To let go of someone you love isn't easy.
To say goodbye is hard.
Yet, what do you do when there is proof that your love one isn't gone.
Though you killed them with your own two hands.
This was Master Splinter's problem.
He watched their movements, the franticness that showed they were ready to spring into action. Though they had no clue of where to go, or even in what direction their feet should take them. His youngest heads towards the door after their attackers, his eldest went for his weapons, and his remaining middle child went towards his lab. They were all a flurry of action, but there was not one rationale thought amongst them. Though he couldn't blame them at all.
If he hadn't seen him.
If he hadn't known everything that had happen from the beginning ...he would have been beside them in their call to action.
But, knowing what he did, as their father, he could do no less than to reign them in.
"To ma re."
They all froze in place. Time, patiences, and training had made this possible, and the older rat was glad he would have to do no more. He wasn't sure if he could manage it as his tail lashes out behind him and he made it a point to clamber to his full height before he addresses them. The entire thing looked like he was trying to be dramatic, but in fact, it was to help him gather his thoughts and his words. He would need both to be sharp as he moved to crush their hopes and their dreams. His own heart would constrict painfully as their eyes lock on him, and he took in their appearance as he let the silences hang heavily.
Leonardo, his oldest was trembling lightly. The wrist band that had been left behind by their decease brother was tight in his hands. Only little bits of red peeked out of his grasp, while his middle child would take one hand and touch the stitches in his plastron. It was the last gift that he would receive from his lost brother as he gently rubs it as though to calm himself. The gaping wound that must have decorated his chest before those threads were placed. He didn't have to imagine what it looked like, he had seen it. There was no way that he should still be alive, still standing, but the brother that had put those stitching there had done something. He had saved him as he did his eldest who's burns were still clear on his body. Patchworks of black and green and red, because, none of those burns were healed. He had gotten hit point blank by a bomb, though he was burnt, his wounds had to have been worse than that. Though Master Splinter hadn't seen those wounds himself.
He looks down at his own chest.
He had been dealing with his own fatal wounds …now gone, and those green eyes, he remembers the look on his son's face. He was dying as his red banded son had been pleading with him. Those eyes told him more than his mouth as the words were impossible to grasp, his son's wish to make him understand …before he was gone. Master Splinter was still unsure how he managed to get enough air in his lungs to speak to his son, but he was glad that he did have that chance ….before he was gone. Before, the son that had saved them all …was gone.
He couldn't speak then.
There was too much going on in his head as he would gesture for his sons to come forward and sit in front of him. Kneeling, kneeling was something he couldn't ask as he sat down himself in front of them, and they copy his movements. A semi-circle as the three turtles followed his directions as clearly and calmly as they would on any normal day.
His wish.
"My sons,"
Splinter would finally address them as Michelangelo would look up at his father with pure expectation in his eyes. His eyes were shimmering lightly with barely restrain tears. It was hard not to get overly emotional, especially after such a near death experience. They all, from their father to himself should be dead right now. He had seen how everyone had felt. Those bastards had pinned him down, made him watch, and they proceeded to beat him into unconsciousness and beyond. The wounds, one hand would go to his legs. The bastards that had attacked them had tried their darnest to make him suffer. The bruises that still litter the yellow green skin of the orange band turtle was proof of that. Wounds that they had inflicted of the lesser variety, because, the real killer had happened to his legs. The spike of pain so high that he could feel nothing else as they broke one leg to wake him up, and the twin that blazes so hot that his mind shut down to avoid being fried by it as they broke the other to shut up. Legs broken and bleeding out, he was sure he would have died without any medical attention and there was none coming. Yet somehow, their brother had saved them. The bits of red cloth that he clutch in his hands told him that much …parts of a mask that he had to shred and bind the wound as best as he could.
It shouldn't have been enough to save him.
Yet, there wasn't even a scar.
Master Splinter, surely must have an answer to this, and so, everyone listens and hung onto his every word.
"…calm yourself. Your actions will not help in this situation, nor will it solve our real problem."
Every eye was on him. Every eye was on Master Splinter as he spoke those words. Hope twinkle in their eyes, he would have a plan. He would know what to do, how to handle this, or at the least he would be able to explain this miracle.
"We need to think this through. There is no sense in more blood being shed half-hazardly."
It sounded a bit like scolding to his own ears, but, the rat master was simply trying to give himself more time. He needed it to find the right words, because the next thing he said would hurt them all. He delayed further with a question.
"What are the things we need to do first?"
"Find Raphael."
He asked them, and the answer that came back was united. Oh, how he hoped that he wasn't the only one who had seen it. Though he knew he was. He had hoped for a different answer still, and he drops his head when he didn't get it. Their eyes were still looking at him expectantly. From the moment that they saw their brother's body gone, they had figured he would lead them in the battle to get back their brother's remains. Though it probably wasn't remains in their eyes, but, their living breathing brother. They hadn't seen what happen, they only had his mementos to go with, and their own logic to draw the wrong conclusion.
"No, your brother is dead. Finding him, will not bring him back nor will it serve some greater purpose."
The look of hurt that flash through their eyes and the confusion.
"He saved our lives somehow, and I know for a fact that he is dead. His sacrifice will be in vain, if we die trying to retrieve his body. So, we need to focus on other things, we need to figure out how they find the lair. We need to find a new place to live, and we must be cautious, because I do not know if the enemy is aware of our survival or not."
The look of accusation cross his eldest face. He knew, Leonardo, would take these directions the worst. No, It was the worst because the maelstorm that should be here was gone; the son that would have exploded was dead. Maybe it was that realization that drown the flames in his eldest eyes before it seem his anger could gain strength. He drops his eyes to the floor and declares softly.
"Hai sensei."
Master Splinter's eyes would then shift to meet that of his middle child. A soft Hai would escape his lips before Master Splinter's eyes fell upon the youngest who was openly crying at this point. Tears, tears of pain and tears of rage would run down his face steadily. He was warring with himself, and the elder rat could only wait to see which side won. Blue eyes that blaze with rage would meet his eyes then.
"No."
A single word in the darkness.
A single word that refused to be lost to darkness ….as their missing brother floated in nothingness and yet was suffocating in it all the same. He couldn't feel anything but the downward pull that threatens to consume him, but yet, he continued to refuse it. Raphael wouldn't allow the darkness to have him again. He would escape, he would find his way to either eternity or back to his family.
This was his pledge.
(Chapter 1 finished)