Okay now I just HAVE to ask, what are your theories and headcanons on Draxum's backstory and how yokai went underground?? This information simply cannot remain in my comment section
Yesss i agree! Okay! So my working story for Draxum in my AU, Lost Star, is this:
Draxum isn't American; this much is obvious. I lean on making him Scandinavian, largely Norse, especially with the robes he wears. (Though they're likely canonically something of more samurai / Japanese origin)
He was living in a mountain village when it was pillaged and he was taken as a slave, likely from a sect of Genghis Khan's soldiers, or Yokai poachers, and taken to china. (I've yet to determine how old Drax is but canonically, he is like 100's, plural, old, that is confirmed, if not Genghis Khan's sect, not to big a deal)
He'd grown up with tales of how humans drove their people underground so long ago, despite one party's advocacy, largely tales to keep a child in line, but, well, turned sour when tragedy struck.. Even a kind child can believe such is the villain.
He was assigned to be trained as a warrior, where he saw human cruelty to yokai first hand, how they were othered, how he was forced to hurt and kill his fellow people, never humans though.. He was dehorned without an anaesthetic when he one day used his horns to stab one the captors in the eye after a botched escape attempt.
So he waited, and learned, eventually freeing him and his fellow captives once an adult, taking them to the nearest hidden city to get them safe, and establish himself, working as a guard, and raised through the ranks, becoming even a hiddin city leader's personal guard, only thing he was good at, all he was allowed to learn back then after all.
Of course, he finally learns to read and write through fellow Yokai who kept in contact with him, some even followed when he moved to America, where he finally started studying magic and alchemy, not doomed to just be dumb muscle. (Hence why he gets really pissed off at the Council of heads for saying a warrior has no place being a scientist, he didn't GET that option!)
Course when he hears the prophecy, he resolves to help, course he's well-intentioned; he cares deeply for other yokai, but humans? just villains who'd gladly turn on them at the drop of a coin. Gladly inflict the same pain onto them that they did them.
Aaand then we know the whole turtles story, and how he gets smacked with the "You dipshit" redemption stick.
As for the war? It had to have happened pre-1,000 years from the second Krang invasion that created the Hamato Clan. Cause 1,000 years ago would place Japan in the Heian period. (Classical Era) and the Middle Ages for Europe.
So old now not many people know HOW it happened, likely they went into hidding due to the shame of being mutated, but also their children coming up to explore Creating stories of dragons, yokai, etc, as they came up to harass or help humans which.. Inadvertently, caused a silent war, only real history of such is of how dragons were slayed, yokai were tricked, and demons banished.
The Hamatos made it a bit more easily for Yokai from japan to be accepted, and in modern times, humans just.. stopped caring? Their stories, they're not real, pffft A dragon? King Kong an actor? Suuuure Jannet, and They got more pressing things to worry about, like the Q-anon believer.
