Author's Note: Final Chapter, guys. Gear up.

Song Suggestion - "I See Fire" by Ed Sheeran.

Unfocused eyes moved over the reflective surface of the blade, unconsciously logging the distorted features mirrored there. Shredder's morbid reception hall was quiet, absent its usual chaos. Even the constant noise from the streets had faded away, hushed in anticipation. A shout jarred Donatello out of his stupor, a lightning flash recognition of the voice making him jump up from his spot.

Two Footsoldiers entered Shredder's lair, a struggling April O'Neil between them.

Fury burst into Donnie's chest at the sight of it and he advanced on them, his staff drawn. The soldiers stumbled to a stop, holding the girl tightly between them but moving no further. Ignoring April's outraged cry when she spotted him, Donnie turned his ire to the Foot soldiers.

"What is she doing here? I ordered you to keep her safe, not bring her to Shredder's lair!"

"Master Shredder told us to bring her here," the left soldier said gruffly. "And he outranks you." Donnie's eyes widened, a manic glint the only hint of warning before he caught the mouthy soldier's ankle with his foot and shoved him down to the floor, the soldier's head making an unpleasantly loud crack against the steel. Blood seeped from the wound, but that did nothing to deter Donnie from slamming a knee into his throat.

"Donnie, stop!" April shrieked, panicked.

He gave her a split-second glance, his red eyes twitching with barely contained rage. The soldier beneath his knee sputtered behind his mask, gasping for air against the crushing weight, but Donnie was unrelenting until a voice snapped at him from the entrance of the room.

"Hisoka!"

Oroku Saki entered, his metal armor clinking with movement as he crossed the great open room. The baleful mutants that counted themselves among his clan entered behind him, each turning an apathetic or darkly bemused glare at Donnie's antics in turn.

Donatello pushed off the soldier with a growl, pausing only to cast a dark glare to the other Foot ninja. "Do you have something smart to say?" he hissed, even as the soldier stiffened at April's side and shook his head fiercely. Shredder appeared at Donnie's shoulder.

"I told them to bring her here, Hisoka." A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and April's eyes flickered at the movement. Donnie turned a slow circle to face the taller man, his brows furrowed.

"But why, Master Shredder? I didn't want her here. She doesn't have to see this."

"This is the only way to keep her safe," came Shredder's gravelly tones. His mismatched eyes peered over Donnie's head and met April's gaze, prompting her to sneer at him and turn her face away. Donnie's eyes dropped, his confidence wavering. As if sensing his discomfort, Shredder took his shoulder again and led him away.

"This way, we can keep her away from the turtles. And when the battle is won, you can take her in your arms... and rejoice in your victory."

Donnie gave a slow nod. "I suppose she is safest here." He glanced back at the other mutants and his gaze hardened. "But I don't want any of the others to touch her. Not any of them." Shredder nodded, waving a hand at the Foot soldier who held the furious redhead. Donnie looked up as the western walls peeled away, revealing the glass cage that housed the mutated Karai – and an identical one next to it, empty. The soldier led April to the cage and opened it with a switch on the side. April began to struggle in earnest, a series of growls and shouts escaping her before he tossed her inside. She countered by slamming a hand on the glass with a very unladylike curse.

"She is... spirited," said Shredder.

"Yes," Donnie agreed. He walked over to the cage and placed a calm hand on the glass, never faltering even as April howled and raged on the other side. "You'll understand soon," he told her through the glass. "You're safe now."

Next to the cage, Karai acted as April's mirror image, hissing and flailing against the glass in such a fit of insanity it left the glass walls smudged with blood. Donnie raised a brow at her and then took a step back. When he crossed the room, it was to stand at Master Shredder's side.

He closed his eyes. This time, when the fire smoldered behind his vision and the burn crept its way into his features, he did not press it away. He embraced it.

The air was black.

Thicker than smog, heavier than a current winding its way towards wayward swimmers, ready to plunge them into the depths under a disarmingly calm surface. The entrance had been unguarded, unlocked and unprotected, but that was to be expected.

As were they.

"... Tell me you gotta' better plan than that, Leo."

"Raph! Get back to the couch – Casey, get the wraps -"

"You guys aren't goin'... anywhere without me..."

"This isn't up for debate, Raphael."

"No.. it sure as hell ain't."

Leonardo slunk through the darkness, blades a welcome weight against his shell. His vision sharpened in the darkness, fighting for a glimpse of silhouette or shadow, anything to make sense of the lingering fog that eclipsed him. A path. He desperately needed a path.

"You and Mikey can't face them all alone."

"We won't be alone, Casey. Master Splinter will be hiding in the rafters, waiting to help us when the moment is right. But we need to let Shredder think we've come without him."

His feet scarcely more than a whisper against the floor, even when a newspaper floated by on a gust of wind that slipped through the broken stained glass windows. Every few moments, a car drove by and the headlights flashed multi-colored crystals on the otherwise dark ground, sometimes forming a macabre imitation of the holy image it had once depicted.

"I'm not lettin' you two go, Leo. Not without me."

"You're – too – injured, Raphael!"

"I'm not losin' any more of my god damn brothers, Leonardo! I'm not! I – I can't take it, I won't be able to live with myself. So you either take me with you to live or leave me here to die."

The doors stretched up ahead, invisible if not for the light that outlined its edges. Leonardo edged closer, his eyes narrowed and opaque. He kept his weapons at his back, not yet drawn, but his crouch was low and cautious.

"And what about Donnie? Are we really going to fight him?"

"You're not, April. You're staying here."

"No! Master Splinter, please... please tell Leo to let me go."

