Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Considering all that has happened, it was a strange thing to think about in this situation, but Leonardo Hamato could never come to terms with the fact that he was not actually the oldest of the twins. Because, in his opinion, it should have been a given. Because he thought that it would be quite natural and logical for him to be one. Because it would be reasonable for him to receive this title, this name.

Because he thought he deserved it.

And yet here he was; the third youngest, the third smartest - despite the fact that he was the only one who took an active part in obtaining The braincell once in a while - the last in line before his baby brother... And, well, maybe, at the end of the day, that was part of the problem: Mikey being his little baby brother. Maybe that was what made him so desperate to prove himself, to show that he, surely, was not a baby.

It was stupid, he knew that now. Foolish, even. How could he have been so angry about something so small and unimportant for such a long time? How could he afford to spend so much time and energy on it? How dared he waste what little time he had with his family on such a thing?! No matter how much he wanted to pretend he didn't know, the answer was easy to find because it was floating in his mind just as effortlessly as his body through the darkness of the Prison Dimension.

He was stupidly unaware of his own mortality.

Which was strange, now that he thought about it. All of the times when he almost died – all of the times when he was sure that this would be the end of him – and yet deep down, he still did not believe that he could die. It was fascinating. And maybe that’s exactly how it was supposed to go. Maybe humans were not supposed to consider the possibility of death as a real one until it actually came to them, because if they did, then they would act oh so differently.

Because they would be filled with more regret than they can handle.

Leonardo Hamato almost laughed at himself, because he was not human – at least, not completely – which meant he could carry all of the world’s regret on his shoulders and not give in for even a second. He could take all of the blame on himself. He could be the martyr of every sin on this planet. If he was going to die anyway, why make others hurt? Why make them go through pain? Give him all the suffering, give him all the punishment, give him all the ugly things in this world – he will take them with him, bury them in his soul, carry them into his grave and never come back…

Because he was not coming back.

Ever.

And he knew that.

He knew a lot of things, actually.

He knew that he will never see the sun again. He knew that the last thing he told Hueso was: «¡Hasta luego, viejo!». He knew that he didn’t hug Pops goodbye. He knew that he did not say a single thing to Donnie or Mikey ever since the start of the fight with Krang. He knew that he didn’t see April ever since they went into the Metro tower in their last desperate attempt to rescue Raph. He knew that he left too much of a responsibility on Casey’s shoulders. He knew that he was the one to blame. He knew…

He knew.

Once.

Now, all of that was stored somewhere in the deep dark corners of his mind, where he no longer looked for comfort, finding plenty of it in the darkness around him.

Dramp, he mouthed to himself, without a single sound leaving his lips. Dramp. Dramp… Dramp?

Dramp.

He didn’t remember what «Dramp» meant anymore. He did once, of course, but that time was long gone, as was the age of his knowing anything about the world outside of the darkness. He had the memories, yes, but most of them were confusing and sometimes resembled dreams. And maybe they were dreams. Maybe all of the colors that he saw and all the sunlight that he felt on his skin were fake – simply a product of his imagination. Maybe there never was such a thing as sunlight. Maybe he was just a crazy creature with crazy ideas dropped into a crazy world by-

By whom?

There was no one here. No one except him and the Krang, who was always a step behind – breathing into his shell, stepping on his heels, moving on and on and on without rest or any signs of exhaustion…

“Let's see how long it takes you to lose that precious sanity of yours!”

Leonardo Hamato had long since stopped hoping it would take him a long time.

Back when he did, every second in this place felt agonizing.

Leonardo Hamato did not flinch when he heard the enemy approaching anymore.

Back when he did, he lost the few precious seconds he could use to escape and lost his arm.

Leonardo Hamato stopped letting go of his sword.

Back when he did, bad things happened to him, and he cracked his shell.

Leonardo Hamato no longer spoke out loud.

Back when he did, the Krang heard and found him, and made him lose his voice permanently.

