Chapter Text
His boys were three now, and acted like six-year-old human children. It had Splinter thinking about the Battle Nexus tournament. He had not really thought too much about it before—too busy with figuring out his larger, more muscular body and retraining himself so he did not accidentally hurt his own children. Then had come the challenge of feeding them—four growing boys with appetites that seemed endless. As a rat, he could and did survive off scraps, or sometimes not eat at all, so that his sons would have enough.
But they needed more than scraps. They needed nutrition, variety, and growth. Then came dressing up in that ridiculous flowered gown that flowed over his clawed feet, a sun hat perched awkwardly on his head, and a medical mask over his muzzle so he could pretend to be "Aunt Hamato Shen" to claim his Master's body—so that Hamato Yoshi could be cremated with dignity, so that Splinter could take those ashes to the Ancient One, so that his Master's soul could finally rest. And then after that, it had been dealing with the guilt of the Ninja Tribunal deciding his boys should forget that whole thing—wiping their memories of the bone demon incident. Never mind that they had been brave, that they had pointed out the creature's invisibility medallion, that Splinter had only been able to destroy it because of their help.
The Tribunal had decided they did not need to remember, and Splinter had been too exhausted, too overwhelmed to argue. So yes. He had not really seriously thought about the Battle Nexus. But now, he was thinking about it. The Hamato name deserved to be carried on, and what better way than to enter the same tournament his Master had competed in? His boys were bigger now, less likely to wander off and get hurt. He could leave them at home, go compete, and be back without them even knowing he had gone. And yet—a part of him recoiled at the idea of lying to his sons. Of "not mentioning" the tournament, which was simply lying by omission. Were they bigger, yes, but... wouldn't it be better if they came along? They could watch the other fighters, could watch him compete, could see the place where their grandfather's legacy had been forged. He knew at least Raphael would enjoy it.
Decision made, he moved toward the training area where his sons were supposedly practicing. Leonardo was indeed practicing, his form nearly perfect for a child his age as he moved through a kata with intense concentration. Michelangelo was pretending to practice, his movements exaggerated and punctuated with sound effects. Donatello was muttering about "which muscles worked best in this kata" while barely moving at all, too caught up in the theory. And Raphael was trying—unsuccessfully—to pull Leonardo into a spar. Again.
"My sons," Splinter called, and four heads turned toward him immediately.
"We are going to a tournament. I expect you all to behave in your best behaviour."
"A tournament?!" Raphael's eyes lit up.
"Can we fight too?" Michelangelo asked, already bouncing.
"No," Splinter said firmly. "You will be spectators only. And there are rules." He looked at each of his sons in turn. "No staring, Michelangelo. The people there are different, and do not take kindly to it."
"I won't stare," Michelangelo promised, though his eyes were already wide with the effort of not staring at things that did not yet exist.
"No starting fights, Raphael. Even those not participating in the tournament can be challenged, and I do not wish you to be hurt. Some fighters do not see a child—simply another competitor."Raphael's face fell slightly, but he nodded."Leonardo, Donatello, I trust you will conduct yourselves appropriately?"
"Yes, Sensei," Leonardo said seriously. Of course, Father," Donatello agreed.
"Though I do have questions—"
"Which I will answer once we arrive," Splinter interrupted gently. "Now. Pay attention. This is how we will travel."
He showed them how to draw the symbols, his claws moving carefully on the wall of their lair. He clearly enunciated the chant, making sure each syllable was pronounced correctly. His sons watched with varying levels of attention—Leonardo focused and determined to memorize every stroke, Donatello analyzing the symbol structure, Michelangelo trying to draw it in the air with his finger, Raphael simply impatient to see what happened next. Splinter spoke the final words of the chant. The portal opened. It was beautiful in an otherworldly way—swirling energy that seemed to exist in colours that did not quite belong in their dimension. The edges shimmered and sparked, and through the opening, Splinter could see the Battle Nexus arena in the distance.
"Whoa," Michelangelo breathed. "Is that a portal to another dimension?!"
"How is that scientifically possible?" Donatello's voice cracked with excitement. "The energy requirements alone would be astronomical, and the structural integrity of spacetime—"
"I honestly have no idea," Splinter admitted, with a small smile. "Only that my Master was invited with instructions on how to open it, and then I was watching him compete."
"That's not an answer! That's just more questions!"
"Welcome to life, my son. Now remember—best behaviour. Stay together, stay close to me, and do not wander off. The Battle Nexus is wondrous, but it can also be dangerous."
"We'll be good, Father," Leonardo promised, and the others nodded.
Splinter looked at his four sons—so small, so young, so full of life and potential—and felt his heart swell with love and pride and a touch of fear. He was bringing them to another dimension. Was this wise? Was this safe? But they deserved to see where their grandfather had fought. They deserved to understand their legacy.