He reached the doors and drew himself up to his full height, his gaze never leaving the illuminated edges of the entryway. His fingers twitched at his sides, his heart thudding underneath the hard plastron.

"Oroku Saki has taken my children for the last time. Tonight, we do not fight as individuals, but as a clan."

"Even against Donnie, Sensei?"

"We fight against our enemies, Michelangelo. Who that must be... is for you to decide."

Leonardo opened the double doors with a slow creak.

Inside, a row of familiar menaces stood in a line with Oroku Saki at the center. At his side, cloaked in black, stood the humanized version of the lost Hamato brother. Leonardo stepped forward, his motions calm and assured, and as he did, two silhouettes emerged from the darkness to flank his sides.

Michelangelo and Raphael paused, allowing Leo an extra step forward to take his place at the front. He lifted his chin high, his eyes taking careful stock of the room. If he noticed the glass cages housing April and Karai to the side, he made no mention of it, nor did his gaze linger in their direction.

It did, however, stop upon the figure of his Donatello.

When Shredder stepped forward, Donnie matched his stride. It was difficult to gauge his expression behind the cover of his mask, but the flat glare was potent. The pair stopped some ten feet away, hands empty of their weapons.

"I see you have acted with reason," Shredder said, motionless as his mutants took silent steps to encircle them. Leonardo's eyes cut to the side, his brothers shifting nearby with tight, tense movements. "This is... for the best," he continued, crossed arms tightening over the heavy metal armor. "By sacrificing yourselves, you have saved us the trouble of mutilating this city," he sneered. "What a waste that would be..." Leo's narrowed gaze followed Donnie as he stepped away from his master, the tilt of his head hinting at a smirk hidden beneath his mask.

"... to kill so many for the lives of a few mutant freaks."

Donnie drew his weapon and twirled it in his fingers, the black staff whistling swiftly through the air before coming to a stop at his side, longer than he was tall. Without moving his head, Leonardo tore his gaze away from Donnie and settled it on Shredder. "Talk as much as you like, Oroku Saki," he told him, his blades sliding from their sheaths in an unhurried motion.

"After tonight, you'll have nothing more to say."

Shredder did not reply, instead taking a step back as his line of mutant followers moved forward. Leonardo leaned into a crouch and his brothers did the same at his side. Donnie crossed the line of mutants and took the center, his head inclined towards Leonardo without a hint of apprehension. Rahzar and Fishface to one side, Tigerclaw to the other. When Donatello raised his staff, he pointed it at Leonardo in a wordless challenge.

"Done," Leonardo growled fiercely.

BOOM.

Leonardo and his brothers rolled out of the way just in time for a series of blasts to rock the sanctuary, littered from above in the form of explosive pucks by a whooping Casey Jones. "Now, Jones! GO!" Leonardo shouted up to him before leaping into the fray, clouds of smoke and debris filling the room with confusion. To his left, Mikey jumped at Rahzar with a loud yell, whipping his nunchucks at the mutated dog before he'd even had a chance to recover from the explosion. TigerClaw and Fishface still struggled under the half of wall that had fallen on them, but TigerClaw was the first to recover, throwing off the heavy siding with a growl and leaping to his feet once more. Raphael pitched a handful of deadly shuriken at him before turning and pushing through the wave of pain that followed his every step.

Casey Jones dropped down with a shout to fill his place, smashing his hockey stick into TigerClaw's knees while the injured Raphael stumbled and fell his way to April's glass prison. With a pained gasp, he slammed a hand into the door release and April rushed out into the chaos.

"Raph!" she looped her arms around him as best as she could, looking down with surprise when he shoved something into her hand – her metal fan. "We're gonna need ya..." he gasped out, his eyes clenching shut with pain before he forced himself to pull away and stand. April sucked in a deep breath and nodded firmly. When Fishface appeared with a guttural hiss, she and Raphael stood side-by-side, weapons drawn.

Leonardo darted through the cloud of smoke and saw Shredder, standing far away at his chair, his unnatural gaze taking in the entirety of the battle. A silver throwing star whizzed by Leo's head, snapping him back into the nearness of his current opponent.

Out of the misty haze, Donatello emerged with a sinister twirl of his staff. Clink. His blades jutted out, slicing through the air as Donnie moved it behind his back and stood, chin lifted, waiting for Leonardo's assault. Leo crossed his blades in front of him and raised narrowed eyes to Donnie. For a long moment, neither of them moved.

And then, like two hellish storm fronts meeting to form a natural disaster, they crashed into one another in a flurry of steel and limbs. Leonardo matched each of Donnie's swipes with the two blades in his hands, katana smashing into Donnie's blades with lightning fast twists and jabs, steel meeting steel, the noises grating together over and over again. He swiped at Donnie's knees, but his brother was too fast and he flipped out of the way, countering with a cut to Leo's side before he'd fully landed once more. Leo swerved to avoid the next hit but was bludgeoned by the staff of Donnie's blade, the movements his brother had learned alongside him forsaken in lieu of this new, aggressive fighting style.

But Leonardo was quick to adapt, an inhuman growl growing with each hit and block, a noise that declared to any who might not have been paying attention that Leonardo Hamato was an animaland had never truly forgotten that fact, no matter the human lifestyle he and his brothers imitated.

"YAH!" Donnie swiped at him with a long blade but Leonardo caught it with the tip of his katana and turned, pressing his weight down on the blade and trapping Donnie's staff there long enough to swing around and kick him in the right shoulder, sprawling him to the ground. Donnie bounced back up, his head ticking to the side for just a moment. Leo quickly took in the motion and allowed himself a moment of panic. Donnie was thinking. He was calculating.

