Chapter Text
Ryoko crouches on top of a building looking out at the crowded market of the Hidden City. This was the perfect place to find people who wouldn't even notice if an item or two they carried went missing. Her eyes scanned the crowd for the best target. That's when someone catches her eye, a turtle wearing blue.
Nothing about what he wore screamed that he had money. he only was wearing a belt, gloves, socks and mask, all in the same shade of blue. But what caught Ryoko's eye were the two swords on his back. Even in their sheath she could tell they were fine blades, they could probably be worth at least something.
So she makes her way down to a nearby alley way, making sure not to lose her target. She sneaks her way into the crowd, making her way closer to the blue clad turtle. He seemed to be alone and looking around, like he wasn't sure where he was going but he had a determined look in his eyes. He was looking for something.
Ryoko was close enough now that she could touch him if she wanted to. She had to wait for the best moment. She waited and waited.
Then the moment came, he gasped as a wide smile grew on his face. This was her chance! She went for one of the swords. Even though she was about a head shorter than the turtle and he was about to break out into a run, she was able to grab the handle of the sword and as he started to run away she slipped the sword out of it's sheath. She hid the sword against her body, obscuring as much of it as she could with her hooded vest and began to quickly retreat from the area.
"HEY!"
She glanced back at the voice, only to see the turtle, who was now glaring in her direction. Her eyes widen, he caught on much faster than she expected.
Ryoko began to run into the nearest alley, her grip tightened on the sword.
She ran and ran. She was used to running but her lungs began to hurt with how fast she pushed herself to go. She looked around here to see if the turtle was still following her. The alleyway was empty. She leaned against one of the buildings, trying to catch her breath. She moves the sword away from herself so she can examine the blade closer. It really was a nice blade, well made and strong looking. She could even sense a little mystic energy from it.
"This will be worth a lot, maybe it will even be enough..." She got out between breaths.
Then a blinding blue light appeared in front of her. A second later that light took form as the turtle in blue that she stole from. His hand on the hilt of the sword now. The stripes that were on his body were glowing slightly but the glow faded as fast as he had appeared.
Ryoko's eyes widened and her body froze a bit. Where did he come from!? How did he catch up so quickly!? Her thoughts raced
The turtle glared at her, then a smirk formed on his face.
"So wanna tell me why you took my sword?" He questioned as he tightened his grip on the sword as he tried to pull it closer to him.
Ryoko snapped out of her shock and glared at him, she used what strength she had to pull the sword back towards her. But man, this turtle was pretty strong! Strength was already not her strong suit but she also was pretty tired from the run.
"Why should I tell you?" She snapped.
"Uh because you tried to take MY sword!"
Ryoko clicked her tongue. She knew she was gonna lose this whole situation, so she let's go of the sword.
"WOAH!" The turtle stumbled back. "Now was that so hard?" The turtle teased. "So do you wanna tell me now why you tried to take my sword?" He twirled his sword around in the air before putting it back in its sheath.
"No. Why do you even care?" Ryoko questioned as she tightened her hood around her face.
"Well it's not everyday I get pickpocketed. You got some skills, not just anyone would be able to sneak up on me and steal something from me, especially one of my swords!"
Ryoko stays silent.
"How old are you anyway? You're some kind of orange wolf yokai or something?" He asked looking at her tail.
"I'm a kitsune!" She yells, ripping her hood off her head. She is a red fox with messy long hair tied in a loose braid. Her hair started as a bright orange like her fur and shifted into her dark brown fur that was on her arms and legs. One of her ears has chunk missing from it. "And if you really need to know, I'm thirteen." She crosses her arms tight to her chest.
"Oh a fox, yeah that's what I meant. But man, you're thirteen, that makes you younger than my baby bro! He's just about to turn fourteen in a week, that's actually why I'm our here looking for an awesome present to prove I'm his best big brother."
If Ryoko had eyebrows one of them would be raised. "how many siblings do you have?"
