When he walked into the Raiden's Divine Mercy for Children's Endless Plight or Picking Up the Pieces orphanage, Tetsu could sense something was amiss. Everything, on the surface, was normal; the toddlers were just then in the middle of being served snacks by their caretaker, and either waddling around clumsily with their food or eating crayons and pointing awkwardly at nothing or the myriad of endlessly inane things that children tend to do when they get together, but Tetsu had this abstract impression that they were all or most of them watching him in their peripheral vision. The rumors of an entire clan of ninja who had taken not only to transforming themselves for long durations into children and babies were alarming enough, but new intel was coming in that they may have even been working on a complementary taijutsu style that made use of their tiny statures. We tend to think of babies as weak, but there was no exchange in strength when the transformation jutsu took hold, with possible exceptions at the lower ends of size. As toddlers, you might see a light reduction, but nothing to make them any less menacing in any substantial sort of way, and their image as child soldiers made them all the more devastating as psychological opponents. This is saying nothing of a frame that's practically built for evading attacks.
"Listen up you bastards!" The caretaker stumbled back in shock, looking like she needed to make a physical effort just to digest the words as two more staff members nervously and hurriedly started walking over. "Not used to having the shit kicked out of you without showing yourselves, are you? Well I'm here to tell you that that's exactly what I aim to do here." Most of the kids were now looking at him, drooling, and a few of them started to cry, which seemed to trigger a kind of chain reaction of other kids beginning to wail in response to their distress. Before the staff could reach Tetsu, one bold young boy came up to the shinobi, crying and looking away, but lifting his stubby little hand up to awkwardly punch Tetsu on the knee. In one smooth motion, the boy reached his hand down to grab the toddler by the wrist, squeezing it until it opened. A small and sharp metal tool was resting barely exposed up his sleeve, dripping with a black liquid. Tetsu kneed him hard in the face, and that seemed to be what was needed to trigger an absolute frenzy. The children waddled toward him with new looks on their face; suddenly they didn't look so absolutely dazed, but they did, in a way. The scene itself was very disorienting, as if the movements themselves were hypnotic, forcing any onlooker to try to understand what they were looking at, or rather, trying to understand if what they were looking at was at all unusual or if it ought to be viewed with any suspicion at all.
Well, if there was anything to look at that warranted a definite response, it would certainly be the change in trajectory of the orphanage's staffers. They immediately changed their trajectory, scurrying to lock themselves behind closed doors and to leave the children to fend for themselves. Well, they could have been cowards... He didn't really have time to weigh his own observations before the mob was right on top of them, one of the little rascals jumping up to bite down hard on his thigh. The pain was far greater than he would have expected, and blood immediately started gushing out. Tetsu punched the young girl twice square in the cheek before she unhinged her jaw and tumbled to the side. Another one jumped onto his arm and clung tight. Smart little bugger, went for his right arm, which might have been the default, but they might have been paying attention to his dominant hand too. In either case, the babies were like giant lead weights, and they seemed to have a kind of concerted strategy for the front line of attacks to simply take the hits until one of them broke through to clamp down on one of his limbs, making mobility impossible. The ones that grabbed onto his arms weaved their fingers across his too, as much as they could, to jam up any handseals he might have attempted. It didn't matter though, he wanted to punch these babies in the face, no need for magic.
When it seemed like he was properly bound, he watched as a whole slew of them started jumping off of the backs of other bent down toddlers. They really acted like an army. Three babies in a row launched past him dealing one punch each, and they were no joke either. Their tiny hands rammed right into his bones as he was helpless to lift his hands up high enough to block them. What was worse was that some of the toddlers were reaching to grab onto the ones that were attached to him, further anchoring him. Not on his watch, you stupid goddamn babies. He reached up with all his might, and thankfully had a counter nearby, first slamming one down by their face on the hard countertop, before sliding him along the wooden blocks and paper dishes scattered across it, before slamming him into the pillar at the end. The child's ribs were slammed into it and he let out a loud yelp before collapsing on the side of the counter opposite to Tetsu. With his one arm free, he reached over the other side of the counter, swinging the baby on his other arm over it, and using the momentum from that swing to lift himself up, pulling both knees up to the overhang of the counter, slamming the foreheads of both of the children stuck to his legs right into it. They each let out an awful sound and let go. He couldn't help but find it a little bit funny, partly because of how horrible it was. He was allowed to laugh though, this was his job after all. At the sight of this, a few of the toddlers seemed to lose some of their nerve. They had gotten soft from a lack of timely resistance, it seemed, but Tetsu was duty bound to do the unpleasant, and enjoy it if he could. As they were backing off, he decided he was now going to use his size against them, reaching into their own bag of tricks and turning it against them. He ran into the backpeddling crowd, ramming his fists into multiple tiny faces before a single swing was done. He was king now; he ran the orphanage. "What's the matter? Not as easy as you thought it would be?"
The fight, in the end, was over, the spirit of his enemy now completely broken. He went through the rooms gathering the evidence he would inevitably need to clear his name, and made his way to the door, sweating and breathless. He turned back to the inside of the orphanage, the sun shining on his face. "Until next time. Look forward to it."