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Raph was right. Nothing good ever came from splitting up the Mad Dawgz.
But sometimes New York needed four turtles on the scene, and sometimes New York needed four turtles at multiple scenes, and if that's what New York needed, they provided.
It's not like Donnie didn't already have a million contingencies for when they were separated anyways. If he could handle himself, he knows they can too.
And that was supposed to be the case.
The fight was supposed to be over.
Leo was checking in on everyone over the mystic link, seeming that their respective fights had come to an end. "Is everyone okay? Everyone in one piece?"
He was wiping non-existent dust off his hands, a pile of KO'd ninjas behind him. "I don't think they're all quite in one piece now, Leo." He jokes around his exhaustion.
"In fact," he continues despite the groans his joke receives, "Let's see there's-"
His voice cuts off, as he turns around, and someone is moving at him with blinding speed he's sure no one had exhibited earlier in their fight, otherwise he'd have noticed and he'd have time to prepare for the hit.
Maybe he'd have been able to block it. Maybe he could’ve even deflected the slash.
Instead, he makes a short strangled noise as the blade bites into his throat, sending shivers down his spine as it slices clean across.
His attacker's neat robe falls victim to the spray of blood- his spray of blood- and he watches them admire their handiwork, as he topples backwards, hands clutching his throat. They leave just as swiftly as they came, like an apparition gliding across the battlefield, and he's left with a deep-seated confusion and a wretched pain. He presses against it, stubbornly trying to stem the flow of blood from his throat.
"Donnie?" a voice at his side questions, and he recognizes it as Leo on the link again.
A growing horror blossoms in his chest.
Because he's only now realizing, far too late, the glaringly obvious fatal flaw in all his beautiful, brilliant planning, an oversight to rival that of the Titanic.
He can't keep his family safe if he dies first.
And he most certainly was going to die here.
His brothers don't know how to work his tech.
He's the only one who knows how to work the trackers.
He's the only one who can call in the escape pods.
He's the only one with the mystic powers that can create the tech that would help them, protect them, save them-
He didn't teach anyone else these things because he never thought he'd be in a position where he himself wouldn't be able to use it and now-
Now he was going to die here and his family would never see him again.
He would never get to see them again.
He was going to die and it was his own fault.
He was going to die and he wouldn't even be able to save his brothers from the thing that attacked him which was surely already on it's way to slaughter them next.
"Donnie, are you there?" That was Mikey, fear beginning to creep in his voice.
"Talk to me, Donnie!" Raph is beginning to sense it now too.
And he wanted to, he so badly wanted to talk around the blood filling his mouth, the disgusting taste of iron, strong and overwhelming, making him gag. Wanted to scream out for them- or maybe to calmly guide them towards his location in that familiar clinical tone of his- hell, even just croak out a whisper, but nothing comes up beside the hideous choking gurgling sounds of his own blood drowning him.
Oh god, he was going to drown. And if he didn't drown first, he'd bleed out shortly thereafter. He didn't know which was worse.
He can feel the tears forming in his eyes, burning as they escape and soak into the fabric of his bandana.
And it hurts, it hurts so much worse than any other pain hes experienced in his tragically short life- like sandpaper has been filed across his vocal cords, the skin torn apart and raw, the disgusting feeling of blood dripping from it and getting all over his mouth and hands and he barely remembers to turn and spit the blood out when his mouth gets too full, hacking and coughing at the pain blazing across his throat until more blood fills it's place.
Dizzily, he thinks the tears should be from that, a completely physiological response to the amount of physical distress his body is under, but he knows his throat is not the only thing that has been split open and filed raw, as he tries vainly to bite down the emotional turmoil that's flooding his brain.
He wants his brothers. He wants to be in bed at home with his blankie he's had since he was two, ratty and torn in several places, and only large enough to drape across his arms. Wants Leo to curl up next to him and hold him close, whispering soft assurances until he falls asleep.
He wants to see his brothers through the tiny slit his vision is being forced through, wants to see the bright orange of Mikey's fundo, or the soft red of Raph's mystic form. The blinding bright blue of one of Leo's portals. Wants to hear the rapid slam of their footfalls as they get closer, knowing the cavalry is here to take him home. He doesn't want to have to hear their tinny distressed shouts through his mystic-link (and how did that sound so much like normal tech anyways? It was a question he'd never considered, and now he'd never be able to look into it.)
He wants to feel Raph's strong embrace lift him up, to know that he's safe, that he doesn't have to worry, that he isn't going to die- Wants Mikey to grab his disgustingly sticky hand and squeeze with that insane Mikey grip that makes it feel like he'll never let go. Wants to feel the feather light touches of Leo's fingers ghosting his arms, face, neck, as he tries to examine the damages without causing more issues, and starts directing them in that leader-like way Donnie knows he's been growing more and more into, so he can be so proud and grateful later of how they all banded together to save him, and he'd even let them hug him, maybe forever-
He wants to live! God he wants to live, so bad, he's only a kid, he's only a kid. He doesn't want to die- he's never wanted to die.
The sobs wrack his body, pain reverberating with each one, until he's lightheaded. Until he doesn't have enough energy to continue sobbing, and the voices from his link begin to sound distant in a different, more fuzzy way. Until his mind begins to slow to a crawl. Until the blood flows lazily out of his mouth onto the ground beside him, and he hardly registers the pain.
So this was it then. Distantly- so distantly- he thinks he wouldn't want them to find him this way. Distantly, he hurts for their loss as much as his own. As much as the fact he won't see them one last time. Won't hear their laughter wash over him ever again. Won't be there for them, to awkwardly comfort them as they cry and cry and refuse to take care of themselves worse than he does.
He's vaguely horrified to know he won't be there. Won't be here anymore. Won't exist. There will be no more Donatello Hamato, his consciousness will not exist anywhere on this earth.
He has just enough energy left to be terrified of the notion that he simply won't be.
The feelings and thoughts begin to slowly slip away, like water dripping through his hands as his breath peters out.
He has one last moment of surprising lucidity, one last misfiring of a neuron, one last thought seared into his mind before it is lost forever to the forces that be.
I hope they know I loved them
He has no more thoughts after that.