(Four Weeks Later)
Leonardo bent forward against the ledge of the building, and shook his head at the first crack of dawn that was appearing on the horizon. He glanced over his shoulder to see his brothers, and read their exhaustion easily in the unguarded moment. We're pushing too hard, because we don't even know where to start. We keep searching for some sign of the Akiudo, when they might not be in the United States yet.
Leonardo rubbed his eyes wearily. "We're going to have to head back down."
"Defeated by the sun again," Raphael muttered.
"I say it wins by a landslide," Mike remarked.
Leo motioned with his head toward the side of the building, and led the way down to the street level silently. As they moved through the alley, the blue-masked turtle noticed a man lying on top of a pile of trash bags, with paper-wrapped bottle still clutched in his hand. He paused to check whether the man was breathing, and turned up the collar of his jacket protectively before nudging him. The human mumbled something indiscernible and released his hold on the bottle to scratch his forehead.
"He's fine, Fearless," Raphael said gruffly. "Let's go before we're walking around in broad daylight."
Leonardo continued toward the closest manhole. Once they were within the safety of darkness, he paused to address his brothers.
"This isn't working, you guys," he said judiciously. "I'm exhausted, you're both exhausted, and you've each got kids to worry about."
"And you've got a whole clan to worry about," Raphael returned. "What's your point, Leo?"
"The point is, we're wearing ourselves out with the all-nighters, and they're not doing any good. I don't think we're going to find the Akiudo this way."
"What can we do, Leo?" Mike wondered. "I mean, we can't keep this up, but we can't do nothing either."
"We aren't going to sit back and do nothing," he answered. "We'll keep patrolling, but we have to cut back on some of the hours. It isn't good for us or our family." When a known threat exists, it's hard to close our eyes to it. But as of this moment, we don't have anything to go on, he added inwardly.
The nod that Raphael gave him was a little begrudging. "Well, the girls won't be disappointed, that's for sure," his younger brother said.
"The kids won't either," Mike added. "Liv's been clinging to you a lot more."
The red-masked turtle winced. "I know. I hated leaving her crying like that last night, but this is about protecting her as much as everyone else."
In the days that had passed since Takashi had officially been sprung from Police custody there had been time for a lot of questions, but no answers. They were no closer to having a solution for keeping the rest of the family safe while they went about their normal business on the surface.
Greg and Sayuri's combined efforts hadn't turned up any new intelligence on the Akiudo. It's as if they vanished off the face of the Earth. That would be okay with me, if they would stay missing. But not knowing when they'll turn up again or what their plans are makes it so much harder to wait.
Leonardo felt a strong burden of discouragement that made his steps heavier than the weariness he was experiencing. Something has to give here. Between the stress of waiting for them to show up, trying to keep our friends safe, and wondering what Takashi has up his sleeve…It's a wonder my blood pressure is anywhere near normal.
The rest of their walk back to the Den was silent, and it left Leonardo time for further contemplation. Are we going about this the wrong way? Is it ridiculous to wait for them to come to us? We've all kicked around the idea of returning to Okinawa, but we don't know where they are. If we could get some clue, that would be really nice, he thought with sudden annoyance.
What I wouldn't give for a time machine to go back to that day on Yonaguni, so I could finish Takashi. But it doesn't exist, so there's no point in feeding into those kinds of thoughts, is there?
Leonardo was a little surprised when he saw the front door. He'd been so lost in his thoughts that he'd barely noticed the ground they were covering. It had served as a good distraction from sore muscles if nothing else. The door felt like it weighed 1000 pounds as he yanked it open, and stepped into the darkened interior of the hallway.
The blue-masked turtle could just barely see the living area in the faint illumination of the nightlight, and it only made him feel more tired. He covered a massive yawn with his hand, right before he picked up a shadow moving nearby.
"Hey, guys," Calley called softly. The blond woman had no sooner risen from where she was sitting on the couch, than the kitchen door popped open too.
Jenna peered out from underneath the doorframe, allowing the brighter light from the kitchen to spill into the living area. "Good, it's about time," the Australian woman said with satisfaction. "You guys keep cutting it awful close with the sun. Take a load off and start winding down. The kitchen is open and fully stocked, so your wish is our command."
Leonardo shook his head. "This isn't necessary, as much as we appreciate it."
Calley caught him lightly by the arm. "It's all right to let us do things for you, Leo. It's not as if it's an imposition."
He offered her a weak smile. "We don't mind it, Calley, it's just early, that's all. Sometimes all I feel like doing is rolling into bed," he said honestly.
"You can do that too," she told him. "All of you certainly need the rest."
Leonardo looked down the hall. "Would you come with me, for a little while at least?"
"You don't have to ask, Leo. There's no place I'd rather be."
"Well maybe Leo wants to go to bed hungry, but we worked off a few thousand calories, and I mean to replace some of them," Mike quipped.
"You're in real danger of starving, knuckle-head," Raphael returned.
"Look who's talking, thunder-shell."
"I'm sure I just hallucinated what you said, so I'll do you the favor of not kicking your shell."
"I'll say it again if you need to hear it—"
Leonardo turned the corner of the hallway as his youngest brother's squeal filled the air, and he hurried into the bedroom. He sighed gratefully as Calley shut the door behind them.
