"NINJAS!" the mutants scream as they flee from their attackers.

They skid to a stop as more ninjas appears before them, weapons brandished.

"Where are we?" Leonardo demands.

"Not where are we, but when are we?" Donatello corrects. "We're obviously in Japan, but the time period is shaky."

A battle cry sounds as one ninja launches a kusarigama chain at the ground, wrapping it around Leonardo's katana. He gasps and tries to yank it back, but the ninja pulls harder and sends him rolling. The others launch into action immediately.

Michelangelo grips his nunchucks as he looks to the numerous ninjas surrounding him. They pop out from hiding spots behind trees and he's tackled to the ground before he can attempt a counterattack.

Donatello lurches to the side as a ninja leaps down at him. The ninja retaliates against his dodge swiftly, jabbing and slashing with a speed and skill that proves he's been working at ninjutsu for many more years than Donatello has. Donatello swerves and spins, narrowly evading the blows, and then the assailant's blade slices through his LARP costume beard.

"These guys are good!" he says, his hand hovering by the decimated remains of his beard.

"Oh shell, I'm so screwed," Destiny squeaks as she focuses on playing the defensive roll.

She leaps away from the various blades and chains swinging her way, her moves getting more and more sloppy in her desperation. Raphael battles near her, a pair of ninjas attacking him in perfect harmony as they push him further and further backwards. One cuts downwards, but the turtle catches the blade between his sais and shoves him off. The ninja retorts with two shuriken whipping at his face, which he also deflects.

One shuriken lodges in a tree trunk near where Leonardo is tussling with another warrior. His eyes widen when he notices a familiar insignia on the sleek weapon. It's the exact same insignia that's on the weapons that Splinter provides to them back at home.

"They're not just ninja, they're Hamato Clan! Splinter's clan—" he starts, but he gets elbowed in the gut by the ninja he's tussling with. The ninja spins around and shoves his head into the dirt.

"But the Hamato Clan doesn't exist anymore, right?" Raphael asks. He gets kicked backwards hard enough that his dwarf helmet comes off and he goes rolling over and over until he comes to a stop next to his exhausted siblings.

Destiny snarls, sheathing her sword. "Okay, that's it."

She morphs into a wolf and lets out a roar that seems to shake the entire forest. The ninjas shriek and back off, speaking in rapid-fire Japanese. The only speech that Destiny can catch is "yokai" and "ōkami", making her eyes widen. The ninjas recover from the initial shock and aim their weapons at the teenagers, their eyes narrowed with hostility as they move towards them.

"What is going on here?" a deep voice asks from behind the group. The mutants bristle.

Destiny returns to her human form in an instant, face paling. A man emerges from the crowd of ninjas, his dark eyes widening at the sight of the mutants. He's wearing the red clothes of the Hamato Clan and he's rather young, but that doesn't change the fact that the mutants know exactly who the brunet before them is.

"Yokai?" he gasps.

"Shredder?" Leonardo returns.

Shredder steps forward, his lips parted. "This cannot be."

Michelangelo releases a smoke bomb and all five teens disappear from view. The younger Shredder and his men wait for the smoke to clear, not even coughing. When it finally dissipates, he narrows his eyes.

"Saki-san, what were they?" one ninja asks.

"I do not know, but I will find out," he answers.

----------

The turtles and wolf leap away from the scene across the tree branches. Their costumes have disappeared, their normal clothing and gear back in place.

"Phew! Close call, dudes," Michelangelo calls. "Awesome save by Mikey, thank you very much."

"Oroku Saki was part of the Hamato Clan before he became the Shredder," Donatello says as he perches on a branch, peering out and watching for any more attackers.

"So we're at least sixteen years in the past, sometime around 1996," Leonardo guesses as he slides down a tree trunk to another branch. "But why here? Why now?"

"Who knows? Twenty bucks says it's all Renet's fault," Raphael growls. "She doesn't know the first thing about time travel!"

Destiny shakes her head, a stunned expression locked on her face. "None of us have been born, Diaval is three years old and somewhere in England and...somehow, Oroku Saki doesn't look half-bad..." The turtles give her the most horrified look they can muster, making her ears flatten. "Not like that! I'm just saying that he looks less scary! Geez!"

Leonardo places a hand over his heart. "Shell, that scared me."

"You and me both," Donatello mumbles.

"Yo, guys, check it," Michelangelo pipes up from a branch above them. He points out at a nearby building. "That's Splinter's old dojo, right?"

They crane to see above the tree-line, just able to see a flag bearing the Hamato Clan insignia waving in the breeze outside a far-off dojo. They stare at it for a second.

"Maybe Splinter's in there," Leonardo says. "Let's check it out."

