Episode 1: The Black Flower – Part 1

Hot rain hit black pavement in the downtown Japan streets. Blooming green canopies sprung up randomly through the black office buildings and tile sloped homes. Despite having been here a year, Ethan was still not used to rain that felt more like sweat. Ethan crouched against the building, pulling a coat against his fur and the hood more tightly over his head to make sure if he should be seen, that he wouldn't shock anyone with his red panda complexion. He could feel the weight of his naginata against his back and he fingered the bottom of the wooden handle of the weapon.

Down below on the narrow streets of the tiny town of Seto in Aichi Ken he could see people pulling up their coat collars and pulling out see-through umbrellas. One of the trains had just deposited a troop of Japanese students dressed in their school navy blue school uniforms with golden crests stamped on their chest. The girls skirts swished around their thighs. One giggled at something a boy with particularly spiky hair had said. Another looked down at the glowing screen of their phone decorated with anime charms, her black hair done up in pigtails and her umbrella balancing on her shoulder.

Ethan felt a shadow move next to him from his perch on one of the nearby wooden homes. The tiles below his feet were slippery with the rain. "Have you seen her yet?" Jess whispered, her own coat pulled tight around her white fur. Her green bandanna was tied around her eyes and tucked into the sides of her belts were her typical kama blades.

Making sure to keep himself hidden on the roof by tucking his belly closer to the tiles he shook his head. "Not yet." He said quietly back. "Kaela is ready though in the alleyway to stop her."

"This is crazy." Jessica said over the pounding sound of the rain, the dark clouds above them boiling and darkening most individuals vision – but their mutated animal eyes made life easier for them. Ethan smiled against the warm wind as it blew water into his whiskers. After a year, he finally felt closer to figuring out their past once and for all. Ethan glanced down from the roof into the dark alleyway. He could see Kaela waiting, alone, near wooden crates filled with old dusty bottles that were finally getting washed by nature. Her tail whipped behind her, hardly able to see from the black blending into the dark. "There she is." Jess said.

Ethan quickly looked up from the alleyway, brushing the dripping water from the red fur above his eyes. Jess was right. A girl had appeared – a teenager like the rest that were exiting the train. But she was distinct – she was American for one. She had short brown hair that hung around her ears and down to the nape of her neck. Although her hair and brighter brown eyes made her stand out among the Japanese, her short height fit them incredibly well. She had a Pokémon backpack slung on her back, kuma charms falling from the zippers, brown with cute black eyes. Her umbrella was decorated with Pikachu and slung from her arm were a pair of ice skates.

Ethan already knew a lot about this girl.

Kaitlin was her name. When she wasn't at the ice skating rink practicing, she was at school studying ancient Japanese lore, ancient myth, and cultural history. She was even more brilliant at studying than she was at ice skating and that was saying something. "Get ready, Kaela." Jess hissed down the alleyway.

Kaitlin brushed the brown hair past her ear and made her way down the long alleyway. For a few moments she skipped about the puddles, the blades on her skates clanking together, but then she stopped when she saw Kaela emerge from the dark of the alley in her coat and stand across from her.

"Now." Ethan said.

Without a moment of hesitation, Jess and Ethan jumped down into the narrow pass made by the two wooden houses. "Don't worry, we won't hurt you." Kaela said softly in the darkness.

Kaitlin brought one of her ice skates up like a weapon, the blade out. "Touch me and I'll beat the heck out of you with these!"

Kaela's softness didn't have the effect that Ethan had hoped.

Bringing her hands up, Kaela tried to recover, "No! Really! We don't want to hurt you! We just want your help!"

Kaitlin turned to see Ethan and Jessica blocking the other exit to the alleyway, their hoods up to cover their faces, their hands behind their back to avoid her seeing claws or fur. Ethan figured that would be incredibly difficult to explain in an alleyway. Kaitlin watched them, looking them from the top of their hoods to the bottom of their shoes. "Forget it." She said. "I'm not interested in helping random strangers in an alleyway." She walked towards Kaela, lifting her ice skate above her head, ready to strike as she slowly stepped up to her. Kaela bowed her head to cover her black panther face.

