A/N: Sorry about my little hiatus, some things came up but I am back. This is the last chapter followed by an epilogue. I will be posting a few one shots after this and I might do with a sequel but, I'm a little busy... so... eh... maybe. I'm also thinking that I could really use a beta reader since I mostly post from my kindle. Well PM me if you guys want to help littllittle old DS out.

Master Splinter knelt on a tatami mat. His head was bowed low while his brow was furrowed in deep thought. The flickering of candles cast a soft yellow glow on his body. His hands rested palms upward on his lap as he knelt in meditation.

His sons were out trying to bring Naito back and he remained behind. He felt weak and a fool for doing so, but he still remained. He did not want to see the one who had been Leonardo for twelve years. The one who had struck the true Leonardo down and taken him away from the aged sensei. All those years ago, the master had thought he had overcome his anger and hurt. He thought he had forgiven Naito. And perhaps he had. He loved him now, and wished not to hurt him, and still he was forcing his sons to hunt Naito down like an animal. He had stripped Naito of his rank and family. Splinter had thrown him out.

The sensei's ears dropped back and he sighed.

He felt something wet his fur and brought a hand up to wipe the tears from his eyes. He inhaled deeply and straightened. He did love Naito. He had always hoped it would never come to this. He had always known it would. Naito, as much as Splinter loved him, had to be slain. Splinter wanted so dearly to sneak his son away, to fake Naito's death and make it so his sons would believe Naito to be dead. But it would never work. Naito was too dangerous and too unpredictable.

Splinter dropped his head and exhaled a painful breath. If only he had searched for that fifth turtle.

He heard a muffled thump. Splinter's ears flicked and his eyes snapped open. His eyes widened as he met a gray gaze nestled deep in the shadows. A figure stepped out of the shadows. Emerald green skin. Gray eyes. Scarred features.

Leonardo.

He slowly approached, casually. A feral anger was clear in his dark gray gaze.

"Where is my brother?" He spoke harshly as he approached, his steps quickening and widening.

Splinter stared for a moment. He saw not the angry turtle before him, but a young toddler with bright eyes and a contagious grin. He opened his mouth to speak but found his words stolen by a pang of pain. He flinched with a gasp and clutched his hand to his stomach. He dropped his gaze to his stomach and found bright red spreading over his robes. He glanced up as Leo now stood over him with blazing eyes. He noticed the still smoking pistol at his hip and suddenly understood.

Leo dropped to one knee and grabbed the elderly rat by the collar of his robes and shook him. "Where is my brother?!" He snarled in the rat's face.

Splinter stared at Leonardo. "Gone, my child." He sighed.

Leo froze for a moment and his gaze hardened. "I am not your child. Where has he gone? Is he dead? Did you kill him?!"

Splinter shook his head and raised a hand to cup Leonardo's cheek. His fingers brushed against the heavy scar and Leo stiffened at the touch. Splinter stared at him. "He ran away, my son. The others ran off to find him. But your brother is skilled... He will escape..." Splinter murmured as he gently stroked Leonardo's cheek. Leo's gaze narrowed. He removed the sensei's hand from his face and unsheathed a jagged edged blade from his belt.

Master Splinter stared at Leonardo, and once again, the image of a young gray eyed turtle took his place. The little turtle offered him a smile and a bubbly laugh. Splinter smiled and reached out once more to his son.

A blade punched between his ribs and reached his heart. It dug in deep, as if his heart were its scabbard. Splinter felt no pain, though he continued to smile at the child even as the little turtle beckoned for him to follow.

Leo slid the blade free easily, removing it from its warm and dying sheath.

"You make a mistake, my son... take care of Naito... please do not harm the others..." Splinter breathed as his eyes went dull and his last lucid thoughts escaped him. He turned to the child and smiled weakly. "I am coming, little one..." He whispered before his body shuddered and went still.

Leo stared at the dead rat for a moment before releasing his grip on the sensei. The body fell back like a rag doll upon the ground. Leo stood, flicking the blood from his knife as he did so. He slid it back into its sheath as he turned. He froze.

A purple masked terrapin stood no more than a few feet away, staring in horror.
"You killed him..." Donatello whispered, his gaze fixed on Master Splinter's body.
Leonardo glanced at the body and back to Don.

"Yes. I did." He spoke calmly.

Don turned his soft and wet gaze to Leo. "Why... Why would you do this?" Don spoke, his voice wavered with emotion.

Leo approached the purple masked terrapin. He came snout to snout with Donatello. Gray eyes met soft coffee brown. "You wouldn't understand, Don. Now where is my brother?"