The next flurry of motions had Leonardo swatting away Donnie's strikes with no chance to recover for a hit of his own, nothing to do but block until he could jump away and regroup. Mentally, he called out for Master Splinter, begging him to come down, to take care of Shredder while he had Donnie distracted. But their master was curiously absent.

The two brothers struck at each other with deceptively cool motions, never matching the wild abandon of their fellow warriors. Each motion was too fast, too silent, too shrouded to taint with battle cries, too fast to observe and too fervent to slow.

Leonardo sliced down at Donnie's arm and nearly took off his hand, his blade almost making contact with the floor before Donnie whirled around behind him and sent his blade sailing through the air so close he felt it stir the air behind his neck. With a duck and a roll, Leonardo came up behind his brother and smashed his legs into Donnie's calves, sending the human onto his back with a thud. But again, he was too quick to recover and Leonardo's jab into the ground found only steel where his brother had been seconds before.

Across the room, Mikey cried out when he made contact with the wall, a bone rattling crunch following his descent to the floor. Rahzar, panting and bleeding heavily from his side where Mikey's blade had cut him, advanced on the orange-banded turtle with a snarl. "You foolish turtle brat," he scowled, one clawed hand finding his open wound. "You were a fool to seek me out... You were a fool to think that I was like you. You are weak." He raised a claw and snatched Mikey's neck, lifting him into the wall and thrusting him against the steel harshly. "What a waste of mutagen you all are..."

Mikey kicked in the air, his blue eyes clenched behind closed lids. He managed to garble out a noise, but the words were unintelligible. Rahzar leaned closer, his jaws clacking noisily. "What was that... freak?"

Mikey's legs jumped up and locked around Rahzar's extended arm, causing the mutant to widen his eyes in alarm. "We're more than just mutagen, Rahzar!" Mikey gasped out, clenching his legs and twisting his body in a sudden lurch. Rahzar's arm cracked under the pressure and splintered bone pierced his skin. He dropped Mikey with a pained shriek, but it was quickly cut short by a kusarigama chain as it wrapped tightly around his neck, Mikey firm on the other end.

"Which is a lot more than you can say," he growled, snapping his arms in a fierce throw that bludgeoned Rahzar into the steel wall with a sickly crack. Then he collapsed to his knees, his chains falling loose in his hands as he struggled to breathe against the pressure building in his chest from the last blow. Someone called his name from the corner of the room, but the desire to give in to unconsciousness was overwhelming. He slumped over next to the battered body of Rahzar, his once friend and idol.

April screamed from the corner she and Raphael guarded against Fishface, her fan glinting dangerously in her hand. "Mikey!" she shouted, only barely avoiding a sharp kick from the mutated fish. Raphael snarled and threw a heavy punch at him, but his injuries slowed him and he could only watch as Fishface darted away and then tossed out a kick that sent him flying.

He skidded to a stop near Mikey and Rahzar, his body finally succumbing to exhaustion and injury. April cried out his name, her blue eyes wide with terror before she sharpened them into razors and turned back to face the mutant.

"Xever, you son of a bitch," she jumped at him with her bladed fan, catching him just once in the arm before his scaly hand snatched the hand holding her fan and rammed it into the wall. He laughed and muttered a French curse, his inhuman eyes lowered on her condescendingly.

"You think you are a fighter..." he told her with a malicious snicker. "But you are only a little girl." April struggled, frustrated tears pushing at the backs of her eyes. "But I should thank you," he went on languidly. "After all, it is for the love of you that our dear Hisoka has joined us... and when we are done with him, we can dispose of the both of you together. As your loving hearts desire..."

April's jaw clenched, her eyes flashing and her lips parting in a wordless shriek. Her enraged gaze fell over something behind Fishface and her world came into focus. Throwing up her legs to cast him off balance, April snatched at his arm with her teeth and bit him, causing him to yelp and jerk his arm away. Hitting the ground running, April tore off after what she'd seen – one of Casey's explosive pucks, undetonated, fallen to the side. She barely had time to flick the switch when Fishface jumped on top of her with a snap of his jaws; she thrust the explosive puck in his mouth and then kicked him away.

He barely had time to look up at her before the explosive rocked him from the inside out, smoke and flame bursting out of every orifice. His cry was choked and brief, and April swallowed dryly before slumping against the wall, her cheeks stained with tears.

"Holy shit, this cat is fast!"

Casey Jones came rushing into view, skates pushing him along the steel floor in a flash. TigerClaw was hot on his trail, blasters poised and dogging Casey's every movement. When Donnie glanced up at the two speeding by, Leonardo used the moment of distraction to cut at his legs, but the other avoided it, dropping into a roll and snarling, the first real sign of emotion seeping into the features allowed by his mask.

Leonardo leapt over him in a roll and landed on the other side, kicking Donnie in the stomach and causing him to jump back to avoid another. Like this, he and Donnie were matched for speed, clang clang clang with their blades meeting overhead, to the side, occasionally hitting home and leaving them both with a thousand tiny cuts that begged to widen, loosen, do more than cause the acidic, irritating pain and distraction.

He turned with a fierce yell and swiped at Donnie's neck, the blade sliding into the other's collarbone beneath his uniform armor. When he spotted blood, he re-situated his stance and moved to bear down on his brother, to force him back now that he had the advantage. But Donnie was moving with new purpose now, as if he, too, was spurned by the sight of blood. Snapping his staff in two, Donnie changed his fighting style entirely, moving with two weapons instead of one and now Leonardo was backing away, his skills barely keeping him in time with the manic and unpredictable motions of his brother. One scythe-shaped blade cut his arm and blood seeped from the wound but he returned it in kind, catching Donnie along the thigh. Profanity in the form of liquid red dotted the floor and smeared under their feet, creating a no holds barred arena.