Leonardo Hamato did not remember his own name anymore.

Back when he did, he felt as if he had something to lose.

Leonardo Hamato no longer knew who he was.

Back when he did-

Huh.

Maybe he never did.

Now Leonardo Hamato was no more than a shadow of what he was before – if he ever really was anything but this. Now he was nothing but a dead guy walking, his head clouded with stories and lies he had told himself over the years. If there even was such a thing as years. He did not know. He measured time by nothing except the number of portals that opened up once in a while to welcome another terrible creature into this realm. There were a lot of those roaming this dimension when he first got here. Now there were far fewer.

Maybe because he killed most of them.

Leonardo Hamato killed a lot these days. He didn’t think about it – not anymore, at least – but it was true. And it was surprising how stubborn he was about not letting himself get killed in return; just like a wild animal that had only one goal – to survive. Not a reason, no. Animals don’t have a reason.

Even though he did have one of those.

He didn’t remember when it started, but at some point, after he was hit on the head by the Krang at least ten times, he started seeing things – hearing voices. It scared him at first, up until he remembered where he was: The Prison Dimension, also known as the Twilight Realm – the resting place of his Gram-Gram’s body, but, thankfully, not her soul, for the past five hundred years. It would be expected for parts of her ninpo to still linger here, to stay in this place and travel through it, unbothered by the lack of a vessel or threat… That is, until he appeared there, with this shining katana of his, and the world’s worst parasite at his tail, disturbing the balance of the forces and energy around.

Leonardo Hamato was sure that what he saw and heard was Gram-Gram, in some way or another. And what he did not want to hear or see, was Shredder.

Because of course, he was here too.

How could he not be?

Oroku Saki and Karai Hamato – father and daughter – were like ying and yang in their family’s history. They were opposites with glimpses of each other in themselves. The forces of good and evil, slightly smudged at the sides with the gray outline of life. They were everything and nothing. They were him and he was them, and he was nothing and they were nothing… And sometimes he was Gram-Gram and the Krang was Shredder, and-

Or maybe it was the other way around?

He did not remember.

Not anymore.

“I know you’re here,” came Krang’s voice.

Leonardo Hamato cried, as he did every time he heard the deafening sounds of the alien’s footsteps, because they reminded him of something far more awful than the situation he was currently in. And he could not recall it specifically, just like with any other memory, but he still felt it. The ground shaking. The air getting thicker. The gravity getting stronger… Oh, how he missed gravity. He missed falling on his plastron with the sole weight of his shell on his back - not a Krang’s hand, or the responsibility of the world – he missed being able to just walk without getting swung around from side to side. He missed jumping and landing on his feet. He missed carrying people. He missed-

He missed people.

Even if he could no longer remember them clearly.

“Come on, Pest! Let me kill you at once so I can rest!”

Leonardo Hamato was sure «Pest» was his name because he did not understand what the word «Leonardo» meant when he heard it ringing in his mind, Karai’s voice booming in his head, making the mystic symbols on the katana in his hands light up. But it was nothing new – he didn’t understand half of the words she was saying, anyway. Some of them were old; far too old for him to understand them. Some were in Japanese. Some were words he had long forgotten the meaning of. But ultimately, all of them were comforting. He knew that. They had to be. Otherwise, what was the point? What was the reason for Gram-Gram’s sweet voice to appear in the times when Shredder was silent, if not to encourage him to keep going?

‘Go!’ she would say.

And he would, because he knew this word.

‘Run,’ he would hear a rough voice respond.

And sometimes he would, because he knew this word too.

The Shredder never yelled, and this would have been suspicious if it was not for the fact that Leo knew: he would listen to him anyway. It didn’t matter if the ancestor’s monstrous form screamed or shouted or whispered – his words and advice always sounded far more pleasant than the alternatives when it came to physical survival. Far easier. Far less demanding. Because why fight where you can run? Why help when you can take advantage of? Why go when you can flee?