Don's gaze dropped to the ground and he shook his head. "I... You killed our father!"
"Your father. He is no father of mine. He replaced me. He never bothered looking for me. Do you know what it's like to be abandoned, Don? To be left bleeding and broken and alone in the dark? To be surrounded by rats and bugs who are just waiting for you to die so they can eat you? I had my own score to settle." Leo snapped angrily. He shoved the younger turtle against a wall.

"Now where is my brother?" He growled.

Don's sad gaze met his. "Wasn't it him who abandoned you? Your brother? We had nothing to do with what happened to you, Leo! You can't just blame it all on us!"

Leo's hand found Don's throat. He pressed in on the younger turtle. Don squirmed underneath his weight. "You don't know a damn thing, Don. Shut the hell up. Just shut the hell up. I'll find him on my own!" He snarled, releasing his hold on Donatello and storming past him.

Don rubbed his sore throat and coughed.

"I'm only sparing you because of our past. Don't make me regret it." Leo's voice echoed back as he made his way into the bowels of the sewage system, following the trail of kicked up sewage water that Donatello had left behind.

His mind was elsewhere as he followed the tracks.

Had he done the right thing in killing Splinter? Leo rolled his eyes and continued his trek. As if doing the right thing actually mattered to him. He wasn't some comic book hero. He was a contract killer. A mercenary working for the EPA. He was raised by Agent Bishop, the man who wrote the book on apathy. No, Leo didn't care about the 'right' thing, but he felt something. Was it regret?

Did he really regret killing the old rat?

Leo snorted at that one. He held no sympathy for the rat. But his adoptive brothers were another matter entirely. He didn't like them, but he didn't hate them either. Splinter had been their father. He had been Naito's father for a time too. How would Naito react to Splinter's death. Leo didn't know. His brother could be unpredictable. Here Leo had thought that Naito would have blindly followed the adoptive family past the jaws of death and into its belly. But it seemed Naito had ran off, leaving them.

Leo wondered at that. He didn't know much about Naito, except what he had seen over the time he had trailed him and their short bit of childhood. For all he knew, Naito could have been a magical rabbit from another dimension. But his greatest connection with Naito, their craving of the kill, was what allowed him to see the truth of Naito. He knew enough to know that Naito did love him unconditionally. Leo had to admit he didn't feel dissimilar about Naito.

Having someone who understood the call of the blood other than himself was... comforting. With the people he dealt with, he was relieved to find someone like Naito, even if he did want to kill him at first.

Leo paused as he reached a ledge. He slowly approached the edge of it and glanced about with his hand hovering over his gun. His gray gaze scanned over the edge of the concrete, searching the dark murky water below.

He heard a heavy breathing, like that of something struggling for air. Leo ignored his better instincts and dove off the ledge and into the murk.

He sank into the water with a splash and swam downwards. His eyes stung from the sewage but he ignored it as he continued his swim. He heard muffled shouting, but ignored it as a green blur came into view. Two crystalline orbs met his gaze, glowing like beacons through the murky water. Leo swam harder, knowing it was Naito. He swam up to his brother and grabbed a hold of Naito's shoulders as he looked him over. His breath caught in his throat as he noticed a shaft of metal driven through Naito's thigh. He hadn't noticed the red tinge to the water until then.

Leo unsheathed his knife and sawed at the metal. There was an awful grating-grinding noise that jarred the twins. Leo removed the blade from the metal pipe and noticed that he had only chipped away at the rust on the surface of the pipe. He released his grip on the knife and it sank away from him. He gripped the pipe in both hands and pulled and twisted. His muscles writhed and twisted painfully and to no avail. He released his grip on the pipe even as bubbles of precious air escaped him.

Naito weakly placed a hand on Leo's plastron. Leo's gaze rose to meet his. Naito offered him a weak smile. "It's okay." He seemed to say. Naito pulled his twin into an embrace. Pain tugged at Leo and a pressure built up inside of his chest. He shook his head even as he held his brother. He couldn't give up on Naito. After twelve years spent in regret and anger and pain and loneliness, he needed his brother.

He needed Naito.

Leo pulled away from his brother and unsheathed a katana from the sheath on his shell. He motioned for Naito to stay still. A hand found its way to his. Leo took Naito's offered hand and held it tightly as he swung the katana. It struck the metal with a jarring sensation. Naito twitched and squeezed Leo's hand tightly but did not scream. Leo saw that the pipe had bent over from the strike, even as he had been slowed by the water. He tightened his grip on the katana and swung again. A squeal of metal on metal stabbed through the water and Naito uttered a cry of pain that tore at Leo. Blood clouded about Naito's thigh and Leo sheathed his katana even as he wrapped an arm around his twin. He swam for the surface of the water, his muscles were edging into a slow burn.

