The two Foot ninja saw them coming, and Leo saw the glint of steel in their hands as the two Turtles leaped up onto the rooftop. Both had swords — one a katana, the other a wakizashi — and it was clear from their stances that they were ready to use them.

Leo faced the one with the katana, and unsheathed his own. This shouldn't be hard, he told himself — after all, they had managed to defeat dozens a few weeks ago. But in the back of his mind was the chilly fear that there were more than a couple of them following the van — that they might have reinforcements on the way. He and Mikey had to dispatch these Foot ninja right away.

And what if Raphael woke up? Could Donnie keep him restrained by himself, or would the biggest danger be to those inside the van? No, Leo had to deal with the problem before Raphael had a chance to cause any trouble.

Mikey sprang forwards, his nunchaku wrapping tightly around the blade of the wakizashi and wrenching it from its wielder's hands. At the same time, Leo struck out with both blades, clashing with the other katana in a spray of sparks. He could see his enemy's eyes — angry and fierce, determined. And behind those emotions was something else. Fear. Probably fear of what would happen if he failed to bring back information on the Foot's enemies.

"Whoa!" Mikey yelped as a shuriken spun by his face.

"Careful, Mikey!" Leo said, deflecting a blow towards his shoulder.

"Leo, where'd these guys come from?" Mikey said, leaping out of the way of a thrust tanto.

"They must have been following Raphael, and saw what we did," Leo grunted, kicking his opponent in the stomach. The man doubled over, but recovered far faster than Leo was comfortable with, dropping into a crouch with a kunai clutched in his hand.

The mutant turtle grimaced as he prepared to deflect the thrown knife. This was taking too long. Raphael could wake up at any time — and given how it had taken four of them to subdue him without hurting him, he wasn't confident that Donnie and Casey could handle the situation alone. There was only one part of this entire disaster that Leo was comfortable with — at least Shredder would know that Raphael had been abducted, rather than leaving of his own accord. If he had thought that, then Raphael's life would have been in grave danger…

He slashed the kunai out of the air as it flew towards him, and leaped nimbly over the head of the enemy ninja. He clamped his arms around the man's throat in a sleeper hold, squeezing his trachea tightly until his arms fell slack at his sides. When the turtle released him, the ninja slumped to the ground and lay still.

Mikey had just sent his opponent flying with a final crack of his nunchaku to the man's face. He skidded across the rooftop and landed in a heap of limbs.

"Turtles 2, evil ninjas 0," he said with a grin.

"Let's get out of here," Leo panted. "They might not be out for long, and we want to be home when that happens."

They leaped down the building's side, and ran swiftly back towards the van and its open door. As he moved, Leo glanced at the rooftops around them — he didn't see any more dark shapes following them, but he would keep a watch as they traveled anyway.

"How's Raphael?" he asked as he climbed in.

"Still sleeping like a baby," Casey said.

Despite that comforting statement, Donnie was still crouched grimly over their brother's still body, his bo in his hand. "How many were there?" he asked.

"Only two," Mikey said. "But they were feisty."

"April, we need to get as far as we can from here as fast as we can," Leo said, leaning over the back of the driver's seat.

"On it," April said breathlessly. The wheels squealed as the van lurched forward, and swerved sharply onto an adjoining street.

Leo collapsed on one of the seats, opposite Donnie and near Raphael's feet. "That was close," he muttered. He spared a look at his unconscious brother; Donnie was holding Raphael's head again to keep it from jolting to and fro, and had set his bo aside.

"That was too close," Donnie said. "We probably should have known that Raphael wouldn't be alone."

Leo felt himself bristle slightly at Donnie's words. His brother sometimes seemed to think that the ability to build computers from spare parts meant that he knew better than Leo when it came to matters of leadership. Whenever he thought Leo had miscalculated or made a bad decision, he never hesitated to pounce on it. And though he said "we," his statement sounded suspiciously like another criticism.

But the infuriating thing was that sometimes he was right — and in this case, he was. Leo knew that he should have checked the adjoining rooftops after they captured Raphael, just in case other Foot were nearby. He had been so distracted by Raphael that he had blinded himself to what was going on around him.

And it had been a terrible error. If Casey hadn't noticed the two ninja pursuing them, the Foot would have learned where the Turtles were staying. They would have attacked the Turtles, Splinter, Casey and April, and left them all dead. Leo's stomach clenched as he realized the enormity of his error, and resolved to do better next time.

"I'm hungry," Mikey announced suddenly.

"How can you think of food at a time like this?" Donnie asked incredulously.

"Well, I was thinkin' about how long we're going to have Raphael with us," Mikey said defensively. "And if he's gonna be with us very long, we'll need to feed him. And that made me think—"

"Let's focus on getting him back home and secured first," Leo said. "We can focus on food after that."

He looked back down at Raphael's still face, and felt a stab of misery as he thought of his brother's frenzied reaction to seeing them. Did he hate his family that much, without ever having really met them? What could have made him so angry just at the sight of them? Did he somehow know that he had been left behind before they mutated, and he felt betrayed by his family?

And Leo thought of their father, in hiding in the apartment, meditating as he waited for his sons to return home, with or without Raphael. This confrontation, no matter what the outcome, would be hard on them all.

The van veered around a corner, and slowed in front of a somewhat ramshackle store with boards over the windows. They were home.