He did not know the answer, and consequently, did not think of it at all because frankly, it did not matter.

All that did was in his head; the two voices battling for dominance in his mind, convincing him of one simple truth: Karai and Oroku Saki might have been free of their curses, but their energy – the one that stayed here, rotting, for hundreds of years – didn’t. It absorbed it, took all the bad things into itself and thrived here. At the end of the day, it was the Krang who created the Shredder. It would make sense for his magic to obey the wishes of his master in all the twisted forms it possibly could: even if it meant keeping him, a Pest, alive, for the sheer entertainment of the chase.

They both were too powerful, too dangerous for this world and all the others, and Leonardo Hamato was now their vessel, holding both of them inside of him, keeping them from spreading, just like he did with the Krang. And if his eternal suffering was the price, he would pay it to become immortal and contain all of them here until the end of time. He would take this burden upon himself with a smile, no matter how many times all three of the voices told him to stop, to save his energy for the fight, or to simply give up. He would not care for them and their unhappiness with him. He would learn to tune them out. He would find a way to stay sane, to keep his mind from falling apart. He would-

He would.

If it was not too late for that already.

Chapter Text

Leonardo Hamato leaned over, his katana glued to his hand with the invisible force of duty and responsibility, and bowed in respect before the carefully crafted statue in front of him. He didn’t remember who made it or when, but he seemed to recognize that parts of his blade were scratched and matched perfectly with the shapes of the woman depicted in stone. A terribly strange coincidence, he thought to himself.

Someone must have been here before him.

Someone who knew this woman.

Someone who handed him this katana.

Someone whom he did not remember anymore.

Although he was pretty sure there was more than one «someone».

‘Stand, child,’ Karai’s voice rang in his mind.

Leonardo Hamato stood up.

‘Why can’t you enjoy it?’ Shredder asked then. ‘He kneels before you, yet you don’t appreciate it.’

‘I am not above him by any means,’ she said. ‘We are equal in our suffering.’

‘Suffering,’ Shredder laughed. ‘How hypocritical of you to say so. You were unconscious all this time. You were sleeping. With a nightmare playing out in the back of your head, yes, but he...’

There was a pause.

‘He is wide awake.’

Leonardo Hamato didn’t know what being awake meant and how was it different from being asleep. He closed his eyes. He opened them. The world didn’t change much either way. The only thing that did was his body. In his dreams – if they were dreams at all – he was whole. His arm was there. His shell was not cracked. In his dreams his mind was silent. In his dreams, he could talk.

In his dreams, he knew who the people in the photograph he carried around with him were.

The paper of it was crinkled and old, torn at the sides and in the middle from the amount of times he folded it. It was strange, really. All these creatures he did not know but felt so strongly about… Especially the boy with the blue mask and red markings on his face. Leonardo Hamato didn’t know who he was, of course, but what he did know was that he had a blue mask too – now wrapped around the remaining part of his right arm, serving as more of a symbol than a useful piece of cloth, because it was too old and cranky to wear it in the way that was intended. And yet he did not want to throw it away.

Mostly because he forgot that throwing something away was even an option. It’s not like there were any trash bins around. But even so, deep down he had an ulterior motive: he hoped that it was something that tied him to his past. Something that would help him remember. It failed, evidently, but he still felt obligated to keep it. As a reminder that there was something there. That he knew something once. That this world and his life weren’t the only ones at stake. And maybe deep down, this was also a cry for help. A silent – because that’s what Leonardo Hamato was now – prayer to the universe to make someone, anyone, see him and help him.

Not by taking him away from here, of course – that would be too dangerous – but by simply explaining to him why he was here. That would be more than enough; just like reminding him how he got here or telling him who was here before him. Just saying his name...

“Pest!”

It was incredible how the Krang has never yet found his secret hiding spot, but weird, nonetheless. Maybe even impossible. Because how could he not know about this place after all these years – all these decades – during which Leonardo Hamato kept hiding here, under the rubble, between two rocks that supported each other, thus keeping themselves from falling, like a coward, to heal his wounds and rest? How could he let him stay here?