He broke the surface with a gasp of air and Naito sputtered and coughed as he struggled to breath through the bits of water that had sneaked into his lungs.

Shouts echoed in the tunnel but Leo ignored them as he swam for the wall of the tunnel shaft. He lifted his brother onto a piece of driftwood near a set of ladder rungs as he slid his handgun free of its holster. He stood on one of the rungs as he leveled the barrel of the weapon on two turtles who had until then been swimming for the twins.
"What the hell are you doing?" Raphael snarled as he moved in front of Mikey, both were treading water.

Leo glared at them. "Leave us alone. You don't deserve to be near my brother. You've done enough here." He spat back at them.

The two turtles visibly flinched at that.

"You-you don't even know him! You don't know anything about our brother!" Mikey cried.

Leo's gaze narrowed. "I don't need to know anything. Knowing my brother has blinded you from understanding him. You think you know him so you think you understand him. You're blinded by everything you thought you knew about him! You still see him as some sort of hero. You refuse to see him as a killer because you don't understand him. You refuse to believe it because you don't want to accept the unknown. You don't want to accept that Naito kills people. You don't know how to deal with it. You don't know how to react to it. So you reject it. You reject him."

Naito turned his head to stare at his brother with a lidded gaze. He couldn't believe the words that spilled out of Leo's mouth. The anger and hate that was driven into those words. Leo was defending him. Protecting him. But he was also threatening Naito's adoptive brothers. After years of defending them and taking hits for them, Naito did not feel comfortable about that. He remained silent though the throbbing from his wound made it so.

Naito could feel it healing. With his mutant genes now faster and stronger than ever, the bone was realigning and fixing itself while his broken flesh knitted back together.
"Now leave us. I have a brother to care for and I will not hesitate to shoot either of you."

Raph looked ready to slip into a berserker rage but Mikey, latched onto Raph's arm, held him back. Raph gritted his teeth and knew he couldn't risk his baby brother here.
"This isn't over. It'll never be over." He growled as he shook Mikey off of his arm. He and Michelangelo edged away, slowly and with glares and despondent looks. They clambered back up the metal rungs on the other side of the flooded shaft and disappeared as the shadows took over. Leo held the gun' s barrel leveled on them the entire time.

Leo dropped his weapon arm and turned to Naito. He slipped the weapon back into its holster and knelt next to his brother. He put a hand on Naito's shoulder as those crystalline gray eyes pierced through him.

"You okay? Those mutant genes working double time to fix you up?" Leo spoke in a softer tone, although there was a constant sharpness to his voice.

Naito turned on his shell and took in a deep breath before releasing it.

"Yeah. I'm fine..."

"What?"

"What do you mean, what? I said I was fine."

"Sure. That's why you said: Yeah. I'm fine." Leo said, mimicking Naito's despondent tone.

Naito rolled his eyes and gave Leo a look. "Were you really going to shoot them?" He asked in all seriousness.

Leo stared at him before smirking. "I thought you would have known better, Naito. My gun got soaked, of course it can't shoot. I'd have to clean it up and dry it out."

Naito seemed to relax at that.

"You lost a lot of blood, how do you feel?"

"I'll survive."

"You always do. Now c'mon, let's get you out of here and some where dry and warm and not so damn dark." Leo muttered the latter as he eased Naito up onto the rungs.

"Don't worry, I'll get you a night light to fight off the big bad dark."

"Shut up or I'll leave you here."

"I'm quaking."

"Shut up."

The two brothers were smirking though. Leo helped his brother up the rungs and once they reached solid ground, Naito refused to be carried. So they limped through the tunnels, exchanging nothing but comfortable silence.

They stopped to rest, sitting side by side against the wall of a dimly lit tunnel. Naito closed his eyes and glanced at Leo.

Leo noticed the look and turned to him. "What?"

Naito glanced at the ground and back to Leo. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but why did you come back?"

Leo went silent and turned his gaze to the wall across from them. "I really don't know. Maybe it's because you're the one bond I have with the past. I don't have anyone I know I can rely on except for you. I... I've been alone for the past twelve years. Once I found you, I felt... like someone actually cared. Like... like if I died, there would be someone who'd actually care... I don't know." He muttered.

A hand gently squeezed his shoulder. He turned to see the warm gaze of his brother and a soft smile on his features.

"Well I'm glad you came, or else I'd probably still be stuck down there." Naito shakily stood up, favoring his left leg.

"So what now?" He asked, placing his hands on his hips and turning to regard Leo.

Leo stood and offered him a smirk.

"We live."