Chapter 13: A Breaking Dawn

"I don't even know anymore," Michelangelo sighed.

The first light of dawn had crept into the morning sky, turning the air a bitter grey. The sound of a pebble dislodged from the pavement skittered across the ground, echoing through the winding maze of alleys between old cracked fisheries. But somehow, every step felt more like proving dead ends than finding clues. Just another black line drawn across the maps, another probability proven wrong. The paths they'd taken, the roads, the old bloodstains washed away with the thawing snow, even the damn cracks embedded in the asphalt were starting to feel familiar now.

They must have come here a million times. Mike was almost positive he could walk there in his sleep. "We've been here forever, looking at the same stupid garbage," he said with a knot in his brow. A hint of unexpected anger tinged his voice as he kicked up a pile of sodden newspapers. "Raph's the one that's good at tracking, not us. Not me."

He'd been watching his shadow creep across the walls for a while now—dark, faceless, uncertain. He pressed his hand against the crumbling stone, and the shadow-hand came to meet it. His fingers brushed the ancient brickwork, sending a channel of dust tumbling to the ground. He closed his eyes, breathed.

Don was behind him, wordless, just the hollow scraping of shell against a far wall. Mike had been so strong for so long—three weeks, so damn long— it was unbearable, but a godsend, a blessing and a curse. This breath, this snapshot of time was so fragile, he felt the air could be shattered with a touch. He couldn't find the voice to speak or the energy to move away from the wall that had once borne a bloody handprint—forgotten.

Mikey slid his hand off the wall, slowly, letting his fingertips graze it before it fell limply to his side. "D-do you really think we could find them?" His voice was small, like a child's. "I mean… we would know, right?"

Don let out a breath, eyes wandering away across the alley. He knew what his brother meant, but it was better to pretend not to. His voice caught in his throat.

"We would know… if they died?"

He couldn't find the words.

Mike was right, always right about keeping faith, searching more, holding on to hope no matter how illogical the circumstance. But standing there against the wall, reality had come to find him still. Reality was something Don just couldn't argue with. He had to look away—from his brother, from the walls, but the sky looked just as foreboding. "I would like to think so."

Michelangelo only nodded and turned to wander farther up the alley.

They walked that way for a while, in the silence, farther than they usually went for the time of day. This part of the city was a maze of decaying brickwork and empty windows. The machinery within had gone silent long ago, draped in cobwebs and layers of dust. They had systematically searched them all from top to bottom, and every one of them was just the same—silent, like a tomb.

"What was that?"

Donatello almost fell over backwards after colliding with his brother's suddenly motionless carapace. "Ow, Mikey, what—"

"Shh!"

Don immediately pressed his mouth closed, letting Mike practically drag him into the shadows. Mikey's eyes were wild as he took Don by the shoulders, heart thrumming in his ears, and pointed to the shadows leaping over the divide where they stood. "Look!"

They had to watch in stunned silence, watching the raven-men pouring over the edge of the building, blotting out the sky.

They had never seen numbers like this before, shifting overhead like a cloud of sparrows across the building gap.

There was only one way to describe it: it was an army.

Retracting further into the shadows, Don's words came as barely a whisper. "The Foot…"

The last of them were passing, and Mikey's eyes were searching, set alight by a new fire now. "Do you remember when you told me we can 'go wherever I feel'?" A sly grin spread over his face. "I just got a feeling."

The light was unbearable. Raphael wanted to scream, wanted to tear out the throats of the men that were dragging them into this hell of light and fire. He could feel his pupils constricting to pinpricks like staring at the sun. He closed his eyes and let them drag him, chaos swelling to near deafening volume. But the darkness behind his lids was still stained and painful.

He couldn't remember how long it had taken to grow that accustomed to the dark. The days before chaos were coated in haze and the vestiges of sleep, crumbling like ashes on a chill wind.

Hands, the heat of breath and bodies, the smell of sweat and iron panic, screaming pounding at his skull from every direction. He could only close his eyes tighter, too weak to fight or even struggle against the grips of a thousand faceless, howling men.

All pain was erased, every thought, breath, heartbeat drawn in light and sound. There was only one thing the chaos would allow: terror. Deep, rotting terror.

"Leo!" He roared over the screams of the ninja. He reached out into the ocean of bodies and his fingertips found his brother's shoulder.

He'd always know it, the feel of his brother's skin. Even blind, even staring down the throes of death, he would know it.

"Leo!" His eyes burned until tears pooled and spilled, but he wrenched them open wide.

And there was Leonardo, limp beneath his captors' grasp, pale and thin by the countless days. The gaping hole carved into his plastron wept a cascade of black and crimson. His hands were stained, his body smeared with it almost beyond recognition. The blood was not only his own.

Raph's stomach roiled, choking on his panic. The tides of black-clothed men were crushing in all around them, hunger in their eyes. "Oh god," he croaked. "Oh god."

Then, by some miracle, Leo lifted his head, only dull eyes peering through the wall of bodies. Softly, he smiled at his brother. "I'm here, outouto."