"Come then, my sons," he said, and led them through.
The Battle Nexus unfolded before them like a half-remembered dream of old Japan. Pagodas rose from stone islands suspended in nothingness, red pillars banded in gold, catching strange, ambient light. Paper lanterns drifted through the air without visible strings. The ground beneath Splinter's feet was polished stone worn smooth by centuries of combat, inscribed with sigils whose meanings were older than language. And everywhere—everywhere—were warriors. Not human, not quite beast. Anthropomorphic figures of fur, scale, feather, and chitin moved through the crowds, armoured or robed or bare-fanged, some towering, some smaller than Splinter's children. It felt right. Unsettling, but familiar in a way that spoke to something ancient in his bones. His sons stared. Splinter rested a paw lightly on each of them in turn, grounding.
"Remember," he murmured.
"Observe. Do not draw attention."They nodded—Leonardo immediately, Donatello distractedly, Michelangelo with visible effort, Raphael with barely contained tension.
Registration was held beneath a long wooden awning, scrolls unfurled across lacquered desks. Names, worlds, fighting styles recorded by attendants who looked as though they had been doing this for a thousand years and expected to do so for a thousand more.
High above, reclining behind a low screen, sat the Daimyo. He looked bored. One clawed finger tapped idly against a cup of untouched tea. His eyes were half-lidded, drifting over the registrants with disinterest earned only through centuries of repetition.Then—
"Hamato Splinter."
The Daimyo's finger stilled. His ears lifted slowly, deliberately. His eyes sharpened.
"Hamato," he echoed softly, testing the sound. He leaned forward—not at the rat standing calmly before the desk. At the name. Memory stirred: of a human once, disciplined and stubborn, who had fought not for glory but for mastery. Of a warrior who had declined invitation after invitation to remain in the Nexus, choosing a smaller, quieter life.
"Interesting," the Daimyo murmured.
The arena was alive with anticipation, a thousand voices echoing off stone and sky. Splinter stepped onto the polished battleground, his hakama rustling, staff held loosely at his side. Across from him stood Drako. The dragon was enormous—head and shoulders above Splinter, scaled in deep crimson, his tail sweeping the arena floor behind him like a slow tide. No weapons. He didn't need them. He stood with the easy stillness of something that had never in its life needed to worry about what came at it, and his yellow eyes were lit with an old and specific hatred. The bell rang. The crowd fell silent. Splinter bowed, low and respectful. Drako's bow was barely a tilt of his massive head. They circled. Feet whispering across stone, measuring. Drako moved first—a feint, blindingly fast for his size, one massive fist driving toward Splinter's ribs. Splinter twisted away, using the dragon's own momentum to redirect, staff cracking against Drako's forearm. The impact rattled up Splinter's arms. It was like hitting a wall. Drako didn't even flinch.
"You should have stayed away, rodent," Drako said, low and even. "This tournament belongs to me."
They clashed again. Drako was relentless—powerful strikes that shook the air when they missed, each one capable of ending the fight outright. Splinter didn't try to match the strength. He deflected, redirected, used the staff's length to keep distance, slipping just out of reach and countering with precise, economical strikes. He was watching the rhythm. Drako's tail. The slight drop of his left shoulder before a lunge. The way his weight shifted before he committed. Above, in the family box, four small turtles gripped the railing. Leonardo's knuckles were white. Raphael's tail lashed. Michelangelo's eyes were wide. Donatello's mouth moved in silent calculation. The dance grew wilder. Drako's fury built with each dodge, each deflection, each time Splinter slipped through his guard and made him look slow. He stopped feinting and simply charged—a raw, overwhelming rush of mass and speed. Splinter sidestepped, planted the staff, and vaulted up and over. The crowd gasped. He landed behind Drako, breathing hard, staff ready. Drako whirled.
"You mock me with your tricks!"
Splinter said nothing. He was watching the tail. Drako lunged. Splinter blocked the strike—felt the force shudder through his bones—then swept low with the staff at Drako's ankles. Drako leapt, exactly as Splinter had predicted, and as he came down, Splinter drove the butt of the staff into his knee, forcing an awkward landing. Not enough to stop him. But enough to shift his balance. Drako's tail snapped out. Splinter saw it too late. The blow caught him across the leg—a sound like a crack of thunder—and the world went white.
Splinter hit the stone. For a long moment, he simply lay there, the crowd suddenly very loud and very far away, and tried to understand what his body was telling him. The leg was broken. Badly. He pushed himself up onto his staff, and the pain hit him like something solid, and he had to breathe through it with his teeth locked and his eyes closed. Above: the sound of small feet on wooden stairs quickly stopped. The sound of Raphael's voice was furious and terrified. The sound of his sons holding each other back. Drako stood over him, breathing hard, and there was satisfaction in his eyes. The Gyoji floated forward. The arena had gone very quiet.