----------

The turtles and Destiny peer inside the Hamato dojo, where they can see Saki and his men seated before an elderly man in white robes.

"I saw it with my own eyes," Saki says. "They were...small green men in strange costumes, and an ōkami whose face was marred with battle scars. Clearly the Yokai of legend."

A laugh sounds from a nearby doorway, making the spectating mutants perk up. "Yokai? Your imagination has run wild, Saki," another familiar voice says as a handsome man with dark hair comes into the room, holding a fan.

The teenagers gasp and duck from the doorway, eyes wide and heart pounding.

"Woah...human Splinter," Leonardo mumbles.

"He looks so weird without fur," Michelangelo says, peeking in again.

Raphael yanks him back from the doorway before he can be spotted. Destiny keeps her hands firmly clasped over her face as she crouches on the ground. The tips of her human ears have turned completely red.

"I'm so flustered right now," she whispers.

"Small green men? Spirits? Monsters? Your head has always been in the clouds, brother," Yoshi says as he walks into the room. He bats Saki's shoulder with his fan.

"Do not be too dismissive of the supernatural world, Yoshi," the elderly man at the head of the dojo says. "There are many dimensions, many beings that permeate what we call reality."

"My apologies, Father," Yoshi says as he sits down next to Saki. "Please continue, Saki. Let us hear more of this," he nearly laughs, "interesting tale."

Saki growls at the teasing look on his brother's face, his fists clenching. "Do not mock me, Yoshi," he demands. "I know what I saw."

Their Sensei coughs, his voice ragged. "Some legends say...when the Yokai arrives, tragedy is sure to follow."

Michelangelo looks to his siblings. "Dudes, these Yokai sound like trouble."

"He's talking about us, genius," Raphael mutters, slapping the back of his brother's head.

Noting the confusion on Michelangelo's face, Donatello says, "Yokai are mythical Japanese monsters."

Destiny looks up from her hands. "Splinter gave me a book on them a little while ago," she says. "They're pretty interesting. Tons of different types, different legends..."

The other ninjas leave the dojo so that Saki and Yoshi are alone. The men get to their feet and settle themselves into fighting stances.

"I tell you, Yoshi, we all saw them," Saki says. "The ōkami let out a roar that shook the forest. Surely, you heard it."

"I imagined that an ōkami is a silent creature," Yoshi retaliates. He smirks. "This is reminding me of the Yokai friends we invented as children. Remember, Saki?"

The two lunge, locking into battle mode.

"You never listen to me," Saki growls. "Just like—" He knees Yoshi in the gut. "—Tang Shen."

"Yet again you speak of Shen?" Yoshi asks, gritting his teeth.

"You care nothing for her. Only for the clan, only for yourself."

Yoshi gains the upper hand as Saki attempts to land a punch to his jaw. The first flips his brother over, smacking him to the ground. Pottery smashes nearby as a bowl rolls across the floor, aimless. Saki teems with anger, his knuckles white, and Yoshi stands over him.

"That is not true, brother," he says. His face is less teasing and more sorrowful now. "I have always been there for you."

He tries to reach out and help Saki up, but Saki smacks his hand away with another irritated growl. The mutants outside slam the doors shut and dash away. The two brothers just catch sight of their silhouettes before they can disappear from sight.

----------

"Chi chi chi chi chi," a bird sings nearby.

The turtles groan, clutching their stomachs as they sit around a campfire. Michelangelo hangs off a nearby tree branch, sticking his tongue out and making a noise of disgust.

"Ugh. We haven't had any real food in days," he whines, slumping off the tree and landing on the ground. "A turtle can't live on berries alone, bros." He dramatically reaches out to Raphael. "I'm feeling weak!"

Raphael shoves him away with an eye roll. "Is Renet ever gonna find us and bring us home? Seriously. I hate time travel," he pouts.

"I've been giving it some thought," Leonardo utters as he places more wood in the fire. "Kinda seems like more than just a coincidence we're here, right?"

"Well, the odds we're in this exact time and place by sheer accident is like eight-hundred seventy-nine quintillion to one, but if we're here for a reason, what is it?" Donatello inquires.

They ponder that for a moment. The forest breathes around them, the trees waving in the gentle breeze and making their fire wobble. Leonardo sighs and looks out at the spaces between the dark branches.

"Destiny's been gone most of the night," he comments.

"You know how she is in forests," Raphael says, draping his arms over his legs as he pokes the fire with a stick. "It's her element. She's probably overjoyed."

"Or...she's worried about everything that's going on and she wants to calm down. Diaval did get left behind in the jump," Donatello suggests. Nobody says anything, and he shifts as he rubs his chin. "I wonder what she knows about Yokai. She said Splinter gave her a book about them."