"I have three brothers, but I'm the second oldest which means I'm the coolest. OH and we have a sister too!"
"Must be nice having such a big family..."
"It's the best!"
Ryoko looked away from the turtle, not looking at anything in particular.
"HEY WAIT! I love talking about myself but we were talking about you!"
"Why do you even care?" Ryoko repeated.
"Like I said, you got skills and I'd hate to see those skills be used for something like theft." He places a hand on his chin, thinking. After a few seconds the metaphorical light bulb lit above his head with a snap of his fingers. "Hey, we haven't introduced ourselves yet. I'm Leo."
"Ryoko..."
A wide grin appears on Leo's face. "Well Ryoko, what do you say about becoming a ninja?"
Her attention is pulled back to the turtle in front of her. "Ninja?"
"Yeah, my family and I all have these sick ninja skills and I think you could do well as a ninja. I've never taught anyone before but what do you say, wanna try becoming a ninja?" The red-eared slider held out his hand.
Ryoko looks down at his hand, confused.
"What are you getting out of this deal?" She questioned.
He places his outstretched hand on his chest and gasped "What, you don't think I just want to do this out of the goodness of my heart! I can tell you that I indubitably only get the satisfaction of training you and that is all!"
Her confused expression has now turned into a skeptical one, something about what the turtle said made it seem like he was hiding something.
"FINE! If I successfully get and train a student then it will prove that I'm the greatest, cause I will have done it before any of my brothers. Happy?"
"So you're telling me, that you are willing to train a complete stranger just so you get the bragging rights?" Ryoko crossed her arms, her skeptical look remaining on her face.
"Yes! Look when you have three other brothers bragging rights are really important. This will just be a bit of a trial run at first, just so I can see your true potential and so we can maybe start trusting each other as well." Leo holds out his hand again, a cocky smile on his face.
Trust each other... Those words repeated in Ryoko's mind. So he doesn't just trust me, I guess that means he's not as much of an idiot as he seems.
With a sigh, Ryoko grabbed Leo's hand and gave it a good shake.
"Oh yeah! Now we're in business! Ok so first I gotta ask, this may sound weird but where do you live? We are gonna need a place to train and that could be the best place, unless you want to go up to New York but then we risk running into my brothers."
"Wait, do you live up there!?"
"Yup! Though we remain hidden from the humans, New York is still our home."
"Ok then. Well I live a bit on the outskirts of this section of the Hidden City, not too long of a walk."
"Sounds good! Lead the way."
With a sigh, Ryoko begins heading out of the alleyway and back into the bustling streets of the market place.
"Wait, I almost forgot!" Leo grabs Ryoko's wrist and begins running towards the stalls.
"Wait what are we doing!?" She asked almost tripping on her own feet.
"The present for my brother, I still have to get it!"
~~~~~~~~
They make their way through the bustling streets of the market place. Leo leads them to a large and extravagant stall. A lion yokai stood behind the counter, his clothing was just as showy as his stall. His voice boomed over the crowd as he attempted to sell the crowd 'the next big thing'. The stall had an assortment of mystic bobbles and doodads, as well as a few human objects from the surface.
"Good it's still here!" Leo points to a set of mystic paints that sit on the counter. He deflates for a second when he sees the paper attached to it with a price written on it but picks himself back up with a smile. "If it's for Mikey then the price doesn't matter."
"Hey, if it's mystic paints you wanted then I know a better place to get them. Better quality and cheaper." She says the last part a bit louder, not loud enough to break through the noise of the crowd but the Lion's ear seemed to twitch as she says this.
The most genuine smile Ryoko has ever seen erupts on the turtle's face.
"Really!? Let's go then!"
As they begin to run off away from the stall, Ryoko casts a slight smirk at the yokai merchant. He responds with a slight growl and stink eye in her direction before returning to his usual merchant smile as he goes on to his next sales pitch.
~~~~~~~~
In a much quieter part of the market place, a raccoon yokai sits at their stall. They look like your usual raccoon except their face markings are white. Their stall has an assortment of mystic crystals and other artifacts.
