Leonardo remembered every detail of the blow that caused the crimson stain on splinter's hand painted carpet. The rolling in his stomach as he watched a glistening fist launch hard and fast at an undeserving opponent. The dreadful snapping of calloused knuckles colliding into a disjointed jawbone from below as four whirling shuriken struck the opposer's chest with a satisfying shlick. The distinct clicking sound when the neck popped backwards hard, along with the rest of him.
The body rag-dolled and toppled as if it had been plowed by a run-away battering ram. Worse - a run away Raphael.
Leonardo remembered the silence that fell upon the dojo in that moment. No one dared to interrupt the daunting quietude that had made itself their guest. This, however long it felt to him, was in reality quite brief.
Almost all at once, the family scrambled from their posts and gathered around the scene of the crime in a mad rush for answers. The look in the proprietor's eyes as the jury drew their final conclusions - judged him guilty - brought out the beast beneath his skin. He argued with the nearest as if the string had been pulled and snapped not by two hands alone, but four. Leo didn't listen. His younger brother's crumpled body was a heap of limbs and bloody distractions with no definable sources. No words could draw his attention away, however cruel they were.
Leonardo remembered kneeling down by the head of his little brother and pulling the pale and injured body into his waiting arms with little trouble. The listless form did not protest the sudden movement, causing Leo's anxieties to skyrocket. Reaching out with a shaky hand, Leo pinched one of the many shuriken embedded in his brother's chest between two of his broad and lengthy fingers. He pulled harder than he thought would be necessary - felt wrong for having touched it in the first place, but he couldn't bear the sight any longer. His lengthily effort was rewarded with an unnerving squish and a steady stream of sanguine.
His brother didn't even flinch.
He dropped the bloodied metal onto the tatami mats below, then reached for another shuriken. He thought better of it, and instead moved to gently stroke the sweat beaten brow of their youngest. The eldest cooed softly upon deaf ears.
The flurry of insults behind him became more and more intense as argument advanced to childish pushing and shoving. Yet, despite the quickly growing tempers, no amount of anger surpassed that of a grief-stricken Master Splinter.
"Michelangelo!"
Raphael did not remember every detail that caused the crimson stain on his father's hand painted carpet, but these were the few things that he would never forget.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I know this concept isn't entirely original but I have some sick writer's block to work through. Future chapters will start taking spins and twist because I wanna experiment with ideas and this is my way of learning more about the characters and how they would react. I have no fucking clue what I'm doing. U _ U