How dared he?

“You can’t hide forever!” the Krang yelled.

Leonardo Hamato shivered and Karai was right there to reassure him.

‘You can try.’

Gram-Gram, Leonardo Hamato’s lips then moved in the silence of this world.

‘Yes?’ she asked him.

He frowned. Who are you?

‘I am your conscience in this trying time, child,’ was her response.

Shredder laughed. ‘Then let me be your temptation.’

Leonardo Hamato nodded.

He stood in front of the woman's statue for a long time before he, accidentally, spotted the writing on her clothes. He then blinked and suddenly saw it on her hands too. On her skin, her face... After a brief examination, he could tell that her entire body was covered with letters, new and old, and symbols, ancient and not, that all read the same thing.

«I have failed. Now it's your turn».

By looking closely at them, Leonardo Hamato found that, upon observation, the smaller messages had also, in their arrangement and carving, turned into words - these ones bigger and bolder.

«Keep your sanity» and «They are not real, you are».

Examining them, he took another step back, and another, and after several more, saw that the statue had never, actually, been clean or smooth, or, for that matter, forged and made into a female figure on purpose. No, it had been polished with various messages carved into it, one after another, all varying in content, but appearing to have been written by the same person who, eventually, ran out of space once the stone was made into a creature of his own suffering.

«Don’t forget them».

«Never ask Why».

«You know you deserve it».

«Be a man. You always dreamed of being one».

All of these – and dozens more – sentences confused Leonardo Hamato because he felt like he was supposed to know what they all meant, and yet he didn’t. Half of these words have lost meaning to him. Another half just didn’t seem suitable here. So, he couldn’t keep himself from experiencing a tiny bit of discomfort while reading them. At least until he got to the oldest of the messages, which was, surprisingly, the simplest of them all.

«I want to go home».

Leonardo Hamato did not remember what home was anymore. All he knew was finding shelter, hiding and running, so to him, home did not seem possible to achieve. At least, not here. Not now. Not like this. He was sure of that. Whatever home was, anyway. He did not know. And consequently, did not understand how could one achieve it. Was it really something possible? Something achievable? He felt like the answer varied. Although he was not sure what did the word «achieve» even mean.

‘He’s coming,’ Karai said, warning him of the approaching footsteps of his doom. ‘We should move.’

‘Or we should stay,’ Shredder whispered. ‘See if you got any better with that sword of yours.’

‘You know you didn’t,’ Karai insisted. ‘That’ll get you killed!’

Shredder laughed again.

Leonardo Hamato was sure that only a monster would be able to as much as smile in a place like this.

‘But that’s what he wants, my dear!’ Shredder replied. ‘Death. End. Peace.’

‘There is no peace in the end,’ Karai argued.

‘How shall you know?’ There was amusement in Shredder’s voice. ‘This part of you never crossed the line. This is your end, and this is your peace. His might be different.’

‘Watching my descendants suffer was never peaceful.’

‘And yet you still did.’

‘I had no choice, trapped here with you!’

‘All while your children and grandchildren sacrificed themselves to a cause that never served anyone.’

‘Don’t talk about them like that.’

‘Ah, but it’s true, isn’t it?’ Shredder’s voice started to move around in Leonardo Hamato’s head as if he was pacing. ‘Generations of young girls and women, all told that one day they each will have to give their life to save humanity. Because of you.’

Shredder chuckled.

‘It’s nice to see the tradition finally coming to an end. It was getting a little repetitive, don’t you think?’

‘No.’

‘Now we have a great young man – which in and of itself is a turn of events – sacrificing himself almost in the same manner as you did, ending this cycle of hell and pain… How noble.’

There was a pause.

‘And stupid.’

Leonardo Hamato did not register the argument going on in his head.