They give a heavy sigh as they watch all the yokai walking past their stall, not even giving it a glance.
"Shiro!"
Their ears perk up at the familiar voice. They look in the direction the voice came from to see a young fox running up to them dragging an unfamiliar turtle behind her.
"Ryo! It's good to see you! Who's that behind you? You aren't usually the type to make friends."
Ryoko rolled her eyes. "I just met him today, he said he'd teach about how to be a ninja."
"A ninja?" Shiro examined the turtle before her. "Wait... Aren't you that Battle Nexus champion, the one who pulled off that crazy plan?"
"You recognize me?!" Leo's jaw drops.
"Of course! I'm not usually one to watch the fights but I was there for that one and man was I happy I was! You and that rat yokai were all like WHAM! SLICE! SLAM! On the Evil Six and then you used those helmets and were all WHOOSH! SLAM! CRASH! On Kraken Tom! It was amazing! Though the best part was seeing how annoyed Big Mama was when you won." Shiro attempted to copy fighting moves they saw as they described the match.
Leo chuckled, "Pops and I were pretty awesome that day."
"Anyway-" Ryoko spoke before either of them could continue with the conversation. "Shiro, do you have any of your mystic paints in stock right now?"
Shiro's eyes widened. "Ryo are you going to start painting agai-" Ryoko interrupts before Shiro could finish.
"NOT for me! Leo here, wants some for a gift for his brother."
"Oh, I see." They deflate a little before smiling at Leo. "That's a wonderful idea for a gift, I'll get that for you right away." Shiro jumps off their stool and opens a compartment they have in their stall. They pull out a jar that contains a thick colorless liquid and a paintbrush. They jump back onto their stool and places the jar onto the counter. "What's your brother's name?"
Leo was examining the strange substance in the jar before his attention snapped back to the raccoon before him. "Mikey."
"That's a wonderful name." They begin to rub their finger along the paintbrush. After a moment, they hand the paintbrush to Leo. The paintbrush now has the name 'Mikey' engraved on it. "I always say that a personized gift is the best kind of gift!"
Leo smiles seeing his brother's name on the paintbrush but his attention is brought back to the jar. "Is this really paint?" He picks it up and shake it a little, the substance inside is so thick that it barely moves.
"It's my very own mystic paint! It may not look like much but as you paint with it it changes color to whatever color the painter thinks about! It can even change mid brushstroke. This paint has endless possibilities in the hands of a creative artist!"
He smiles down at the jar. "This sounds perfect then, but how much is it?" A questioning expression falls on his face.
Shiro thinks for a moment. "For you, this first one's on the house!"
"WHAT! No!" Ryoko slams her hands on the counter. "You can't just give stuff away like that, let him pay you!"
"It's my shop Ryo, I get to choose my prices." Shiro gestures Leo to lean in close to them. He's cautious but he still does so. " I only ask that you watch over her, Ryo doesn't have many people in her life she can depend on. I'd like it if you could try and be someone she can lean on even if it's just as payment for the paint." They explain to Leo quiet enough so that Ryoko can not hear.
"I mean this whole training thing is just a trial run of sorts." Leo responded in an equally hushed tone.
"Even if you don't train her to become a ninja or whatever, I'd like it if you can at least help her, keep her out of trouble at least."
Leo gives a small nod to the raccoon. "I'll try."
"That's all I ask." They push Leo away. He fumbles to keep his balance and tightens his grip on the jar of paint. "Oh and come back and tell me how much your brother loved his gift!" Shiro exclaimed.
Ryoko rolled her eyes. "Ok now that that's over with, let's head to my place."
"Yeah sounds good." Leo places the jar of paint and paintbrush into the pouch on his hip.
"Thanks Shiro, see you around!" She waves back at the raccoon yokai.
"Yes yes, I look forward to your next visit!" Shiro gives a wink to both Leo and Ryoko.