"Do you think he gave her that book from when we were kids?" Michelangelo asks. "Splinter used to read us those stories, remember? Tales of Old Japan? Man...those were the best."

"I liked the tongue-cut sparrow," Leonardo says with a drowsy smile. "Remember when Splinter tried to teach us how to speak Japanese?"

"I'm so rusty. We should brush up on it if we ever get home," Raphael says, his eyes starting to glint as his lip quirks. "Those ninjas before were talking so fast that I couldn't keep up."

Donatello laughs. "Same. All I got from it was yokai, ōkami, and something like devour. So...basically, monster wolf and whatever else. Not helpful."

"Destiny freaked them out so bad. I wish we could see their faces in an instant replay," Michelangelo admits.

There's a scuffling from the nearest bushes and their conversation dies. Destiny backs out of the foliage in wolf form, dragging something in her jaws. She drops whatever it is and turns to the turtles.

"Well, I did it!" she says, her giant tail wagging as she flashes a big, doggy smile.

"Did...what?" Leonardo wonders.

She shakes her large head to the bulky thing obscured by plants. "It took a while, but I finally caught a deer. We've got meat now!"

The turtles' mouths fall open.

"You went hunting?" Raphael asks.

"And you actually succeeded?" Donatello adds.

She nods. "I thought we could use some real food," she says. "Hold on, I've got this."

She grips the animal's heavy carcass in her jaws and drags it closer, still trying to keep it out of sight from her family. She returns to her humanoid form, looking down at her bloodstained hands with mild disgust.

"Oh wow...I probably look murderous," she mutters.

Leonardo gulps and looks to his brothers for validation. None of them want to admit it, but in the dim lighting of the fire and the shadows of the forest, she does look rather terrifying. The blood smeared on her from the hunt doesn't help.

Raphael's hand subconsciously drifts to his bicep and he runs one finger over the faint scar marring his skin.

"Um, yeah...it's a little scary," Leonardo admits.

"But it's just the lighting," Donatello adds.

Destiny sighs and gets her uchigatana from where she left it resting near Leonardo's spot. "I'll get the food ready, then I'll clean up," she says.

The turtles nod as their only response. The rumbling of their stomachs is louder than their hesitance about eating wild game.

A little while later, they roast chunks of venison over the fire. Destiny lays on the outside of the circle, wolf form and all, dragging her long pink tongue along her bloodied fur. She shifts into sitting position and ducks her head to her leg, licking along there too, then she wets her paw and rubs it against her muzzle.

"This is the strangest thing I've ever seen," Raphael whispers.

"Stop staring," Donatello scolds.

Leonardo glances up from his food to where Destiny is avidly working. "Des? You almost done?"

She makes a low barking noise in response as she shakes out her fur. She stops, licks her nose a few times, then sneezes. Michelangelo snorts, then claps a hand over his mouth when his brothers glare at him. Destiny shrinks back into her human state and wanders over to the fire, where she seats herself next to Leonardo. He hands her a chunk of meat that's skewered on a stick and she accepts it with a small smile. Once she has it, she wastes no time tearing into it.

The only sounds for a while consist of wind in the trees, chirping birds, crackling flames, and the smacking and chewing of the mutants eating.

"Thanks for the food, Destiny," Michelangelo says as he polishes off his third helping of deer. He licks some juice from his lips. "It's actually really good!"

"I agree," Donatello says with a nod. "We really appreciate it."

Raphael and Leonardo nod as well, but their mouths are full of meat. Destiny smiles, swallowing her mouthful with a satisfied hum.

"Yeah, you're welcome," she says. "I would say it was no problem, but...it wasn't easy."

More silence. Destiny finishes her food first and, once wiping her hands on her jeans, she pulls her uchigatana out and starts cleaning it with the edge of her shirt.

As she works, she says, "It was weird to hear Splinter laugh. I mean...he's done it before, but not like that. He looked so happy."

"Yeah," Leonardo agrees with a small sigh. "Speaking of Splinter, Des, you said something about Yokai before, that Splinter has talked to you about them."

She brushes the black streak in her curls behind her human ear. "We talked about my vision quest. He said that something in it reminding him of an okuri-ōkami, wolf Yokai." She shrugs and lifts her sword up, watching the blade glint in the firelight as her lips purse. "He said that he thought he saw one back in..." She trails off as her eyes widen. He sword falls back to her lap. "...back in Japan."

Skeptical looks pass between the brothers. Michelangelo snatches one more hunk of meat and wolfs it down as a log in the fire splits and collapses into the heart of the embers, sending sparks shooting into the night sky.

"So," Destiny says, putting her sword away. "Does anyone other than Mikey want more venison?" Three more hands go up. She flashes a fanged smile.