And then Leonardo's foot slipped, the warm puddles of blood beneath him working against his grip to the floor. The split-second of hesitation was all Donatello needed, and a high kick to Leonardo's face sent him spinning to the floor, his swords falling to the side but close to his hands.

Above them, Shredder watched from his chair.

Reaching down, Donnie flipped Leonardo onto his shell, his staff sliding into one piece again and a line of blood trailing lazily down the curved edge of his blade. Above the fabric of his mask, red eyes looked down the length of Leonardo's injured form without a hint of remorse, even something so simple as recognition now far from his regard. Before Leo could move, Donatello straightened and jammed a foot down onto his plastron, earning a pained grunt from his opponent. "Done," he echoed Leo's words from earlier in a taunting snarl. He raised the blade high.

"DONNIE - NO!"

The descent of the blade halted. Donatello turned his head up, his brows furrowed, his grip slack at the strangled yell from April O'Neil. Distraught, slumped against the wall and bleeding from a wound on her arm. Leonardo watched, transfixed, as Donnie's hold on his staff wavered and the first hint of uncertainty he'd seen all night passed through his brother's eyes.

Bringing up both feet, he slammed them into Donnie's chest and sent him flying across the room.

Donnie landed with a crash on the floor and this time, he could not get up in time to counter a hit from the broad side of Leonardo's blade. Shoving himself to a standing position once more, he snapped his blade at Leonardo with a snarl and put some distance between them, a length that was halved when Casey and TigerClaw tumbled into the middle of their circle, head over heels in a grapple for TigerClaw's guns. TigerClaw snatched Casey by the shoulder, crunching down on his clavicle with an iron grip. "I am tired of your games, boy!" he yelled gruffly, raising his blaster and aiming it point-blank at Casey's chest.

"CASEY!"

A shuriken blazed through the air and knocked the laser just as it fired, sending the red blast straight up and through TigerClaw's jaw. The result was a cauterized tunnel where his mouth and eye had been, a strange moment passing in which his body remained standing before it fell over in a lifeless heap. Casey dropped to the ground and twisted to look over at the barely conscious Raphael.

"I love you so freaking much, Raph!" he shouted, scrambling to get out of the way.

When TigerClaw's battered body slumped over, the path between Leonardo and Donatello was open once more. Leo raised a brow ridge at Donnie, his jaw tight as he flicked his katana to free it of blood. Across from him, Donnie was chillingly unconcerned about his falling comrades. Instead of acknowledging the body of TigerClaw, he took a few languid steps in a circle around Leonardo, his grip tight on his staff.

Only the two of them remained standing. The hall grew quiet and still.

Eyes never lifting from Donatello, Leonardo paced the same circle as his brother, his katana steady in his hands. After a few moments of strangled silence, Donnie reached up with red-stained fingers and tugged down his mask, a mocking grin taking the place of the ominous black fabric.

"What're you waiting for, Leonardo?"

He paced further, opposite of Leonardo in every way.

"Why don't you finish me? Why don't you attack?" His head lolled to the side lazily, his lips parted in thought. "Could it be... that you're waiting for someone?"

Leonardo stopped.

"... Splinter, for example?" Donnie asked, his grin widening at Leonardo's stillness. With a flick of his hand, an unseen door pulled away and the heavy thuds that echoed were the only warning of what was to come. Leo's blue eyes snapped to the chute that appeared in the wall just before a body came tumbling into few, a heap of robes and dark fur.

Limbs frozen, Leonardo slid a steely glare to Donatello. The grip of his katana felt hot in his hands, the leather a deep burn on his skin. Donnie let out a low chuckle. He, too, had stopped his pacing and now stood opposite of Leonardo, one eyebrow quirked. His lips twisted with amusement.

"Did you really think I wouldn't know he was here, brother? Do you think I don't know you at all?" A lax twirling of his staff before he pointed it at the limp, lifeless form of Hamato Yoshi, still as it had ever been and ever would be. "Master Shredder had wanted me to keep him alive to watch you all fall... but I got a little carried away."

He paused, allowing his words to travel the space between them and settle on Leonardo's tense, trembling limbs. Apparently, this did not satisfy him, because he drew closer and his voice dropped.

"What's the matter, Leonardo? Are you upset?" he taunted, amused. "I don't blame you. After all, your father is dead... your brothers are defeated." He drew closer and ducked his head low, refusing to allowing Leo to look away from him. "And after I kill you..." his eyes drifted up and Leo's followed, both pairs finding the glass cage that still housed an enraged serpentine mutant.

"After I kill you, Leonardo..." he whispered, "... I think I'll give Karai just enough retro-mutagen to keep her lucid. So that she knows, day after day after day of her miserable, suffering existence... that she was once human."

Their gazes locked, a twisted smile shaping Donatello's mutated features.

"And then I will kill her," he murmured.

"AGH!"

Twin blades came down on Donatello's head and he only just managed to block them with his staff, the force of the blow sending him crashing to his knees with a painful crack.

For the first time in the entire fight, he looked panicked.

With a fierce snarl, Leonardo whirled and snapped a kick to his ribs that sent him flying across the room, smashing into the floor in a heap of tangled and aching limbs. He had no time to counter, no time to even stand before Leonardo was upon him, smashing the handle of his blade into Donnie's cheek and sending him spinning to the floor. With a strangled yelp, Donnie snatched up his staff and met Leonardo's blades, but he had only a few desperate blocks against his brother before he was on the ground again, a blade swiping so close to his throat it left a thin line of blood trailing down his collarbone and seeping into his clothes.