Ryoko just rolls her eyes again with a small chuckle. She then grabs Leo's wrist and drags him through the busy streets.
Shiro chuckles to themself as they watch the pair run off. "A ninja huh, I wonder what he's gonna think about that." They return to their usual routine of maintenance on their stall and items and attempting to grab attention of anyone passing by who may need a mystic item or two.
~~~~~~~~
It didn't take long for Ryoko to move from the busy streets to the shadows of the alleyways. Leo has already detached his wrist from her grasp, so he can keep up on his own. The alleyways were like a maze but Ryoko knew them like the back of her hand. It didn't take them to long to get to the edge of this section of the Hidden City.
Ryoko stops in front of a building or what used to be a building, the windows have all been destroyed and there was only two and a half walls left. There was a waterproof tarp being used as a makeshift roof.
"Well, this is it." Ryoko gestured to the building, or what was left of one.
"Uhh looks homey." Leo puts on one of his usual smiles.
"Look, I know it's not much, but it's home." She begins to walk inside, Leo follows right behind her.
There wasn't much inside to really look at, a pit in the center of the room with ash and burnt pieces of wood in it and two areas that looked like makeshift beds.
Leo takes notice that there are two places for someone to sleep in. "So you live here alone?"
Ryoko stiffens a bit at the question. "Oh, no I live here with my older brother. He's the one that found this place when we were young and luckily no one has tried to kick us out yet."
"Where is he? Why are you all alone?"
"He's uh... Away right now."
"He left you all by yourself!?"
"He didn't have a choice, he left because... Money..." Her eyes wouldn't meet Leo's.
"What like a job?"
"Y-Yeah something like that." Her tail twitched. "SO what was that crazy ability you used to catch me when we met?"
Leo raised a nonexistent eyebrow. He didn't miss the fact that she was changing the subject but he let it slide this time. "Oh ho ho, so you're interesting in learning my techniques already?"
Ryoko's eyes widen. "Is that really something you can teach me?"
"Uhh no, I can't teach that specifically."
"Oh..." Her ears flatten as she deflates a bit.
"Well the thing is, what I used is call Hamato Ninpo. It's sort of a special technique that people in my family can use. I'm not sure if other's can use it. In theory I'd say you could since I'd be the one teaching you but the only people I've seen use it are those in my family. Oh and Ninpo is different for everyone, mine lets me teleport to one of my swords, but everyone in my family has a different ability."
"So if I can learn it my ability would be unique to me?"
"Exactly!"
Ryoko scratches her chin for a moment, thinking. "Well I'm definitely more interested in this whole training thing now. Are we starting today or-?"
"We'll start tomorrow! I gotta get home before my brother's wonder where I am. I just wanted to know where I can usually find you and to see where we would be training."
"Yeah I'm usually here, or I'm in town trying to scavenge or helping Shiro out. Oh and I think there is a portal to the surface near here. It was in the last alleyway we passed through to get here."
"Huh, good to know. Wait, is it another one of those dumpster portals?"
"I think so yeah, those are pretty common ones."
Leo groans loudly and dramatically. "WHY IS IT ALWAYS THE GARBAGE!" He begins to pace back and forth. "I guess I shouldn't complain too much I mean I live in a sewer for crying out loud but still is it too much to ask for there to be a nice portal to use for once. Moments like this make me really miss my odachi."
Ryoko was taken aback a bit from the sudden outburst from the usually cool headed turtle. She walked over to him. She held out her hand to try and comfort him but before it made contact she retracted it.
"H-Hey you ok dude?"
"Yeah, all good!" He grins. "Sometimes you just gotta be a little dramatic, ya know?"
Ryoko wonders how he can so easily go from frustrated yelling to his usual cool confident grin.
"Speaking of your family, I've been wondering how a large family of yokai ended up living above ground? Wouldn't it be safer to live down here in the Hidden City?"
Leo looks out, what used to be a window, at the city.