"Hamato Splinter. The match may be yielded. There is no shame—"
Splinter looked up at the family box. Four faces looked back—distressed, afraid, furious, calculating. He looked at Drako. He looked at the staff in his paw.
"I will not yield," Splinter said quietly.
Drako's lips pulled back from his teeth. "So be it."
He came in fast, pressing the advantage, certain. Splinter took the first blow on his shell and let it turn him, using the spin to gain distance, keeping his weight off the broken leg entirely now—one foot, staff as a third point of contact, moving in a triangle instead of a line. His world narrowed to distance, angle, and the dragon's eyes. Drako swung high. Splinter ducked under it, jabbed the staff hard into Drako's ribs, and was already moving before the dragon could recover. Left. Right. Quick and precise, forcing Drako to keep adjusting, keep turning, burning energy chasing something that wouldn't stop long enough to hit properly. Drako lunged barehanded, furious, and this time Splinter didn't dodge. He caught Drako's outstretched arm, pivoted on his good leg, and used every ounce of Drako's own charge to throw him. The dragon left the ground. For one suspended moment, the arena was completely silent. Then Drako landed—hard—and slid. He rose slowly. Pride shattered. The fire had gone out of his eyes, replaced with something flat and cold that Splinter recognized: not acceptance, but exhaustion. The Gyoji's voice rang across the arena.
"Victory—Hamato Splinter!"
The crowd erupted. Above, the turtles collapsed together—relief and tears and Michelangelo cheering through hiccups and Leonardo hugging Raphael and Donatello sobbing in a way he would later deny entirely. On the arena floor, Splinter bowed—pain written on every line of him, dignity unbroken—and allowed himself one look upward at his sons before his leg reminded him with some urgency that he was not, in fact, fine. They reached him in a cascade of shells and worried hands.
"Father, Father, you won—"
"Your leg, I heard it—"
"That was incredible, you didn't even stop—"
"Why?" Leonardo's voice cut through, and there were tears on his face. "Why didn't you stop? You were hurt. You could have bowed out with honour. Father—" his voice cracked— "Grandfather would have understood."
Splinter lowered himself carefully to the ground, hissing as his leg protested. Four pairs of eyes watched him—distressed, angry, proud, confused.
"I..." He paused. "I suppose I let the wrong thing matter more than it should have. The honour of the name. When the reason I carry that name at all is the four of you."
"Father," Leonardo said, very small.
"You're a fucking idiot," Raphael said, and there were tears on his face too. "You could've been hurt worse."
"Language, Raphael," Splinter said, without heat.
Donatello had been examining Splinter's leg with the careful attention he applied to all his interests—small hands, gentle but thorough, pressing along the bone, watching Splinter's face.
"It's going to have to be rebroken," Donatello said flatly.
The arena went quiet.
"What?" Michelangelo's voice was tiny.
"The bone," Donatello continued, his voice going clinical in the way it did when he was trying very hard not to feel things.
"It's already starting to set wrong—the angle's off. If we leave it like this, you'll always limp. You might not be able to fight properly ever again. Someone has to break it again so it can be set correctly."
"Rebroken?" Raphael's voice was dangerous.
"You mean someone's gotta hurt Father on purpose?"
"I mean exactly that, Raph." Donatello's voice cracked. "And I have to be there to make sure they do it right."
The Daimyo himself approached, his presence commanding immediate silence.
"Hamato Splinter. My healers are at your disposal." He looked at Donatello with an expression of careful attention. "Your son is... remarkably astute. We will follow his guidance."
"I am six," Donatello said absently. Then he paused. "But I am right."
"You are," the Daimyo agreed. "Come. Let us attend to this immediately."They took him to the healers' chambers—a space that existed somewhere between the physical arena and pure energy, where the rules of normal healing did not quite apply. Four turtles tried to follow, but the Daimyo's guards gently and firmly prevented Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo from entering.
"Only the young healer," the Daimyo said. "The others would be too distressed."
"I'm already distressed!" Donatello snapped, but he followed anyway.
The chamber was cool and smelled of herbs that did not grow in any dimension Splinter knew. He was positioned on a low table, his injured leg extended. Four healers took their places around him—large beings with six arms each, all the better to hold a struggling patient still.
"We could use numbing agents," one healer suggested. "Make it painless."
"No." Donatello's voice was firm. "Numbing agents could interfere with Father's ability to tell us if something's wrong during the setting. He needs to be able to feel it."
Splinter felt a surge of pride even through his apprehension. His son understood. His son was thinking."Very well," the head healer said. He produced a piece of leather, thick and worn. "For biting."
