Weavings

A/N I do not own TMNT, but I am forever grateful for their existence!

II.

"Raphael?" April tried the word as though rolling it over her tongue, "It does sound awfully familiar doesn't it?"

Leonardo folded his arms and bent his head for a moment in concentration, and Raphael suddenly found himself focusing on his eldest brother's thread. Leonardo was trying to remember – he was trying to remove Raphael's spell, which enfolded the golden twine. After a tense moment, Leonardo gasped in pain to hold his head. Raphael relaxed. The spell, although temporarily weakened, had held.

It was another sign of how much time had passed for The Soul Collector. The spell on his brothers had been cast shortly after his transformation. At the time, he was ill-equipped to make it a perfect weaving but now, if Raphael were to perform the same incantation, there would be no chance of his brothers being able to remove it. It would be easy to recast… Yet Raphael hesitated.

Back then it had seemed so simple. It still was. Wasn't it?

Leonardo muttered, "It feels like something is blocking me from remembering…"

"I know," Donatello murmured, "I feel the same way whenever I think about it too hard. That's why I remotely backed up all my data in several hidden locations. If my computer doesn't send those areas a message every twenty-four hours, one of the systems will get my attention and redistribute the information pertaining to this enigma. That way if my memory is wiped again there'll still be a way to know.

Raphael's eyes widened as he abruptly straightened. HE DID WHAT?! How the fuck was Raphael supposed to fix all this now?

"Why would someone do this?" Michelangelo whined, "What happened to our bro, Raphael?"

Raphael felt a pain ache within his chest as Michelangelo's large blue eyes looked to Donatello pleading for answers. He was well aware all five members of the group were struggling against his spell. If he did not recast it soon their memories would begin to leak through, and he simply could not allow that to happen. They deserved to continue their lives as normally as possible. They were better off without him.

More than once in the many years since he cut himself out of their lives, Raphael had wished he could have left his Sensei out of the folds of his reach. Alas, even his rat father had to undergo similar memory alterations if his plan was to work; yet all too often the god found himself yearning for Splinter's guidance. Now, more than ever, he wanted to speak with his Sensei… But… He couldn't.

The god clenched his fists at his side as familiar anger swept through his core. He was being stupid! He was well beyond such petty concerns as familial ties and emotional bonds. He was a god for fuck's sake – a tremendously powerful one at that! He had made his decision and had to live with the consequences.

Only a year after becoming The Soul Collector, Raphael had learned that not all was well. Along with Raphael's unnatural transformation, by making all three of his brothers his immortal retainers the Tapestry of Fate had begun to fray. Too many mortal threads had been removed at once, and if his brothers had remained by his side, the realm's very fabric would eventually tear. If that had occurred, his brothers would have been whisked away into oblivion and Raphael would have been absolutely powerless to stop it.

A truly horrific fate awaited any soul who traversed the Abyss. No longer connected to The Soul Collector, the lost spirits in turn would no longer be connected to the Soul Nexus Gate. This meant that they could never be reincarnated nor could they ever return to the universe's energy stream. They would be partitioned off, spending eternity in a void of emptiness, and would be forever out of Raphael's reach.

The Soul Collector refused to let this fate befall his brothers, but the only way he could repair the damage done by the Herald and the previous Soul Collector's drastic alterations was for him to manually relocate his brothers' threads. With that done, Raphael had to use his own divine threads to repair the torn fabric and save his brothers. However, they could not lie next to mortal threads with their immortality intact. In order to reweave his brothers' threads, Raphael had to strip them of their eternal life.

His brothers would no longer be his retainers and no longer be immortal. Both of which were painful enough for The Soul Collector but worse yet, the collection of their immortality came at an even greater cost. For all the brothers' memories consequent to the god's transformation would vanish the instant Raphael began to drain their eternal life. They would wake up mortal to a brother who was suddenly a god with no recollection of how such a thing came to be. If they were lucky, their last memories would make it to that fateful day when Raphael left his mortality behind forever.

