The slow rhythmic shink shink shink sounded deadly in Leonardo's ears.

He kept himself hidden, just barely peeking around the corner of the archway to the dojo, his blue eyes watching Splinter's careful hands slowly slide a file over the shining blade of his sword.

The silence that rang between strokes, however brief, was chilling and hit the stale sewer air with a spine-aching pitch.

Splinter's face was a mask of barely concealed fury. His amber eyes never blinked. They simply stared down hungrily at the blade as though waiting for the moment he'd be able to use it.

Leo swallowed then shrank away and walked briskly back across the lair to close himself in the lab.

Four pairs of eyes glanced up at him. He shook his head and resumed his place over Donnie's lab table and the Footbot lying on top of it.

"We have to figure this out," he said, pulling delicately on a wire protruding from the Footbot's exposed circuits.

They'd managed to remove its face and dig into what Casey was referring to as its "brain," but so far—with immense frustration—they weren't getting very far.

Raph shook his head, arms crossed. "This is stupid. Why are we still messing with this thing? We've gotten no closer to finding Mikey and Donnie. We should be out there looking for them."

"That could take forever, Raph—literally—not to mention energy that we're going to need. This is the best shot we've got."

"And what has it accomplished for us so far, Leo?" Raph said, slapping his hands on the table. "It's taking too long. Who knows what Shredder's done to Mikey and Donnie by now? At least if we're out there looking we have a better chance of running into the Foot again, and next time we won't let 'em get away. If we don't find them now, there may not be a Mikey and Donnie to save."

Leo shuddered and tightened his jaw but didn't look up at his brother. "Karai ..."

"I don't know, Leo," she said, probably for the millionth time. "I'm not a robotics engineer. Sure I worked with these things, that doesn't mean I know how they work."

Raph made a noise between a growl and a groan. "What is the point of having you around then?"

Karai's eyes flashed on him like the lethal points of hazel shuriken. "I didn't make these things, Raphael, the Kraang did. Why are you not smart enough to understand alien technology?"

"Alright, enough," Leo said. He sighed with more exhaustion than he meant to let on and ran a hand over his face.

"Raph's right, Leo," Casey said. "We're not getting anywhere on this. We should get back out there and keep looking."

"If we leave this room, I'm not coming back without Donnie and Mikey," April said, shooting a weary glare at Casey. "We need to know where they are and flouncing around the city like headless chickens is not going to get us that information any faster."

"And this is?"

"We shouldn't be arguing about this," Leo snapped. "We already decided we would figure this out. We're not going anywhere right now. So what do we know so far?"

"Jack shit," Raph said.

Karai pulled in a breath. "It has to work on a global positioning system, otherwise it wouldn't be able to find its way around."

"And it has to have a memory bank of some kind," April said. "Maybe there's a micro chip or a USB hidden somewhere that we can put into the computer somehow."

"Yeah, except we've been through this already and haven't found anything like that … This is such a waste of time."

"You know what would help, Raph?" Leo said, shooting cold eyes on his brother. "Research."

"I'm not sitting back in front of that stupid computer for another four hours! Get someone else to do it. Maybe Karai can put herself to good use and actually tell us something we don't know."

"When are you going to get it, kusottare? I don't know any more than you do. And at least I'm actually trying to help instead of standing around bitching about what isn't happening!"

"What did you call me?" Raph barked.

Karai leaned over the table as though ready to pounce across it, palms pressed firmly against the surface. "Kusottare," she spat. "It means 'piece of shit.'"

"I know what it means!"

Leo's breath hitched and his eyes swung around. He leapt out of the way just as Splinter slammed the head of his staff down on the lab table with a crack that made everyone jump.

"Enough," he said through his teeth, glaring each one of them down separately.

No one spoke. They all stared up at him with wide eyes, and just as quickly as they'd forgotten where they stood, they became children again and were fully aware of it.