After decades of putting up with this kind of noise, he developed the great skill of ignorance to perfection. And maybe that was the problem. Maybe that was what he did wrong. Maybe that was his downfall. Maybe that’s why he started to forget things, even despite his infinite need to know. Maybe that’s why he left this hiding spot of his, turning his back to the statue, and did not notice the small markings on the floor, which perfectly traced the way his sword twirled on the ground as he did so.

Or rather, would have twirled if the markings were not as deep as they were.

DRAMP, Leonardo Hamato mumbled to himself. DRAMP.

His legs cramped and hurt but he still moved, still tried to hide. He didn’t know why. He didn’t notice how. All he knew was that somehow, he was still alive. He was still breathing. He was still here, in this darkness around. Still in this hell. Still in this infinite nothing, stretching into eternity… But perhaps that was the thing about eternity. When you enjoyed it, it passed in a moment. When you suffered through it, it lingered. It stayed and tried to cheer you up, unaware of it being the cause of your distress. And it was in moments like these that he regretted not being a masochist.

If he wasn’t one already, so desperately clinging to life despite all the challenges on his way.

He never asked himself why. Not why he was the one here, not why he was the only one, not why the universe has chosen him… Although, he was not sure if there was a choice there at all. Let alone whose choice it might have been. His own? The Krang’s? His family’s? Karai’s? Shredder’s? There was no answer whatsoever. It could have been any of them. Or neither.

Probably neither.

Not because Leo did not believe someone would choose to cast such a fate on him, but rather because he did not believe in choices as a whole.

He hasn’t gotten to choose anything in years.

Not even the way he would die.

‘He is hopeless.’

‘But he is stubborn. That will get him far enough.’

Leonardo Hamato did not remember that once he had strong – or any,  really – opinions, which would make him immediately argue with the provided statement. He did not remember that once he considered being stubborn and determined as the same thing, just as passion and obsession, or being single-minded and focused. He did not remember his feeling of justice. His hatred for unfairness… Now, inhuman doings were a far more casual occurrence to him than most imagine, for they began with simple acts of cold indifference towards others. Towards the world around.

And for him, it happened every day.

Leonardo Hamato did not know what the words «Inhumane» and «Humane» meant, but once he knew that they were opposites, though they sounded so similar. Once he knew that the opposite of emotional indifference was love. Once he knew what love was. Once, he could choose whom he became through his everyday choices of deeds and words. Once, he could build himself instead of simply destroying. Once, he had a goal – to inspire, communicate with and be a good role model.

Once.

But not anymore.

“What an awful sight,” the Krang laughed, as he watched him climbing a cliff from its top, in a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to run away. “But it’s great to see you becoming dust under me.”

Leonardo Hamato's fingers clung to the edge of the cliff, trying to pull himself up the only way he could, with his remaining hand, when Krang stepped on them, causing him to gasp from pain. There was no noise because Leo couldn’t make noises anymore, but the huffing of the air out of his lungs was just enough to make the Krang smile, a poison of satisfaction running in his veins – or whatever these pink monsters had in their place. If they even had anything.

If they even were actual things, and not just products of Leo’s imagination.

It would be funny – to find out that all this time he had been running away from his own mind. His own demons, whom he came up with for the sole purpose of inflicting punishment on the part of him that deserved it.

“A Pest in it’s natural position relative to the mighty race of the Krang.”

Leonardo Hamato gritted his teeth.

He had proof of different monster’s existence and their appearance in this realm – his cape was made out of the skin of one of the bigger, fluffier creatures, and his food supplies were taken out of the fattest, cow-resembling monster he met – but he never got such proof of the Krang. All he got from him were scars and bruises and cracks, but never ever had he hurt the Krang enough to take a part of his body with him. Never ever had he been able to convince himself that a wound he got during a fight was not just a hallucination.

“It would be a shame to let such an opportunity go,” the Krang smiled. “So, I think I will let go of you, instead.”

With these words, he kicked Leonardo Hamato into the air, where gravity overtook him, and sent him toward the hard ground below.