It was at this moment that any who could stomach to watch realized with a growing sense of fear that, despite all that had happened in the last half hour and the six months that preceded it, Leonardo Hamato had still been holding back against Donatello.

No more.

April watched as Donnie fought to meet Leonardo's blows but his staff was knocked away each time, the flash of Leonardo's blades a twisting wind in comparison. A startled cry escaped her when Leonardo knocked him to the floor and Donnie slammed onto his back against the steel with a crunch. When he didn't immediately rise again, Leonardo slowed his advance and turned a cool glare down to his brother. April inhaled sharply.

Just give up, Donnie. Give up and Leo will let you walk away! Please!

A heartbeat passed in stillness. Then Donnie jumped up with a yell and grappled for his blade with bruised fingers. In a flurry of motion, Leonardo's right katana cut Donnie's arm just above the inside of his elbow and then across his shoulder. Donnie yelped and stumbled back, his arm holding the staff dropping under the weight of his pain. April barely managed to stifle a sob from her corner when Donnie snarled at Leonardo, unwilling to just – stop, please, stop!

"Do you forfeit?" came Leonardo's hard voice.

Donnie pulled himself up as tall as he could manage. "No!" he howled, the single syllable scarcely escaping him before Leonardo crossed his blades in front of him and silently sliced down on Donnie's torso, a red X cutting its way into Donnie's front just below his shocked features.

"Don - nie!" April cried out from her spot, sobs forcing her over onto her knees, air fighting its way out of her lungs only to be stifled by the tightness in her throat. Across the room, Casey limped over to her, dragging her away from the glass cages and to the corner where he'd piled Raphael and Mikey. April screamed and flailed, but strength had left her and she could only fight from the floor.

Donnie dropped to his knees in front of Leonardo, his eyes wide and his lips parted. Blood dotted his jaw and curled around his temple.

By the time he fell, Leonardo had already settled his narrowed gaze on Oroku Saki.

Lifting a blade, he pointed it at the master. "Get down here," he hissed. "So I can kill you."

Shredder stood, expression features raking over Leonardo as he moved from his chair, his arms snapping with movement until his blades slipped out from the sheaths of his armor. From her miserable spot on the floor, April could see the minute trembling of Leonardo's hands and shoulders. He was exhausted from his duel with Donatello and now he was forced to face the Shredder alone.

But nothing in his face betrayed even a hint of apprehension, only malice coloring his features. "Tonight," said Shredder heatedly. "... I will end you." They both stilled for a moment before leaping at one another. Clang! Clink! Bang! Their blades kissed and sang, meeting in a clatter that echoed through the air in blow after blow, faster even than when Leo had fought with Donnie.

"You are no match for me," Shredder snarled, slicing down at Leonardo's shoulder and catching him in the bicep before the turtle could roll away. Leo pushed back a wince, his own blades snapping around and catching Shredder by surprise, throwing him off balance. Leonardo followed it by pummeling him with a series of swift hits, but April could see his strength was waning. He had expended much of his efforts on Donatello and now Shredder was gaining the upper hand, striking more than deflecting. He drew blood from Leonardo once, twice, escaping much physical harm himself underneath his glinting armor.

April turned her face away at one particularly brutal hit that sent Leonardo flying into a wall, a streak of blood following his grinding descent to the floor. Leonardo pushed himself back up and Shredder advanced on him slowly, unconcerned. His blades shifted on his great arms, clinking loudly.

"The boy has already given me the retro-mutagen for Karai," sneered the Shredder. "And you have saved me the trouble of killing him myself." He smashed the blunt edge of the blade into Leonardo's jaw and sent him careening to the floor again. "I could not see what he was, not on the first day... or even after the first time he met with you in battle. But when I saw his love for that girl, I knew..."

Fists clenched at his side.

"I knew I had seen that look before... I had glimpsed it... all too often. Did you believe I was fooled? That I could not see... that he was the mirror image of myself?" Another hit, this one pushing Leonardo back into the wall next to the glass cages where Karai flailed and hissed. "When he first arrived, I doubted my own suspicions... but it quickly became clear that he, too, has seen the dark path I have walked all these years."

A kick to Leonardo's plastron rocketed him into the steel and he let out a raspy gasp, his hand falling weakly to his stomach. Shredder stopped several feet away and a low, rumbling chuckle echoed, the noise reminiscent of Donnie's chilling laughter from before.

"But he was too weak to make it to the end." Shredder raised a razor sharp blade and pointed it at Leonardo. "I am not. I finish this tonight, turtle. I finish the Hamato clan and all it has ever stood for. You will die at my feet." Leonardo's blue eyes lifted and he allowed himself an agonizing moment to look over at Karai, crying out in feral wails from her prison. He looked back to Shredder and took in a deep, gratifying breath that expanded his chest and flooded his limbs with purpose.

He closed his eyes.

Unbalance your opponent.

Do not fight the armor, but the man inside the armor.

No matter what... or who you must sacrifice.

Colorless eyes narrowed into daggers glowing with renewed purpose. In a lightning fast motion, Leonardo yanked out a shuriken and hurled it into the wall switch next to Karai's cage. The door beeped and opened, the enraged mutant flying out of the cage and turning to snap her jaws at him.

Gazes locked just as Leonardo's hand clasped his blade and he turned, a wordless cry of grief ripping from his chest as he brought the katana down on the back of Karai's neck, slicing through her serpentine skin and separating her head from her deformed body.

"KARAI! NO!" shouted Oroku Saki.

Shredder thrust out his arm but he was too late, too far away to stop Karai's flailing body from falling to the floor with only a sputtering valve of blood where her head had once been. A gaping jaw and forked tongue lolled open on the floor, dead. Leonardo slowly turned his clenched jaw up to Shredder, both hands wrapped around the hilt of a single katana.