Leo took another step to the side. He wondered if anyone else was as afraid of the look on Splinter's face as he was.

But the rat master said nothing more to them about their arguing. Instead, he shot his eyes to April and held out his hand.

"Give me your T-phone."

April fumbled through her pockets and handed the device out to him obediently, nearly dropping it in the process. He took it without comment, stuffed it in the fold of his robe, then turned and stalked back to the door.

Every pair of eyes watched him.

"I am going to the surface," he said, his voice tight and nonnegotiable. "You will receive a call from me soon. I expect you to answer on the first ring. I will tell you what you need to do then. You will not leave this lair until I contact you. Is that understood?"

They all stared.

Leo wasn't sure if he should nod silently or scream, "Yes, sir!" His body wouldn't cooperate anyway. The glint in his father's eyes was one he had never seen before, and for the first time in his life he was afraid of being in the same space as the great rodent master.

Splinter faced them squarely, the fur bristling on the bridge of his nose. "Is that understood?" he shouted.

All five teenagers flinched and bowed. "Hai!"

The rat hardly softened. "No more arguing," he said stiffly, and with that he left, leaving them no further information about what he was setting off to do.

Leo paced, arms folded over his chest, stomach twisting into a hopeless web of knots. He felt his brother's eyes glancing up at him every so often, but Raph stayed silent. It was the longest period of time Leo could ever remember his red-banded brother keeping his mouth shut. He didn't even make any comments to Karai who was sitting on the floor with her arms folded around her knees, staring across the room. There was about as much internal unrest swimming through her hazel gaze as there was squirming around in Leo's stomach. And that was a first.

They were all worried. He wasn't sure why exactly the anxiety had grown so much stronger in the hours that Splinter had left them all alone. Maybe it was just the ice lingering from the glare he'd saddled them with. Maybe it was the fact that they knew nothing of what was about to happen. Or maybe it was actually the sureness in Splinter's voice when he'd ordered them to wait. Maybe they all, just as much as Leo, had taken the master's tone as one of resolve. Splinter was going to put an end to this anticipation, which meant they would very soon be facing their enemies and recovering the missing members of their team. And it couldn't possibly be soon enough.

He wasn't sure how long they hovered around the T-phone sitting on the edge of the lab table, glancing cautiously at it every few seconds at five different intervals. But it felt like both a lifetime and no time had passed when the phone finally burst with a ring and they all jumped up at once.

Leo could hardly breathe when he picked up the phone and put it to his ear. It wasn't helping much that the rest of them were now crowded around him, pressing in on his shoulders and shell.

"Moshi moshi," he croaked, swallowing past the dryness of his throat.

He could feel Raph's breath skating warmly down his neck as he pressed himself so close his ear was practically leaning against Leo's hand.

"Meet me at Murakami's. Bring the robot."

Leo hardly had time to process the dangerously level tone of Splinter's voice before the line went dead.

He took the phone from his face and stuffed it back in his belt.

"What'd he say?" Raph said, sticking close to his shoulder as Leo reached for the Footbot and heaved it on his back.

"We're going to Murakami's."

"Murakami's?" April repeated.

"The blind guy's noodle shop?" Karai said.

"Are we getting dinner?" Casey asked.

Raph kicked the back of the vigilante's knee as he stalked past him. Casey stumbled to the floor.

"Ouch! What the hell, man?"

"Don't be an idiot."

Casey grumbled under his breath and pushed himself back to his feet. "It was just a question. I'm starving."

Leo led the way to the Shellraiser and shucked the Footbot to the floor once everyone was in. He plopped down in the driver's seat and eased the subway car into motion.

"Splinter's got something planned. We're going to find the guys … tonight. Be ready for any and everything."

He didn't look back at his team when he said this, but by the tension that seized the atmosphere he knew they understood.