And when a few moments later, a golden, warm haze wrapped itself around Leo's face, he couldn't help but squint, feeling his eyes burning from the sudden, unfamiliar brightness and thinking that yes, that was it. The end. The light at the end of the dark tunnel that was his life up until this point. His final resting spot. The peaceful embrace of death, which came in the form of a huge red fist that grabbed him and pulled him into itself.

“Donnie, get him out of here!”

“I’m trying, I’m trying!”

“Raph, are you okay there?!”

“I’m… Holding on…”

«Guys? Guys! It’s April! Come in!»

“Mikey, close that thing! Now!”

“But he’s not- This is not…”

“You want the Krang to get back here?!”

“No!”

“Well then…!”

“Is he- Is he breathing?”

“I don’t know! I’m not the medic here!”

“We have to get him to Pops.”

After hitting the ground, Leonardo Hamato opened his eyes, and saw familiar colors, roaming the sky: Red. Orange. Purple. Blue. Green. Grey. And Pink. The last one was surely set up to be a disappointment, but he did not care. He did not argue against it even in his soul – or what remained of it. He was simply thankful. Because no matter the details, no matter the circumstances, he did, after all, get to go to heaven.

Chapter Text

“Hey, SHELLDON.” Leonardo Hamato breathed out, weakly, feeling a warm liquid dripping from his forehead. “Give it to me straight. What are my chances of getting out of this mess?”

The Hamato symbol on his glove started pulsating.

«In your current state, you will pass the point of recovery in 10 minutes. Later on, the brain damage will have irreversible consequences».

“You are really buttering me up with fantastic news,” Leo laughed.

His broken ribs screeched as he did so, making him squirm with pain.

“If you had eight minutes to live and you could do anything you wanted, what would you do?” he asked.

«Transfer my A.I. into a corporeal being and go see Paris».

“Oh, that's lame- I mean, wow. Super... cool.”

«What would you do, Leo?»

“Absolutely anything.”

«Like what?»

Leo huffed, but before he could find an answer, another voice broke the silence around him: «Leo?! Leo!»

“Hi! You have reached Neon Leon’s voicemail. Regrettably, he’s currently out of your world’s reach, but you can leave a message after the beep!”

«Nardo, it’s not funny! I know you can hear me! I built this thing; I know it can reach-»

“Can you clean that up, SHELL?”

«I can try. There is quite a bit of interference».

“I believe in you.”

But did he? Did he believe in anything, at his point?

«Four minutes left, Leo».

“Heh… Miguel, now would be the time to appear and scoop me up,” Leo coughed.

«He's not coming, Leo. I'm afraid no one is».

“What are my chances that I'm secretly immortal? Like Zeus, Hercules, or… Jupiter Jim?”

«There is no chance».

That seemed to be his one truth in life. Not having a chance.

«Leo, you have two minutes left».

“Can we...” It was hard to speak, but he still tried. “…change that to something more cheerful?”

«Sure, Leo».

“Pizza. Act like you're baking a big-ass homemade pizza.”

«Leo, the pizza will be done in two minutes».

Two minutes left to live.

“Oh... fantastic. I love pizza. Especially with pineapple…”

Donnie always hated it.

«Leo. The pizza will be done in one minute».

Time seemed to pass fairly quickly…

“Oh, good. I'm extremely excited... for this pizza.”

…he hoped death would be the same.

«Leo, the pizza is-»

“-ready!”

Leonardo Hamato was hit with a shockwave.

He didn’t know that it was a shockwave, of course, because he forgot about electricity and how it works, just as he forgot the people who were standing now before him and the machine he was strapped in to. It was a bed – not like he knew what beds were anymore, but still – with leathered belts and a bunch of wires, all of them connected to his skin with metal claws. Through the wires flew an electric current, that travelled into his muscles and made them twitch involuntarily.

He hated that feeling.

He hated how bright everything around him was.

He hated the silence in his head.

So, he tried to scream.