Shredder came at him wildly, rage blistering his normally calculated movements and transforming them into reckless thrusts and jabs. Leonardo countered them with growing ease, knocking away one hit after another and twisting all around Shredder's enraged form. He swiped at Leonardo and missed, yelling out when the blade of the katana found a kink in his armor and thrust home there.

A kick from Leonardo shoved him back against a wall but he rolled away, his arm tossing out a sloppy hit in Leonardo's direction. Leo caught the arm with a blade and then turned it, using his weight to kick heavily against Shredder with both feet. The ninja master fell to his knees and howled, a furious scream escaping him when Leonardo evaded yet another hit and then landed smoothly behind him.

Leo dropped his katana to the ground carelessly and flicked his hand. A silver blade jumped from beneath his hand wrappings, falling into waiting fingers. Leonardo turned the blade in a quick twirl and used his other hand to yank back Shredder's helmet until the other's neck was exposed, his fingers unforgiving under Oroku Saki's jaw.

He leaned his head close to the other's, his blank eyes a pair of jagged warnings.

"Her name was Miwa," Leonardo whispered through clenched teeth before he snatched the blade across Shredder's throat. Blood sprayed from the wound and carpeted the floor, a liquid gasp the last words of Oroku Saki, head of the Foot clan.

Leonardo shoved his body away, the small silver blade shaking in his palm. The body toppled forward with a wet plop against the growing pool of blood on the floor. In the distance, Leonardo registered the voices of April and Mikey. He raised a trembling hand to his face, the wet blade smearing red over his cheek in a moment of silent sorrow.

"Leo?"

He looked up and drank in the sight of both of his brothers, standing weakly and propped up by their injured human friends. "Master Splinter," sobbed Mikey, hobbling over to the collapsed form of their adopted father. April hurried to his side and moved to pull him away, but then she hesitated, her brows furrowed. Leaning forward, she pressed an ear to Splinter's chest. After several seconds of silence, her lips parted in a gasp.

"He's... He's alive! Guys, Master Splinter is alive!"

Leonardo rushed over to the others and helped them turn over their Sensei while April worked at his pulse points, feeling for any signs of life. "He's hardly injured at all," she said, confused. Looking up at Leo for a moment, she turned back to Splinter. "I don't think he was attacked. Just... drugged."

"But Donnie said Master Splinter was dead!" Mikey piped up, his blue eyes wide and shimmering. He hugged Sensei's unconscious body against his torso.

"Why would he do that?" Leonardo asked quietly, his eyes turning to April. "Why would he lie?"

April's eyes filled with tears, her lips trembling. "Because – Oh, God. Because he's still Donnie!" she cried out, jumping to her feet. "He's still Donnie! He's – He's still Donnie, still Donnie, still Donnie." Stumbling over herself more than once, April found Donnie's bloody form on the steel floor and fell next to him, her hands working frantically over his front. "Come on, Donnie... Please, I – I know you're in there," she curled over him, her fingers clenched in the torn and shredded fabric. When she lifted her face, she inhaled shakily. Then a spark filled her heart.

Leaping up once more, she raced over Donnie's broken body to Shredder's empty chair. After fumbling for several seconds, she found what she was looking for – the case of retro-mutagen he had boasted about earlier. Snatching it up, she ran back to Donnie and pulled out the first vial she laid her hands on. Snapping a needle on the front, she yanked Donnie's torso over to her and jabbed the needle in his chest. Her fingers slipped away, leaving the needle embedded there as the retro-mutagen leaked its way into his body.

April sniffled, her head bowed over his bleeding torso, her knees soaked and red.

The lair was finally quiet.

Blurred figures, shadows outlined in fuzzy grays and blacks were the first things that registered on his mind. Shifting uncomfortably, the lone figure on the table raised his head and immediately regretted it. After several moments of silent effort, he opened his eyes.

Sitting nearby on a stool, arm cast in a sling was Michelangelo. He had his head bowed in the direction of a comic book, but his eyes were still and he hadn't turned a page in a long while. The solitary patient looked past him to Casey Jones, who was chewing on a candy bar and picking at some bandages on his shoulder. Raphael approached, leaning heavily on a crutch and swatted his friend's hand away.

Blinking groggily, he turned his head back to Michelangelo.

"Mikey?"

The orange-banded turtle's head snapped up, his eyes wide. "Wha – Donnie!"

He jumped up, throwing aside his comic and gesturing to the others. "Guys, he's – he's awake!" Before he got to the table, however, he skidded to a stop and hesitated. A deep frown creased his features.

"D... Donnie? It is really you, right?" he asked, even as the others rushed around him. They too kept their distance, each eyeing him in turn. Donatello Hamato raised a brow and waved a hand weakly. After a long moment of silence, he dropped his head back to the table in exhaustion.

"Has Raph been feeding you cough syrup again?" he asked warily.

"IT'S HIM!" Mikey jumped forward and wrapped Donnie in a hug and he was startled to feel tears dripping down his neck from his little brother's face.

"Whoa – Hey, ow." He gently pushed his brother away and dropped a hand to his front. Fingers brushed against a cool, hard plastron.

Mikey stepped away and the others watched without talking as Donnie stared at them all, his brows furrowed in confusion. Then he turned his gaze back to himself, his three fingers moving down the front of his plastron until they grazed a deep indention. Following the line of the cut, Donatello traced a wide X, deeper and narrower than any of his other wounds. The others fidgeted nearby but Donnie had forgotten them, a frown deepening as his thoughts gave way to feelings and the feelings brushed against memories.