The air up top seemed colder than he remembered it being a few days ago. It only tortured his stomach with the very urgent reminder that so much time had passed since Mikey and Donnie had been taken, too much time. And with the thought, his knees nearly gave out on him as they left the Shellraiser and he had to pause and brace himself against a wall while April, Casey, and Karai ambled past him. Raph stopped and glanced back.

Leonardo had discovered something very important since the Foot had snatched his two youngest siblings and that was that the air in which Donnie and Mikey were not present was impossible to breathe. And a body without sufficient oxygen could not think properly, could not function properly, and worst of all, could not find the minutest bit of light to cling to. If Mikey was still with them, maybe he could find it in him to stay hopeful. If Donnie was still with them, he wouldn't have to worry about what he didn't know. With them both completely absent, he wasn't sure what gave him the right to stand before the rest of his team and call himself a leader.

He lifted his eyes to Raph's and the air turned even colder as they stared at one another. Neither of them said a word. They didn't have to. Raph understood. And while he'd been spending as much energy as possible on trying to push every blame on Karai, it never failed during moments like these, his habitual tendency to make himself accountable for everything that had gone wrong. Leo did this too—always—and it was one thing he and Raph could relate to.

They were responsible. Neither of them had done or was doing their job as an older brother and this was why Mikey and Donnie were still missing. They were failures … together, and they knew it.

This was the understanding that passed between their gaze, and while Raph made no comment about it, the heaviness of it for him was all too clear when the corner of his lips turned down and he looked away. He silently turned his back on Leo and kept walking, and somehow, this gave the older turtle the strength to push on as well.

The five of them slipped through the shadows along crevices between the buildings until they reached the vacant opening outside of Murakami's place. The windows were black and the OPEN sign had been flipped about. The atmosphere was not only silent but eerie, as the breeze that passed through had nothing but concrete to touch.

What remained of Leo's team sent glances of hesitation in his direction, and he pulled in a breath of courage and stepped forward from the shadows.

"Sensei?" he called softly.

For a moment, he was only answered by a ripple of cold silence. But then his heart nearly burst from his chest when the door of the restaurant swung open. And by the collection of gasps from the rest of them, he knew he wasn't alone in his surprise.

Murakami peeked his head out into the open and waved a hand for them to move.

"Come in quickly."

Leo swallowed and led the way to the door. The rest of them followed. Murakami closed and locked them all inside once they'd piled in. However, they all froze just across the threshold and stared in a stupor at the scene before them.

Though the lights were out, the glow from the outside world gave enough illumination to see that Splinter was standing just in front of the bar with one hand behind his back and the other holding up the tentacles of a squealing Kraang brain. Behind him, the empty shell of a Kraang droid lay across the top of the bar.

Once his mind processed what he was looking at, Leo internally kicked himself for being so stupid. Why hadn't he thought of this before?

"Did you bring the Footbot?" Splinter asked, not taking his eyes away from the squirming pink blob for a second.

Casey inched forward and dropped the Footbot on the floor.

Though Splinter hardly glanced at it, he acknowledged it with a stiff nod then dragged the Kraang droid off the bar and dropped it too to the floor. He held the alien brain out over the Footbot as though he was showing it a new toy he'd gotten.

"You know what this is," he said.

The Kraang hissed and squealed, but Splinter paid no mind to it. He brought it over to its body and pressed one foot firmly against the droid's neck and the other on one of its knees before he stuffed the alien into the belly of its shell and allowed it to get situated.

The droid bleeped to life and bathed the room in pink and blue flashes of light. Its pink eyes shuddered on and it immediately tried to jerk itself up off the floor, but Splinter held it firmly beneath his feet. He unsheathed his sword with that same deathly shink and sliced the air with it in a flash of silver. The blob of brain winced but the tip of the sword stopped just before running it through and remained barely a centimeter from its forehead with a silent threat.

Splinter's whiskers twitched the barest bit and Leo found himself gazing in rapt trepidation at his father's face as he very calmly, very venomously spoke to the Kraang.

"We need to know where this Footbot has been. And you are going to help us."