They didn't meet eyes and Kaitlin sidled past Kaela's figure down the alleyway, her umbrella still slung over her shoulder. "Just…leave me alone! I have enough school to deal with without dealing with creepers." She then turned and walked out of the alleyway, disappearing behind the corner.

Ethan could hear the sound of her rain boots slamming against the pavement as she sprinted away from the alley. For a moment he thought he heard other, softer feet up above on the roof and he quickly looked up. Ethan could have sworn he saw a dark shadow slink back down from the peek of the roof and into the rain.

Shaking his head, Ethan glanced at Jess. "That didn't work out the way I thought it would." He said.

"This is stupid." Jess said, "What would this Kaitlin girl know that we couldn't find on a Google search?"

Kaela chuckled, "A lot. Despite what the world may think, not everything can be found on the internet. And if the answers we were looking for were just on Google, we would have found in the last year of searches."

"Feel's like we haven't really gotten anywhere." Jess said.

"Well, we have gotten somewhere." Ethan replied, folding his arms across his chest. "When we visited Nanao a few months ago, I'm positive the cape was the same spot that I keep seeing in my dreams. The cliff sides and the trees looked similar."

Kaela pulled her hood down over her head further to keep the dripping water out of her eyes. "So . . . you think that Kitsune really is our Mom?"

"Yes." Ethan said slowly. "I have seen her in my dreams – I would say they are memories, but honestly it doesn't make a lot of sense. The dreams make it seem like I am living in Feudal Japan. And that doesn't make a whole lot of sense since we woke up in downtown New York City in modern America." The thinking was making his brain hurt and he rubbed his temples from under his hood.

"You're right," Jess said, "That doesn't make any sense at all. You must be crazy or something." She grinned at Ethan from under her hood and Ethan shoved her shoulder with a chuckle.

"Hey guys, look at this." Kaela pointed over to the side of the building. Ethan stepped next to Kaela to glance closer at the old wooden walls. A symbol of a sakura flower had been painted in black on the wall, surrounded by a large black circle. "Kinda cool right? It remind sme of the Hamato Clan symbol." Kaela said.

"Or the Foot Clan symbol." Jess added.

"C'mon, let's go home."

Off one of the side streets of Shinseto Ethan, Jess, and Kaela had found an old abandoned apartment. (The locals called them Danchi's.) The whole apartment from top to bottom was deserted and old. It was hedged in by a bamboo forest and they had managed to grab materials from some of the apartments, nearby dollar stores, and other locations to make a suitable living space near the top of the apartments near an old shrine made of wood with a dusty, empty coin box. The tatami mats had been mostly without disrepair and the space heater still worked. They had found several dusty futons that they had beaten out and Kaela had managed to set up a computer up against the side of the wall.

A few still dirty dishes from the morning were stacked near the stove. They each took off their coats and hung them up just outside the genkan where they put their shoes and Jessica ran over to the space heater and turned it on to help dry them out more.

Kaela immediately turned on the computer and began typing away. Ethan plopped onto his futon and watched Kaela work, knowing that she was checking her email to get an update from the turtles back in New York. He waited for her excitement and it came.

"Donatello sent an email!" She said.

"Read it aloud." Jess requested from the corner with the space heater, the rain speckling the glass of the sliding glass door behind her.

Kaela leaned in, adjusted her seat and began to read:

Dear Kaela, Jessica, and Ethan,

I hope everything is going well for you out there in Japan! Things are going great here! At least, I think they are. Raphael still spends all of his time sleeping and Mikey is gone most of the day doing his Cowabunga Carl Party Service job. He loves it maybe a little too much. If he isn't there, he is sleeping on the couch with the TV on.