"It probably would be easier yeah, but New York is our home. Oh and my family and I aren't yokai, we're mutants." Ryoko was about to question what a mutant was but Leo kept talking. "Well except April, she's a human and I guess you can count Draxum, he actually is a yokai."
"Wait wait wait Draxum!? Like the Hidden Cities most wanted Baron Draxum!? He's apart of your family?"
"Kinda? He created my brothers and I, so Mikey calls him our other dad but he's more like a weird uncle to the rest of us. I'm still not really over the time he threw me off a roof personally."
"I probably wouldn't get over it either if someone did that to me. You know what you should do to get back at him? You should throw him off a roof!"
"Oh ho, a little dark for my taste but I like where your heads at!"
A moment of silence passed before Leo looks over at her.
"So you really don't mind that I know one of the Hidden Cities most wanted?"
A smile curled up her snout. "Oh please, the Hidden City police are kinda idiots you could be put on their for just looking like a criminal! So no, I don't mind. Heck, if they knew everything I've stolen I would probably be on their arrest list."
"Right, about that." Leo cleared his throat and put a serious look on his face. Ryoko's tail twitched nervously, she has never seen him this serious before. "I know it's what your used to doing but while you are under my tutelage-" He paused trying to remember if he used that word correctly, he's only heard that word from Donnie before so he wasn't sure. "I need you to stop stealing."
"WHAT!? But how am I supposed to eat!? The fur on her tail puffs out.
Leo places his hands on his hips. "For the short time I've known you I can tell that you are smart enough to figure out how to get some food without stealing. Plus I can bring you some food when I come. My bro Mikey is an amazing cook, I'll try and bring you some of his food and I'm sure I can grab some stuff we have lying around the kitchen."
"Your family won't mind you just taking that stuff?" Her fur begins to flatten.
"They have to notice it's gone first!" He gives her a playful wink.
"Fine, no more stealing." Ryoko huffed. "Not even from people who deserve it?"
Leo raised a nonexistent eyebrow. "What do you mean exactly by 'people who deserve it?"
"You know, people like Big Mama or that jerk Alister!"
"Who is Alister?"
"He's that jerk merchant you almost bought paints from. He always takes the ideas of the other merchants but what he makes barely works and breaks easily and he sells them for more but because of his showy stall and his flowery words people buy stuff from him and ignore all the other merchants! He just makes all the other merchants lives worse and he just gets on my nerves! My blood just begins to boil the minute I hear his voice!" Ryoko takes a few deep breaths, then clears her throat. "Sorry, I've been told my temper can get the better of me sometimes."
"Don't worry about it, my older brother had to deal with his temper when he was younger, though sometimes it still get's the better of him. Maybe I can try helping you with yours along with the ninja training."
"Wait, really? You'd do that?"
"Sure, it's probably better for a ninja to have some control over their emotions anyway."
"T-Thanks... I guess. H-Hey didn't you say you had to go home or something earlier."
"OH RIGHT! I got so distracted talking I almost forgot!"
"Seems more like you actually did forget." She mumbled to herself.
Leo pulls the curtain that acts like a door open but looks back at Ryoko before leaving. "See you tomorrow Ryo! Be ready for some mad ninja training."
"H-Hey I didn't say you could-" She sighs, cutting herself off. "Yeah see you tomorrow S-Sensei..."
Leo freezes hearing that. He watches Ryoko as sits down on the ground and begins rummaging through a satchel that was on the ground. Once his brain begins to work again he nods his head and slips out of the makeshift house.
Ryoko sighs pulling out a piece of dried meat she had just in case she couldn't find food for the day.
I guess I'll be eating a lot more of my rations from now on.
She begins placing wood and other flammable objects in the makeshift fire pit.
"I should really get one of those mystic fires. Wait, I can't steal anymore... Right." She huffed. "Maybe Shiro could help me find a used one."
"I see you made a new friend."
The deep voice sends a shiver down her spine. The piece of dried meat falls to the ground.