Raphael's fear didn't ebb, but a great relief washed over his consciousness, crushing out everything else in the massive room. "Don't leave me," he choked. "Please."

"I would never leave you," he vowed as Raphael's touch left his shoulder. The last of his brother was swallowed up by the angry black sea.

They were dragging him roughly up to a concrete platform, the blood loss making his head spin and his vision swim. He let his head hang limply forward, exhaustion overtaking him and unconsciousness threatening the corners of his mind.

But he didn't surrender to it. No, he would never surrender to the likes of the Foot. Not now. There was one point in the darkness where he thought he had lost it all—his honor, his control, his respect, his sanity. She tried to take it from him. She drove herself mad trying to destroy it. But Leonardo now knew these things couldn't be so easily stripped away.

He had murdered Karai. He was baptized in her blood. Nothing could ever take that from him.

With his last ounce of strength, he found his footing, and walked willingly up the concrete steps. Pain and weakness forgotten. Light-headed, he felt like he was floating two inches off the ground, looking down from above and the great writhing, leaderless hoard.

They were calling for his blood. But it was a sacrifice he gladly took, he and Raphael together, to save the rest of their family, their brothers, from death.

By his own power, he reached the top of the platform and looked out to the living black sea. Drenched in the blood of their leader mingling with his own, he gratefully accepted his fate.

The day had been one of those rare care-free kinds that left you smiling and giggling and cracking jokes long after it was done. Donny and Mikey were doing just that, plopped in front of the TV without a care in the world. From where Leo was standing, he could see Mikey's feet where his head should be on the couch, which wasn't as odd as you'd think.

It wasn't long before the two of them were in peels of laughter again, rolling around on the floor, gasping for breath.

Leo knew exactly what they were joking about too, which made that twist of guilt in his stomach only tighten.

Raphael was nowhere to be seen, which wasn't that big of a deal. They had teased him pretty bad back there by the drainage tunnel. But a few hours of running around the sewers had him forgetting about it pretty quickly. He and Mikey and Donny had played pirates in a new runoff channel for what seemed like forever until they finally decided to go home.

But the minute Leo stepped into the Lair, it all came back to him even worse than before.

So that's why he was pacing outside of Sensei's door—back and fourth and back and fourth, trying to get enough courage to decide whether he was going to actually go in or not. He practically jumped out of his shell when Splinter's voice called from within.

"Leonardo, are you planning to wear a groove into the floor, or will you enter and tell me what is bothering you?"

"Ummm…"

The shoji door opened suddenly, and Master Splinter stood in the doorway, trying to suppress a smile. "No need to be hesitant, my son. Come in."

But even after Splinter had told him not to be afraid, Leo still was. He took a seat on the mat across from his sensei and tried not to let his eyes wander around the room.

"You know you can come to me whenever you are troubled, Leonardo. Do not feel afraid to."

"I know, Sensei," he murmured. "It's just…"

Splinter did not respond, only sat and patiently waited for his son to find his words.

"It's just that Raphael was acting pretty weird today. I mean… weirder than he usually does." The boy smiled cheekily up at his father, waiting for an admonishment that didn't come. "We were kinda mean to him when we were playing."

"I have spoken to you and your brothers about the teasing, Leonardo," Splinter chided softly, watching his son's eyes fill up with shame.

"I'm sorry, Sensei," Leo said softly, bowing to his father apologetically.

"It is all right, my son," he replied, placing a hand upon Leonardo's shoulder as he lifted himself from the bow. "But you know, I am not the one whom deserves an apology."

"I know…" Leo's eyes wandered across the walls of Splinter's room. "I- I just don't get him, father. One second he wants to play, and then he doesn't. And sometimes he'll laugh and joke around, then he's crying because someone said something mean. I think there's something wrong with him."

The boy's eyes were so hopeful for an answer, it almost hurt to not be able to provide him one. Splinter sat in silence for a moment, gathering his thoughts from the creased brow of his oldest, expecting him to explain the matter away with a word.

"It is a complicated answer," he mused, "but I will explain it as this: we are each unique beings, my son, different in many ways. Just as we are different from those who walk the world above, your brothers are different from one another." Splinter hesitated for a breath, hopeful his lesson was hitting its mark. "Let me ask you this. Though humans fear us for our differences, does that make us… as you say 'weird'?"

Leo had to giggle at his father's choice of words. "No…" His smile cracked into a grin. "Well, kinda."

Splinter's whiskers twitched, threatening a smile of his own. "But does that make us bad?"

"No, I don't think so. I like who I am. I like our family. I don't think we're bad. You say all the time that we're special. I think it's in a good way."

Splinter nodded. "So you would agree that not all differences are bad, or even 'weird'."

"Yes," Leonardo agreed eagerly."Some differences are good."

"That is how you must perceive your brother. He is different, yes, but his differences are not something we should see as bad, or even strange. He is Raphael. His emotions run deeply, even though he is learning ways to hide it from us. He is sensitive, fiercely loyal, and genuine to a fault. But that is who he is, my son. That uniqueness should not be mocked, it should be celebrated."