It's me – it's me, Donnie!

I am AFRAID!

One small step.

I've got an idea.

I can be anything you need me to be.

What is wrong with you?

I love you, April.

There's nothing wrong.

Why is this happening?

NO!

Everything is as it should be, April.

You're the one who DROPPED her in the mutagen.

You'll understand.

What did you tell him, Donnie?

Everything.

Donatello pitched forward from the table, an anguished cry sounding as the muddled memories assaulted him. Three-fingered hands curled at his head, eyes filled with tears and chest curling in on itself in terror. Muffled movement sounded next to him and a cool hand landed on his arm, pale and small in comparison to his alien features. Donatello looked up, his red eyes wide.

"I see it – like – God, it feels like something so far away, but..."

April did not move her hand away but dropped her head without a word, her pained expression turning to the side. Donatello scanned the room, his lips parted and his breathing labored. His cries started in earnest then, clouding his vision. "I can see it like a nightmare, something that made so much sense in a different world..." His hands dropped suddenly.

"Where is everyone? Is everyone – did I -"

"Shh," April gently turned him to face her and the others. "Everyone's fine."

"Well, not everyone," Raphael said from the side, his green eyes looking over Donnie uncertainly. Donnie's body trembled, his large hands falling to the side as his eyes looked dully to the reflective surface of the cabinet in his laboratory.

"Who?"

April inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. "Karai." She swallowed tightly. "But Shredder is dead, too."

"Leo...?"

"He's … alive," she answered hesitantly. "We haven't seen him in a few days."

Donnie nodded numbly, the still fuzzy images of his mutation prodding at the darkest corners of his mind, begging for entry. Donnie fought to push them away but he knew they would persist. Perhaps forever, if the heaviness in his chest was any indication. His body ached and he suspected it had a greater source of discomfort than his many wounds.

"What about Master Splinter?" he whispered, his eyes turned away.

"He's okay," Mikey stepped forward again, though he didn't reach out for Donnie this time. "He woke up a few hours after everything was over." Shifting uncomfortably on his feet, Mikey sniffled and looked over Donnie's form again. The turtle form he'd known most of his life. Somewhere off to the side, his purple mask lay, absent its owner.

No one moved or spoke for a moment, and when Donatello lifted his stricken gaze, he spotted Mikey and Raph standing closely together. With a burst of determination, he shoved his wounded form from the table and hobbled over to them both at breakneck speed. The two turtles jolted with surprise when Donnie collapsed against both of them, his arms tight around their necks in a desperate embrace.

"I don't care if you don't want to hug me back," he squeezed his eyes shut but tears poured through, even as his brothers remained still. "I just have to hold you guys one more time before you push me away."

No reaction for a long, tense moment. Then Raphael moved first, dragging a heavy arm around Donnie's shell and pulling him up into a tight embrace that supported his brother's lax weight. Mikey's arm joined it and the three of them encircled each other, each gaining a trembling hold.

"We shoulda' done more, Donnie..." whispered Raphael tearfully. "I shoulda – I saw you, I saw you startin' to lose it and I didn't do a damn thing..."

"We just thought it would be okay before all this was over," whimpered Mikey as he curled into the two of them. "We weren't paying attention, bro. I'm sorry."

"Oh, god... Please – please don't, Mikey..."

"S'pose to keep you, safe, Don... I – I didn't do it, I'm -"

"Don't! Just – Just... give me a chance. A chance to be a part of your your team again," murmured Donnie shakily. "Whatever you want me to do..."

"Dude," Mikey lifted his head, his freckled cheeks strained with tears. "Just be Donnie. The real Donnie. That's good enough for us." Raphael nodded in agreement even though his eyes were clenched shut and most of his face was hidden. The three of them stayed like that for several minutes, occasionally whispering to one another and then falling silent. Finally, they helped Donnie back to the table.

Raphael gruffly smashed a hand over his cheek to hide the tears.

"You should really talk to Casey," he said more firmly, clearing his throat. He jabbed a finger in the human teen's direction. "He's the one who spotted it. He was the one who did somethin'."

From his place next to Donnie's computer, the battered and bruised Casey lifted a shoulder and grinned at Donnie's surprised – and then grateful – stare. "Hey, you know me. I get bored easy. Sometimes I like a little excitement," was his unabashed response. Donnie gave him a very weak smile in return and reached out a hand, fingers curled. Casey crossed the room to bump fists with the turtle. Then he looped an arm around Donnie's shoulders in a hug, careful of his wounds.

"I actually missed ya, man." Casey pulled away and gave Donnie a shaky nod, his cocky facade fading away under a cloudy expression. "I missed ya for real." Donnie touched his friend's arm and gave it an affectionate squeeze. When he looked up and away from the others, he spotted April standing off to the side, one hand curled around the bicep of her opposite arm. Raphael glanced over at her and then turned to the others, motioning with his crutch. "Come on guys. Let's go hang out in the living room."

The others moved out, but not before Mikey gave Donnie one last hug.

Raphael reached out with a good arm and shut the lab door behind them, leaving April and Donatello alone. Once again, the lab was silent, neither speaking. Donnie refused to look up, his eyes on his lap. He flexed his fingers in front of him, much like he had done on the day of his accident. Green, three-fingered hands. A hard plastron. A heavy shell. He mused on them thoughtfully even as he heard April approach.

"How can you stand to look at me?" he asked at length, his voice dull.

Soft fingertips moved to his jaw and tilted his head up. April O'Neil's face filled his vision and, if possible, his limbs weakened further. They threatened to collapse altogether when April smiled, a genuine expression of happiness that lifted even the teary corners of her eyes.

