hand, to take my life. But as he raised his sword to deliver a killing blow, another body flung themselves on top of me. The blow was strong and an instant later, Tang Shen lay dead in the field flowing with her innocent blood.
I ran into the forest, and somehow even in my weakened state I escaped. I know not if Saki pursued me, but if he did I evaded him long enough to reach a city, and from the city an airport back to America where I tried my best to return to return to my old life, knowing I could never return home. Three years passed before something incredulous happened.
I was walking home one day, just near a crosswalk. An old blind man was crossing the street. An out-of-control truck came speeding down the road. I pushed the old man out of the way, but out from the back of that truck came a canister that bounced and struck me in the eye, shattering and coating me in the green ooze within. Blind in agony I stumbled into the alley as my body pulled and twisted and bubbled into a monstrous new form.
My teeth became sharp and jagged, and my skin grew a layer of thick white fur. My ears rounded off and my hands became paws. Pretty soon, all of me was different. I had a tail! I fled up a fire escape and onto a roof where water from a recent rainfall had collected, and I saw myself for the first time. My new self.
I knew it must be some sort of karma for my misdeed, reborn by saṃsāra into a rat to atone my sin. I don't remember much of that time. Most of it I'm sure was spent on alleys and gutters, hiding from sight, using the shadows to mask my shame. My meals came from the trash, the scraps people left behind. You'd be shocked how much food goes to waste. My life was like that for maybe a year from what I could tell, before one night I saw the same van that had mutated me driving down the road. The search for answers pressed me to follow it from the rooftops.
I planned to cut it off at an otherwise empty intersection, but I miscalculated. I thought it was moving slower than it was, and I got there almost the same time. No time for them to stop. There was an accident, and I was struck before the van skidded to a stop.
When I woke up, I couldn't move. I was in a glass tube, bound by my hands and legs, with tubes piercing my skin and taking my blood. There was a man there, just an empty face among thousands in my mind. I can't recall his features— my head ached too much to care. But I saw what he was doing. He was taking my blood and filtering it, drawing from it the mutation ooze that corrupted me.
I saw him put the substance in a container and, one by one, place four tiny turtles inside. A snapping turtle, a red eared slider, a softshell, and a little box turtle. Within moments, they began to change. Their stumpy legs grew almost human, and they grew, and grew, and grew. Their heads doubled, their eyes flashed white, and where there had once been nothing but a beak grew teeth. Alongside their own mutation, each seemed to take on attributes of the ones before them.
The snapper grew fangs and uneven teeth, poking out over his lips like my own and his eyes grew a reddish-pink hue.
The slider grew strong, with muscles to rival the predecessor even in his narrow form. A lime green streaked in gold, red trailing from his eyes like tears of blood.
The softshell grew a mighty tail to match the snapper, the green spots on his skin and shell fading into a soft gray sheen, the tear streaks from eyes fading to purple,
The smallest box turtle went from brown to green, but his yellow-Orange streaks remained.
I didn't know what that man had planned for those poor little children— for that was what I saw them as. Nothing but young children, ranging from newborn, to infant, to toddler. All I did know what that I couldn't let him. I escaped, and that lab went up in flames just as my dojo had. The smoke offered us enough cover to escape into the alley and away from that dreadful place.
It took some time to come to terms with what had happened. You boys grew at an exponential rate. It seemed every week you would double or triple in size. You were quick to outgrow the small box that had been our home, and I knew that I would have someplace better, and fast. Three months passed until something extraordinary happened: one of you spoke! Soon you were all talking! You were sentient after all! So I knew I needed to give you names.
Raphael, after Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino.
Leonardo after Leonardo Da Vinci.
Donatello after Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi.
Michelangelo after Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni.
My favorite renaissance artists; and my new sons.