Yata-no-Kagami

The **Yata-no-Kagami** is an artifact—an ancient mirror which is one of the three Imperial Regalia of Japan, along with the Kusanagi Sword and the Yasakani-no-Magatama. In *Mutant Ninja Turtles Gaiden*, it is also a supernatural object and important plot device, whose nature is explained in Chapter 21: *The Curse of "Yamata-no-Orochi"*.

## History

Though the Yata-no-Kagami is a Japanese royal artifact, in *MNT Gaiden* it has come into the possession of Karai's Foot Clan, who seek to use its supernatural power—if someone under the Curse of Yamata-no-Orochi touches the mirror, they can divine the identities and locations of living descendants of the Morinaga Bloodline.

The Foot Clan have begun a mission to systematically exterminate the Morinaga Bloodline, as every living descendant carries within them part of the life force of the demon Yamata-no-Orochi, though Morinagas themselves are immune to the demon's curse. After the Prologue when Hamato Splinter and his son Leonardo destroyed the Tōtsuka Sword which had acted as the demon's vessel, the Foot were alerted to the sword's destruction when the Kusanagi Sword—formed from the demon's bodily remains—turned to dust and blew away, with its essence returning to the demon to prepare it for reawakening. A reawakened Yamata-no-Orochi would rampage the earth as it had in ancient times, and the Foot Clan seek to stop this from happening at any cost.

The Foot Clan initially had no cursed members, and could not use the Yata-no-Kagami as a tool of divination, so they improvise by locating and killing every individual with the surname Morinaga or who had a verified Morinaga ancestor. But a year into their mission, they encounter Leonardo Hamato who had been sojourning in Japan to learn about his family's new curse and the origins of the sword that had triggered it. Karai teaches Leonardo about Yamata-no-Orochi, the Tōtsuka Sword and the demon's curse, and asks the turtle to touch the mirror and describe what he sees. Leo accurately describes a man he had seen before, the father of Sayako, a young woman he had recently befriended. Leo is alarmed when the man is identified as Douan Morinaga and immediately marked for death as a Morinaga. Leo tries to save Douan from assassination, but Douan only sends away his daughter Sayako and accepts his own death at the hands of the Foot. At the very moment of Douan's death, Leonardo's own curse is temporarily neutralized, and he becomes convinced that helping the Foot Clan use the Yata-no-Kagami to find and exterminate Morinagas is indeed the best way to save himself and his family from their curse.

According to Chapter 22: *The Witch-Hunt of a Bloodline*, Leonardo's divinations lead the Foot Clan in systematically annihilating the Morinagas from Japan (including his friend Sayako whom they rediscover in Sendai), along with everywhere else in the world except for a few remaining in the vicinity of New York City, where the Foot Clan relocate their operations to complete their mission.

But in Chapter 23: *Following the Leader*, Eikichi Gotoh escapes Foot captivity and steals the Yata-no-Kagami. The Foot and Leonardo manipulate Leo's brothers Raphael and Michelangelo and Raphael's Renoir into unwittingly helping the Foot track down Eikichi and the mirror. The moment Eikichi is captured and the stolen Yata-no-Kagami seized, Leo quickly uses the mirror to locate one of the last Morinagas remaining—Marcella, a classmate of Davianna, Shadow and Augustus from their Private School. Marcella's Father has already discovered the Foot have tracked them down, and has already hastily packed Marcella's bags so she can flee the country, unaware that the a supernatural artifact is being used to track her no matter where in the world she goes.