None of his family members had been pleased by their circumstances; nonetheless, neither did they relish spending eternity in oblivion. It had been easy for Raphael to convince them it was for the better. What The Soul Collector hadn't told his family was that he planned on implementing his own modifications when he took their immortality.

The damaged Tapestry of Fate was proof that Raphael's new existence was dangerous to those around him; however, no longer did those stakes merely involve death. With eternity itself on the line, The Soul Collector could no longer bear to keep his family by his side as long as it meant them being put at such a risk. The time had come to cut all unnecessary ties to them. Yet he knew as long as his brothers remembered him – even as ordinary mortals – they would always try to find him. Raphael could not allow them that luxury. The solution: erase himself completely.

And he did.

After the loss of their immortality, the three brothers awoke to a world free of a fourth mutant turtle. With no one to remind them, including the altered Splinter, Casey, April, and endless others, the mortals returned to their lives completely unaware that their brother Raphael was missing. After all, how can you miss what was never there? They did not miss a brother. They did not miss Raphael. They did not know of the gaping hole that now filled their hearts.

With his task completed, Raphael returned alone to the Soul Nexus. After successfully repairing the Tapestry of Fate, he would then spend the following half-millennia working to become unparalleled in both his power and strength. If he was stuck as The Soul Collector, he would at least do his damnedest to be a ruler his denizens would appreciate.

What else could he do? It was all he had left.

Yet, now, after all the years following the Tapestry's repair, as Raphael stared at the backs of his friends and family, he found himself struggling to convince himself that his continued absence from their lives really was necessary.

He shook his head violently. What the hell was he thinking?

It wasn't like he could just pick up his life again with them. As much as he pretended otherwise, he did have duties and responsibilities. He had an unfathomable amount of life energy to keep track of throughout the nearly countless worlds spread throughout the wide expanses of time that cumulatively composed the entirety of his realm. Yes, he had numerous lesser gods helping him out, but ultimately, each and every being under his jurisdiction was his responsibility. Family or not, no mere mortals could distract him from that; even if those mere mortals were his brothers… Brothers whose company his heart had ached desperately for these last 562 years…

Gritting his teeth, The Soul Collector gathered the five threads attached to the beings before him. He could still feel each individual fighting against the mercurial coil that bound them all from their recollections of the past. Silently summoning the proper enchantment, five new sheaths of silver arose in the air, hovering inches from their targets. Raphael squeezed his glowing green eyes closed for a second, before snapping them open and forcing his will into his spell. Simultaneously, each thread was enveloped in a silver cocoon of magic and the moment the weaving tightened, each member of the group cried as their minds were abruptly forced from the chamber in which their sequestered memories lay.

Clearly, the incantation was a success, but as Raphael plucked his heart's harp to summon the rift that would take him to back to the Soul Nexus, all he could feel was the chronic cold that never left his chest.

A/N A little bit of backstory and another cliff hanger ;)

To my lovely reviewers:

zodiology: Haha it's so true. I'm glad you're enjoying it so far, thanks for reviewing :)

1234BlueLagoon: Thank you, I'm thrilled you're enjoying it so far. :)

Gwydion: :D Yay G! I am so so so happy you're enjoying it so far. This was my sneaky drabble that I was hiding from you all this time ;) Also not going to lie, I totally thought of you when I came up with the idea for Don to find a floppy disk. Anyway I answered a few of your questions in this chapter but you're going to have to be patient lol… There's a lot more to come yet ;) And because I can't say it enough, HAPPY BIRTHDAY G! All the love for my OSMTB!

Sunny Lighter: Sorry, I know it was probably slightly confusing, but hopefully this last chapter helped clear some things up. Just to clarify though, this is in the same universe as "Threads." Thanks for reviewing. :)

Anonymous: You'll see… Anyway, I've never really been one to stick to a regular schedule of updating, but I do to try to update at least once a week. However, once school starts in three weeks I can make no promises, but I will still do my best to try and keep you guys from hanging for too long. Thanks for reviewing, I am glad you're excited to see what happens next :)