"I don't know how they have the energy for it," Leo said, dropping onto the edge of the bed. "No matter how far we run, they always have enough strength left over to throttle each other."
"At least their spirits are in a good place." Calley smiled. "Where is yours?"
"Bogged down," he replied. "I'm not sure what the right thing is, but I know we can't keep doing what we have been. We're becoming exhausted."
Calley nodded. "I can see it wearing on all three of you. I didn't want to say anything to pull you back, but it was difficult not to."
"We're stuck, Calley. The ball is in Takashi's court. Until he throws it, until he does something, we have nothing to go on. Maybe he expects us to simply turn up the way we have in the past, but Takashi never realized how we were tracking them. It's a terrible thing to come to the realization that we can't make a move until the bad guy makes one first."
Calley gave him a pained look. "I agree; it isn't a good feeling." The young woman sighed softly. "Why don't you go ahead and lie down, Leo?" she encouraged him. "Are you sure you don't need anything else?"
"Maybe just some water and you."
"That sounds doable."
It was almost 1:00 p.m. before Leonardo stirred from the position in which he'd fallen asleep, as the sound of barking resounded in his ears. The blue-masked turtle sat up and slowly stretched his muscles, while he listened for more signs of life from the living area. The barking was interspersed with giggling, which could only suggest the presence of certain pair of little girls.
Leonardo got to his feet and opened the bedroom door to find Olivia toddling down the hall with a plastic serving spoon, chasing one of the Border Collies. Reina was on her knees a few feet away, petting the other dog which he immediately identified as Molly by her snow-white face.
"Hey, Liv," Leonardo called after the little turtle. "Look at your cousin. She's got the right idea with the doggy, see? You have to be nice, and then they'll let you pet them. You don't chase them with utensils. This is why Tiger won't come near you."
Leo gently pried the spoon from Olivia's grasp, and sighed when she threw herself to the ground in protest. "That's not going to work on me, Liv." He hefted the baby turtle over his shoulder as she continued fussing at him for ruining her game of chase.
Karina almost ran into him as he crossed into the living area. "Sorry, Leo," she said at once. "I didn't mean to let them wake you!"
"It's okay, Karina. It's hard to sleep the day away with everyone else being up, and I'd kind of like to see Don too. Who needs eight hours of sleep?"
The bronze-haired woman took the crying turtle off his hands. "You do, at least once in a while," she chided. "You should go back to bed for a couple more hours."
"That won't happen now that I'm up. Is there anything interesting going on?"
She shrugged. "It's a normal day, just quieter without you and your brothers filling up the space. These late nights make for more boring days."
"Your days are about to get a little louder again, so I hope you didn't get used to being bored." Leo grinned.
"Raph said you guys were going to cut back a little. I'd have to agree with that move."
"No one wants to quit altogether, but we can't continue at the pace that we have been taking for the last couple of weeks," Leo told her. "Who's around? It feels a little empty."
"Greg and Luke are helping Sayuri run around on the surface. She's supposed to be bringing the kids down later. Brandon has been in the kitchen with me. The guys tried to get him to go above ground with them, but he wasn't budging."
Leo sighed deeply. "If I wasn't afraid of triggering a negative reaction, I might do something drastic with him. It's been like two months. He has to go out in the daylight again."
Karina gave him a helpless look. "No one is willing to hog-tie him, Leo. Short of that, there's no way to force him."
Leonardo nodded. "It doesn't seem like it. At the same time, he's been a little more active around here. It might be appropriate to start him back on real exercise. It could be healthy for his mental outlook too."
"It could," she said. "I'm feeling better about him, Leo. There are flashes of the old Bran in there; I'm seeing it almost every day. But he's still so quiet most of the time."
"He'll get there, Karina," Leo said, patting her shoulder. "It may take longer than anyone wants it to, but I think we have a good reason to feel encouraged."
They'd avoided speaking about the Akiudo in Brandon's presence over the last few days, even though the man was fully aware of the mess in Okinawa. They'd found that Brandon tended to retreat when faced with certain subjects, and were trying to keep things as light as possible.
An electronic tone made Leonardo snap to attention. It was Donny's indicator from the Lab, which he only used as a "call" button when he needed to get someone's attention.
"I'm going to check on Don," he said.
"He might be lonely." Karina smirked. "He talked Luke's ear off all morning on the tablet, until he finally took it away from him. Donny's supposed to be resting."
"I'll see if he needs a bedtime story," he said sardonically.
Leonardo headed into the Lab, and folded his arms when he saw his brother scrolling through the screen of his tablet.
"Now how did you get that back?" he demanded. "I just heard that you're supposed to be resting."
Donatello looked over at him with a mixture of apprehension and confusion in his eyes.
"Don, what's wrong?"
The purple-masked turtle lined down a window on the screen and brought up the text field to communicate. Leonardo grabbed the other tablet that was sitting on the desk, and found a message already waiting for him.
"Do you have the TV on?"
Leo shook his head. "I just woke up actually. We were out until daybreak again."
"Leo, something weird is going on. You need to get out there and turn the News on."
"What News? You mean ours?"
"Yes, the local News. It ought to be interrupting the normal broadcast. You're not going to want to miss this."