Leo's face was suddenly grim with seriousness. "I understand, father."

"But…"

The boy's eyes widened at his sensei's expectant gaze. "But I don't understand him. I don't get him at all."

The old rat chuckled slightly at the desperation in his son's voice. "You are young, Leonardo. You are still learning to understand yourself, never less the inner workings of others."

Leo looked absolutely stricken by this news. It was enough for Splinter to completely break the formality of the moment. He motioned for his son to come closer, and pulled the small boy into his lap. With a sigh, he rested his head on his father's shoulder, and suddenly felt a whole lot less worried.

"Do not fret yourself, my son," the old rat murmured. "I know you pride yourself with being the eldest, but you cannot see it as an obligation to understand it all. It is not your duty. Your duty is to lead them, be their guidance as only a brother can be. Raphael does not need someone to fully understand him. He needs someone to guide him when his emotions cloud his judgment. It is your duty to take his hand and lead him in the right direction."

Leonardo's voice was soft against his shoulder. "Does that mean I'll never understand him, sensei?"

"Perhaps with time, my son. One day, you will learn to understand yourself, and in turn gain the wisdom to understand others. Until then, you must lead him to the best of your ability."

They had been tailing the pack of ninja from for miles, racing across the rooftops at an exhausting speed. Wherever they were heading, it was urgent. The two extra shadows following at a distance went unnoticed. No man faltered out of sync, no man slowed even a step to break the maddening pace.

By then, all doubts in Donatello's mind had faded. Something was definitely fishy.

The icy morning air had given him clarity, finally, after all these miserable days of pointless searching and sleepless nights. The ninja lead them to a part of the city they hadn't yet explored with great thoroughness, which only made the anxious fire in Don's gut burn hotter.

This had to be it. They were running out of options.

When the pack had dropped off the roofs and into a dark alley, Don and Mike watched them pour into a nearby building from the shadows. The sound of voices coming from within was deafening and explosive. The outraged roars of a thousand men echoed through the silent streets, beckoning in the morning sun.

There was a skylight on the roof of the building. Wordlessly, Donatello motioned to his brother, and they hopped across the divide. The glass was murky and clouded with age, but nothing could deny the scene that stretched before them, two stories below.

Foot ninja, more in one place than they had ever seen, filling every inch of the massive warehouse. Gone was the cold and silent discipline, gone was the mechanical obedience. In its place was a tangle of bodies, hands reaching out, a consuming mass of angry sea. Like a concrete pupil surrounded in a black iris was a platform. In its center stood Leonardo.

He looked like a living, blood-drenched corpse. But somehow, he was on his feet, staring down the furious masses.

"Oh my god."

"Holy crap! They're gunna kill him! What the heck are we gunna do? Oh, crap oh crap oh crap—"

Mikey's eyes were wider than he'd ever seen them before, and his face was ashen. The only way Don could pry him away from the window was to yank him backward by the edges of his carapace. "Mike, shut up! They'll hear you."

The light of dawn was soaking through the clouds, still growing brighter and chasing away all the shadows.

They both could collapsed back onto the rooftop, gasping for breath, with the bite of roofing tar digging into their skin. Michelangelo had fallen silent, trembling like a leaf.

The next course of action began to play in Don's mind like all those charts and maps tacked onto his lab walls. His hand moved for the shell cell before he could give it a second thought, and shakily dialed for Splinter.

"M-Master Splinter," he panted, "we found Leo. We'll need backup. Tell April to bring the Battle Shell. We'll need everything we got. Casey too."

A silence fell over him like holding a breath.

"No… I don't know…We haven't seen him… But it's bad, Sensei. Really bad."

Mikey didn't need to hear the other side of the conversation. He was too busy choking on his own panic to even breathe.

Don closed the phone with a grim expression.

"We need to do something. We can't just sit around here and wait—"

"I know," Don interrupted, motioning for Mike to join him over on the other side of the roof. Far below stood the silent alleyway, still cloaked in shadow. Don hesitated before withdrawing his bo. "Do you see those two men down there, guarding the door?"

Mike nodded wordlessly.

A daring smirk swept across Don's face. He tightened his grip on his weapon. "I have an idea."

A/N: Wow, it's been a really long time since I updated this. I hope you guys are still with me! In the last chapter I had mentioned something about this being the end. Well… I had some problems with that. For one, it's chapter 13, which I really didn't want to end on. Two, it would have been enormous, so I divided it in half.

This fic… really has no plot. Like, at all. When I start a story, I usually have it all planned out from beginning to end. I never had a game plan for this one. Sure, some came and passed, and failed miserably, but here I am (finally) ending it. Or, well, one step closer to finally ending it.

Mostly this fic was me dicking around with character study. I never thought people would actually like it. And I certainly didn't think it would end up winning two awards in the Fanfiction comps! Jeez.

Guess I must be doing something right. Thank you for your reviews and support!

I intend to crank the last chapter out relatively soon, as opposed to another six months from now ;

Here's hoping!

Much Love,

Willowfly