I've been enjoying the IT Tech support job as much as anyone could. You get weird callers sometimes. The other day I got one where I called them Sir instead of Ma'am and they blew up on me. So that is always great. April and Casey come over on occasion but April has still been doing some final jobs for Winter's Corp.

Leo hasn't come back yet.

His training ended a year ago and still he hasn't shown up. Splinter seems to be okay with it and keeps telling us to be patient, but honestly I'm worried. April said she is going on a final exhibition in South American near where Leonardo is and she said she would look around for him. Here's hoping she finds him.

Hope you guys are finding what you are looking for too and that we see you guys again soon. We miss you.

Donnie

Ethan listened as Kaela finished the email and then she began busily typing away again, not asking Jess or Ethan if they had anything they wanted to say.

And Ethan didn't.

A year – and still he had gotten no where. He sighed and turned on his side on his futon, his tail waving wearily behind him from being crushed lying on his back. As he turned he suddenly noticed something.

Outside in the wet and the rain was a black ribbon and something that looked like white, damp paper tied to one of the clothing lines that was moving in the wet wind. Ethan stood up and glanced at his sisters. Kaela was still typing, her face inches from the screen. Jessica had her eyes closed and was crouched on the floor, her body tight against the corner of the walls and her chest moving slowly. Ethan slowly opened the glass door to make sure he didn't cause too much noise and then he pulled the piece of white paper from the clothing line along with the black ribbon and slowly opened the damp paper.

A few word were written in drippy, smudged black ink:

Meet me in the abandoned subway by your apartment.

Ethan looked up from the note at Kaela who was still typing away and Jess that was now snoring quietly. He snatched up his naginata and buckled it onto his back. "I'll be right back. I'm just going to go for a walk." He said.

"Be careful." Kaela called after him.

"I will."

He shut the door behind him quietly. The rain was still pattering down from long bamboo green leaves. The warmth hit him like he had walked into a hot shower. The little broken down shrine was damp and gave off a papery smell. Ethan pulled his coat over his red, black, and white fur and he tucked his tail behind him. He put on the black gloves to make sure his claws were hiding as well and tightened the white bandanna behind his head.

He stepped down the multiple flights of stairs of empty apartments and out into the water. The gutters bubbled next to him as he made his way down a deserted street that was small enough to be a walking path in America. Water dripped into old rusted buckets among the streets and grass grew in unkempt patches around old wooden houses. This neighborhood was older than Master Hamato Ethan guessed.

Just around the corner was a pair of old, broken cement steps that led down into the dark underbelly of a subway that had once functioned, leading people back into Seto proper, but it had been shut down for a while now which meant that Ethan, Jessica, and Kaela had a longer commute back home each day.

Ethan made his way down the stairs as quietly his possible, his hand gripping his naginata behind him. He tried to think of who could have possibly sent the note. Shredder? The Turtles? Maybe Kaitlin had followed us home and she is waiting with a brigade of police officers to take me out. Ethan tried not to let his imagination run to wild as he imagined armored SWAT teams with AK-47's pointed at him.

A naginata wouldn't do much against that.

He slowly turned the corner, giving one last long exhale before he did and he whipped out his naginata from behind him into battle ready position, keeping the hood lowered over his face to ensure that his mutant form wouldn't be noticed.

A figure was standing on the other end of the tunnel. They too were wearing a long black coat with a hood up, their hands behind their back. The tunnel was dark but Ethan could make out a slim build from the flickering yellow lights on either side of the tunnel.

"Who are you?" Ethan asked slowly inching forward. "Why did you want to meet me here?"

The figure laughed and the voice sounded familiar. "You didn't guess it was me, huh?"

Ethan couldn't believe it. He pulled off the hood from his face.

"Ashina?"

The wolf pulled her own hood off to reveal black fur and beautiful glimmering eyes, a pleasant smile on her face. "Haven't seen that cute red panda face in a while." She said.