"Because I finally get to see you again," she sniffled happily.

"April," Donnie ached to draw her near, wanted nothing more than the comfort of having her close, but everything in his sickly mind screamed at him that he didn't deserve it, not even for a moment. "April, I … I remember... I see it in my mind. I can feel the anger, the reasoning behind the horrible things that I did..." he touched his chest, the deep cuts on his plastron unpleasant on his fingers. "... I see it as it made sense to me then but now it's fighting with everything I feel now. And – and nothing, nothing I ever do will be okay again. Nothing can justify this, nothing can keep me from hating every single piece of myself."

He inhaled to steady himself but the tears fell as swiftly as they had before, never stopping.

"You – you are the only part of all of those things, those memories... that I can see in my mind without feeling like I'm being torn apart," he mumbled incoherently.

"Do you still feel that anger?" she asked softly, her curled fingers drawing down the trail of tears that etched their way onto his cheeks.

"I can feel where it was," Donatello admitted, ashamed. "Like everything it touched is charred and broken."

"Then put something else there," whispered April soothingly, her blue eyes trained on his. "Spend the rest of your life fixing it if you have to."

"I will die still feeling this way," he told her earnestly. Unsteady fingers moved to April's face and he allowed himself that moment of blissful contact. Once he brushed her skin, the urge to curl her in his arms grew too fervent and he pulled her into his embrace. April slipped into the pocket of space and turned her lips to graze them over his cheek.

"Then it sounds like you have a lot of work to do."

It took three days to find him.

Leonardo was at the docks, high on a packing crate and facing the bay. He turned a small silver blade in his hands. When Donatello stepped up behind him, his brother did not react, though he must have known he was there. Donnie followed his brother's stare to the churning water, dark under the inky night. He did not sit next to him but remained standing, a few feet behind the eldest Hamato.

Words seemed hollow and weak. Donnie scrambled for something to say, anything that might even hint at his desperation, his anxiety, his sorrow. But none came, and so he remained quiet. That is, until Leonardo spoke.

"Are you well again?"

Donnie's eyes flickered and he nodded before he remember his brother couldn't see him. He stepped forward, closer to Leo's side and spoke. "I – I'm as well as I can be right now," he told him truthfully. They looked out over the dark waves. "I'm – Leo, about... about Karai -"

Leo did not respond.

Donnie shuddered and forced himself to continue. "I don't – I don't remember everything about the battle. I don't even remember everything about the past month. But... but I know – I know she didn't make it and I am so -"

"Spare yourself the guilt," Leonardo turned just enough to look up at Donatello, his arms clasped around his knees."I killed her."

Donnie stared. "... You, Leo?"

Leonardo stood, his body shifted away from Donnie as he turned the blade over in his fingers. "I needed to defeat Shredder. That was how I chose to do it," he said tonelessly. Looking down at the small weapon, so like its original owner, Leo pressed a fingertip over its sharp edge. "Karai was gone."

"Leo..." Donnie swallowed. "God, why isn't there a stronger word than sorry?"

"Because at that point," Leonardo faced him, his words even and flat. "... there isn't anything left to say."

Donnie lowered his head, unable to look at his brother. The conversation fell away and the howling of wind rolling off the water took its place. When Donnie managed to look up once more, Leonardo was studying the weapon in his hand.

"It's okay," he said and he sounded more like he was talking to himself than Donatello. "We met at the end of a blade. It was only fitting we said good-bye there, too." With a movement so sharp and sudden it startled Donnie into taking a step back, Leonardo winded back his arm and pitched the blade forward into the water. It whistled loudly before landing with a splash, unseen in the darkness.

"Leonardo," Donnie touched his brother's arm and did not miss the clenching of muscle there. "I will spend every day of the rest of my life … fighting to give you back at least a portion of what you've lost." Leonardo eyed Donnie up and down before stepping out of the other's hold and raising both brows.

"Good luck with that," he murmured.

New York City sat under a blanket of snow, the streets grimy with the filthy ice and water, the pollution from the traffic and the many footfalls that paced the sidewalks.

Raphael was the first to leave the sewer, leaping happily for the first fire escape he saw and then stopping when he heard Michelangelo whoop behind him. Leonardo jumped out next and even his solitary stare over the city lightened under the bracing winds of the New York winter. He'd barely begun his ascent to the rooftop when Donatello emerged with a flip, his three-toed feet landing smoothly on the snow.

When he yelped loudly at the freezing snow, his brothers laughed before jumping further up the fire escape. Donnie snickered and jumped up after them, his fingers tight around the freezing cold rails. Just before he began to climb in earnest, the clearing of a throat behind him stopped him in his tracks.

"Without even saying good-bye?" teased April O'Neil from her spot on the ground, arms folded over her chest. Grinning, Donnie dropped down one level and hung from the fireplace by one arm, the other extended to the flushed redhead waiting for him.

April hurried forward and her arms leaped around his neck, tugging him down for a kiss. Above them, Donnie's brothers snickered and cat-called.

"Be safe," April whispered.

"I will," replied Donnie with a tender smile.

Then he was away, scaling the fire escape in record time until he reached the rooftop where he joined his brothers, four mutated silhouettes against the New York City skyline.

Penance.

It was something Donatello wasn't remarkably familiar with in the early years of his life. So when the day came that Donatello was forced to look back and accept all that he had done, it was with an unfamiliar, gut-wrenching sort of apprehension. One that let him know that penance was more than suffering and regret. It was action.

All of this started because he wanted to fix something. And yet after it was all done, he had no choice but to start from scratch.

He'd be damned if he let that stop him, though.

Author's Note: Fin. Ending Theme: "I See Fire" by Ed Sheeran.