Donatello climbed up beside Splinter's head, his small three-fingered hand trembling as he took the leather. His eyes met Splinter's, and they were swimming.
"Bite down, Father," Donatello whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, but you have to bite down."
Splinter took the leather between his teeth and nodded once. He would not let his son carry this guilt alone. He met Donatello's eyes steadily, trying to hold everything he wanted to say in that look—I trust you. I am proud of you. This is not your fault.
"On three," the head healer said. "One—"
CRACK.
They did not wait for three. Splinter bit down hard, and the sound that escaped him was muffled but still audible. Pain exploded through his leg—worse than the initial break, because this time he was expecting it, because anticipation made it larger—
"Hold steady," Donatello's voice, clinical and controlled. "Good. Now the alignment—no, not like that, you'll have bone fragments loose in the muscle tissue. Here—let me show you."
And then, impossibly, Donatello's small hands were guiding the healers' larger ones, showing them exactly how to position the bone fragments, exactly how to align everything. Outside, three small turtles sat huddled together, flinching at every sound. Inside, Donatello's voice never wavered as he instructed beings with centuries of experience in exactly what his father's body needed.
"The wrapping. You need to compress without cutting off circulation—yes, like that, but tighter on this side to account for the swelling that will occur in the next six hours. Father will need to keep weight off it for at least two weeks, preferably three, and we'll need to check it daily to ensure it's healing correctly and there's no infection—"
When it was done, when the leg was expertly wrapped, and the worst of the pain had subsided to a manageable throb, Splinter looked at his youngest son. Donatello's hands were completely still. His face was composed. He looked like a tiny professional medic who had just completed a routine procedure.
"I am proud of you," Splinter said.
Donatello's composure was shattered. His face crumpled, and he launched himself at Splinter's chest—wrapping his small arms around his father's neck and sobbing with the absolute abandon of a three-year-old who had been forced to be far too grown up for far too long.
"I d-didn't want to hurt you," Donatello hiccupped.
"But I had to, I had to make sure it was right, I couldn't let you be hurt forever—"
"You did exactly what needed to be done," Splinter said, holding him close with one arm and being careful not to jostle his leg. "You were brave and smart and kind. I am so proud of you, my son."
The healers quietly excused themselves. When Donatello had cried himself out, they rejoined the others. Leonardo attached himself to Splinter's side immediately, his small face pressed against Splinter's arm. Michelangelo grabbed Splinter's good leg and refused to let go. Raphael hovered nearby, hands clenching and unclenching with nowhere to direct the anger now that the fight was over.
"Can we go home now?" Michelangelo asked in a small voice. "Please? I want to go home."
"Yeah," Raphael agreed, gruffly. "Let's get out of here."
"Father really shouldn't be walking," Donatello started, "but if you use that staff, and you rest properly the moment we get home—"
"Thank you, my sons," Splinter said, running a paw over Michelangelo's head and squeezing Leonardo's shoulder. "We can go home."
The Daimyo himself escorted them to the portal chamber.
"Hamato Splinter. You have honoured Hamato Yoshi's memory today. The Hamato name is spoken with respect throughout the Battle Nexus."
"Thank you, Daimyo," Splinter said, bowing as deeply as his leg would allow. "Your hospitality and the skill of your healers are appreciated beyond words."
"The skill was your son's," the Daimyo corrected, with a slight smile. "My healers merely followed his instructions. He is... quite remarkable."
Donatello, still tucked against Splinter's side, said nothing. The portal chamber was quiet after the arena. The same symbols Splinter had drawn in their lair were etched here in silver on the floor. The portal opener—a wizened being whose species Splinter had never learned—began the chant. The portal swirled to life before them, blue-green energy that should have been comforting in its familiarity. The fur on the back of Splinter's neck stood straight up. It was a prey animal's instinct, the kind that had kept rats alive for millions of years through plague and poison and predators. Something was wrong. The portal looked right, sounded right, even smelled right. But something deep in his hindbrain was screaming.
"Father?" Leonardo asked, noticing his stillness. "Is something wrong?"
Splinter looked down at his four sons. They were exhausted—Leonardo's eyes shadowed with worry, Donatello still trembling slightly from the healing chamber, Michelangelo on the verge of falling asleep on his feet, Raphael's anger burned down to hollow fatigue. They needed to go home. They needed their beds, their lair, the safety of familiar things. He was being paranoid. The portal was fine. It was simply his injured leg making him jumpy—his body interpreting pain as danger.
"It is nothing, my son," Splinter said, overriding every instinct screaming at him to wait, to check, to stop. "Come. Let us go home."
They stepped through together, four small turtles clustered around their father, all of them touching him in some way as if afraid he might disappear.The portal swallowed them whole