Title: Painful lesson Universe: TMNT 2014 Rating: T/PG-13 Summary: Splinter decided to teach them a serious lesson during the training session. Pairing: No pairings Contains: Blood Word Count: 1317 -------------------------------------------- It's been years since the young girl, April O'Neil put the Turtles and Splinter close to a canary. Leonardo and his brothers grew up strong and healthy since then. Their father teached them how to protect themselves, how to use weapons, and how to use their skills in the most efficients way as possible. The Turtles were 15 years old now. They already knew how to jump, dodge, attack, and all the sort of ninja moves what Splinter taught them. However, they didn't use their weapons during training. They only used weapons made of wood or bamboo. But it was the time that Splinter decided to bring their sons to the next level of training. The family finished their breakfast. Splinter sipped on his tea and put the cup down on the table after that. He cleared his throat and looked to his sons. "Alright, my sons. Today, your training will getting harder from now on. Your fighting skills are improved, and we will test it in the dojo," Splinter took a little pause. "With a one on one battle." Leonardo rubbed his chin. Why is this would be different? They did it before. A turtle against a turtle, what's the change? "Okay, sounds good." Raph shrugged, while the others nodded. "Be prepared, my sons. Physically and mentally. You have ten minutes." Their father put his hands on his back and walked in to the dojo. Leo felt a weird grumbling sensation in his stomach. Something was not right. He stood up and went into his room, not wasted any time. He lit a few candles and sat down. The turtle closed his eyes and started to meditate. "Relax." Leo whispered to himself calm words. It helped him relax and he was able to focus and clear his mind and getting ready for the training session. After his meditation, Leo blew the candles and did a few stretching moves. "Okay," He sighed. "Let's do this." And he walked to the dojo. Leo's brothers were already inside and of course Splinter who stood in the middle of the room. Leonardo looked around and tried to remained calm as he walked closer to his brothers. When he arrived, Splinter was already walked to them while he carried weapons. Those weapons were made of steel. Leo's eyes widened a bit. It was no joke, no more wooden weapons or bamboo. These weapons can do more damage. Those can be deadly as well. "Today," Splinter said as he gave the weapons to his sons."You will use these weapons. And we will see what can you do with them." And he walked back to the middle of the dojo. "So, you said it will be a one on one match." Raph said while he moved the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. "Who shall I train with? Don? Mikey? Or Leo?" Leo was a bit worried. If he needs to fight against Raph then it would only end horribly. He remembers how much it hurt when Raph hit him on the arm with a bamboo stick. With a steel weapon? Things will get bloody. "None." Splinter drew his sword and pointed at them. "You will fight against me." If Leo wasn't shocked before, now he was. Just like his brothers. "Are you serious?" Donnie cried out. "I am." Their father put his sword down next to him and looked to Leo. "Leonardo, you start." Leo felt his heart beated in his throat, his hands shook as he held his swords. No turning back now. Leo walked closer in to the middle of the dojo, looked nervously at his father. "Now, Leonardo." Splinter took a few steps closer to his son. "Use everything what you learned from your training. Give it all what you got and don't hold back. Because right now, I am not your father, nor your sensei. But your enemy." And without any warning signs, Splinter ran at Leo. The turtle held his swords in a defence position and the steels hit each other. CLASH! Leo could swore he saw a few spark when the swords made contact, but he was more busy defending himself. He managed to push his father away and made a counterattack by swung his swords at Splinter's waist from both left and right direction, but the agile rat jumped up and kicked his son on his chest. The turtle backed up, and put his hand on his plastron. Damn! He didn't want to hurt his father, then again Splinter told him to not holding back. He had no choice but to attack him. Leo ran at his father and he tried to stab him on the arm. Splinter dodged it, just like the upcoming suprise kick attack that Leo did as a secondary move. The turtle was more tactical this time. Even if he can't hit his sensei, he made sure to move as unpredictably as he could. It seemed it was a success until Splinter grabbed Leo on his ankle and pushed it to the side. Although Leo didn't fall, he managed to put his knee on the floor, but in the moment when he looked up, Splinter's blade got closer to his eyes. "AAAHHH!!!!" Leo cried out. The tip of Splinter's sword covered with Leo's blood. A long scar started from Leo's forehead and ended on the side of his cheek. "What the f-" Before Raph could finish his sentence and wanted to go to Leo, Donnie grabbed his arm and stopped him to not interfere. He was also upset and scared by this action, but the training session can not be disturbed. Leo held onto his scar with his hand and hissed when he felt pain. "I could have killed you If I wanted to." Splinter walked around Leo, who just knelt down on the floor and covered the half of his face with his hand. The floor was painted a bit with Leo's dripping blood. The rat continued. "If this little wound gives you pain and makes you helpless, then you are not even ready to call yourself a ninja. In fact, you are not even ready to go upside until you can land a single hit on me." Splinter turned over and walked away from his son. "That's bull!" Raph shouted at his father. "That is not fair at all! There are a huge skill differences between us and you! How can you expect us to defend ourselves against you?" The rat looked at Raph. "There are many skillful persons up there who are better than you, but they won't spare your life because you are crying and whining that the conditions aren't balanced. This is what I wanted to teach you. Life isn't fair. We train hard to be able to survive in this world." "Okay, we get it," Mikey's voice trembled a bit. "But hurting Leo was really necessary?" Splinter remained silent for a moment. "You will practice with those weapons I gave you on the dummy to get a feeling how you can use your weapons effectively." "I still don't like it." Raph grumbled. Leo stood up slowly and looked at Raph. "Stop it, Raph. Splinter's right. We need to train more harder and better. We are far from perfection." "That's the thing Leo! Nobody is perfect!" Raph shouted. "You're right." Leo nodded. "That's why I got hit." The dojo went into silence and Leo headed into the bathroom to take care of his injury. He cleaned his wound, disinfected it and bandaged it. He looked into the mirror and shook his head. "Just you wait, father." Leo said. "Me and my brothers will train hard. And we are gonna show you that we deserve the title. You will be proud of us." Leo sighed and left the bathroom and walked back into the dojo while he kept repeating himself. "A title we deserve..." "Ninja."