Book One In The Ahh-Ness Of Things Series: April & Donnie were once inseparable, but now almost six years have passed since she left NYC. What if April O'Neil could set the record straight, once & for all! The only girl down enough to chill with the...
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There were something like 25 different kata for the naginata that Master Splinter had taught him & yet Donnie had somehow managed to memorize them all. He had knowledge of every pressure point, every combination of waza; a strike to apply pressure there, paralyze the nerve with leverage here. He could bring any opponent collapsing to their knees, blinded in agony, & clutching their chest for breath. Yet like his father, he had very little patience for shinobijutsu in his restless childhood. He knew the principals by heart but what was the point. What was the purpose of lethal techniques, meant for battlefields & espionage, to a pacifist.
His patience was only reserved for a petri dish & a microscope. A wrench & an impossible angle with a bolt that wouldn't budge. If he knew it could, he would beg the question as to why it wouldn't; take more grease to it, & go at it a different way. Master Splinter had been forever inundated with his constant what ifs'. He had genuinely understood it wasn't flimsy, cowardly whining, like his brothers complained it was. Infact he had wanted so badly for the boy to come to understand that it was exactly his need for what he was learning to be practical that could have made him much more than a warrior. He could be a teacher. Master Splinter wasn't raising martial artists, nor was he raising fighters of any kind. He was developing obedient defenders. To protect themselves & anyone else, from themselves. They were strong, otherworldly, meant for something Splinter could not assume to know for certain. So he prepared them the only way he knew how to.
He had tried to focus on the martial purposefulness behind even the most arbitrary tasks in hope to excite his sons. Still he couldn't coax his second child to have faith like he had unshakable belief in the tangible world of fact, & that frustrated him to no end. It frustrated them both. He had even built him up from his natural inclinations to be an unofficial chunin of sorts. While his younger brother Leonardo was always the favored jonin. Master Splinter could, without doubt, always rely on Donatello to be the steward in his need to think things through. Leonardo was a decision maker & good at delegating. Donatello was always on point to pick up slack. He was quick witted & it was easy for him to do what made the most common sense. Master Splinter considered him a captain but he could never let him lead his brothers. He was suited more to looking after them. Maybe this was why he lingered so close to Micheangelo who was small & gullible.
Donnie was ever protective of their youngest brother's innocence. Mikey lived in a constance of fantasy & Donnie must have felt he was the only one vigilant enough to keep him from the certainty of their reality.
Bakemono-jutsu had spoiled his belief in any higher purpose for any of it, propelling his skeptical approach forever after; giving him a thirst for understanding the true intent behind any action. It must have been as if someone had cruelly explained Santa doesn't exist to a wide eyed toddler & destroyed their innocence. He felt as if all of their training & even their very way of life could be deduced to spies & theives. Or worse, killers.
Their education ultimately taught them to execute. To eliminate another life with one strike. To be quick about it, & to go undetected. Yet Master Splinter had always maintained shinobi that must take a life, have not done their job well & have failed their education. Unless of course ordered to do so.Donatello knew there was a side of his father that once would have rather lamented over the bittersweet beauty of crimson red blood instead of teaching how to methodically spill it. Where Leonardo saw the spirituality & Raphael the passion; Donatello only saw the mechanics.Just as Donatello was a logic minded soul; Hamato Yoshi was an artist. Where the son could stare for hours at moving water dreaming of all the possibilities it held, the father could stare in wonderment at the impossibilities of its aesthetic.
He had asked his father, when he was feeling particularly argumentative, why someone who had such reverence for the beauty in life had lowered himself to such a base level as to take up violence as if it were a religion. Master Splinter had slapped him so hard, his eye began to bleed almost instantly & the rest of us looked on, frozen in shock.
Our Master was not a violent man. A man with an incredible temper in his youth, that was very well known to us all. He was without a doubt an unyielding & strict teacher, but without violence in his heart. He had admittedly spent multiple lifetimes trying to learn to restrain his rage over things he saw as disrespectful & accept that it was not his purpose to put everything & everyone in their place. He had stood stock still, looking into his son's face & solemnly remarked that his confidence & logic was insurmountable at times. Yet, it was in fact his need to search out truth & diplomacy, that gave him such confidence; & when he was on form he was nearly indomitable.
With his long bony fingers he wiped the seeping drops of blood from the corner of Donatello's eye, as if it were a tear. He waited for the boy to reveal pain, sorrow, anything but his son wouldn't allow it. He didn't flinch when his father struck him & he wouldn't shed a tear now. He asked a question in accusation & he knew he would receive a response. It wasn't what he expected but it gave him insight all the same. That was Mather Splinter's point. This brilliant child was so precocious, how could he be angry with him for asking hard questions in defense of his own self realizations.
He wasn't wrong in asking, & his father knew it was he himself that had more to learn from the answer he'd given. In awe we sat on the floor of the dojo & listened cautiously as our father had praised his son for reminding him that he needed to work more diligently on the wisdom in letting go of ego. He should not expect others to follow his beliefs if he could not make them clear & we spent the rest of the day discussing why well disciplined shinobi were never in need of raising a hand in violence. That one worked everyday to build muscle memory & skills so that if the need for physical violence ever were to arise, the knowledge was present. Not for a love of violence, but to know when not to use it, & that you could protect yourself & those under your care.
He had put it into to words that Donatello could relate to. He made the entire lesson about the strength of instinct & the weakness of heated responses. He likened it to isshin; the first tenet. The ability to connect to every part of the moment. To have forethought in any situation & that Donatello's need to consider every possibility, including the other person's reasons for their own actions & what they may or may not do; was an incredible gift. That is should not be disregarded as criticism for every move one made; for he had only considered all possibilities to find greater understanding & achieve clarity. Whether it was to communicate, accomplish a task, or defeat an opponent. He praised him for preferring construction rather than destruction which is always the first goal in shinobijutsu.
Mushin would be the second. Once you have accepted there is no reason or logic; one moves into the ability to deconstruct. To use violence if necessary. This is where Raphael & I are of the same fiber.