He tried to call for Karai, for Shredder, for the Krang… He knew this place wasn’t real – nothing about this place was real. It was just another dream; one of his favourite ones. The ones in which he got out of the Prison Dimension. Although this particular dream was rather a nightmare because instead of getting to escape the pain and the horrors of his life, trapped in a lively world of unreality, Leonardo Hamato was now seeing the reflection of said life in his fantasies. And he was afraid of it.

He never dreamed of coming back broken.

“Is he in pain?!”

“I- I don’t know! He isn’t supposed to be!”

“Really Donnie?!”

“Should we do something?!”

“Raph, hold him!”

“He’s struggling!”

“That’s why I need you to stop him!”

“Are you sure this is safe?” the giant, red-masked green guy asked, holding on to Leonardo’s legs and hands, which he started moving rapidly in an attempt to escape this imprisonment.

“His muscles are not used to Earth’s gravity,” came a response from the nearest purple-attired individual, sitting in a chair with his back turned to the rest of the onlookers. “If we let him go, he will injure himself.”

Raph huffed. “Leo will kick you for using your untested tech in his Med Bay.”

“Well, here he is, and as you can see, he is clearly not objecting. At least, not that part of this experience anyway,” Donnie waved his hand, and then coughed out: “As if I would care if he did.”

“Are you sure this is Leo?” asked the small guy right next to Raph.

“Yes,” Donnie answered, wiping a drop of sweat from underneath his mask.

“But it looks…” the orange one squirmed, looking at the person who wasn’t Leonardo Hamato for more than three decades now with a terrified expression on his face. “It…”

“He’s a mutated red-eared slider,” Donnie turned around. “There weren’t many of those in my time. Besides, haven’t you seen what he was wearing?”

“The blue mask.”

“Exactly. Just like our Leo.” Donnie nodded. “Plus, a cape made from a certain animal’s skin. I am not sure how he got it, but… I guess anything goes in the Prison Dimension.”

"Animal?" Raph looked at Leonardo. "You don't think that he was..."

"...hunting?" Donnie chewed on his lip. “I don’t have enough data to determine it, but… He had to have eaten something. Plus, his physical complexity does bring evidence of excessive physical endurance-”

“But how?” Raph interrupted. “Where?!”

“I don’t know.”

“So,” Mikey looked up at them. “Maybe he could- It could…”

Donnie sighed. “Raph, help?”

“Uh. Yes!” Raph cleared his throat. “Um. Listen, Mikey. We know it’s weird, and that it’s not the Leo we know, but Donnie’s DNA test says it is. We don’t know anything about the Prison Dimension, so-”

“But that can’t be,” Mikey shook his head. “I couldn’t…”

Donnie frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I- I was supposed to bring Leo back,” Mikey said, his voice broken. “Leo. Our Leo. Not… Not this!”

“Orange!” Splinter called out, strictly, entering the Med Bay with a whole crowd behind him. “Don’t talk about your brother like that.”

“But-!”

“Son.”

Mikey sniffled and bit his lip, as his father made his way toward him. And it was when Splinter put his hands on both his youngest son’s shoulder and second youngest son’s chest that Leonardo Hamato’s head exploded with screams.

‘YOSHI?’

‘KILL HIM.’

‘HELP HIM.’

‘KILL THEM BOTH.’

‘KEEP THEM SAFE.’

‘LET THEM DIE.’

‘LET THEM LIVE.’

That’s it, Leonardo Hamato thought. He will now get back to the familiar soil of his tormenting dimension. Back to the darkness. To the pain. To the things he knew and could handle. To the things so familiar to him, he might as well have never known anything else. He didn’t have any evidence of the contrary anyways. Well, besides the dreams. But wasn’t everything around him a dream? He didn’t know when he was awake and when he wasn’t. All he knew was either darkness or fake light that led him in circles around his own torture chamber.

Leonardo Hamato closed his eyes. He opened them. The world didn’t change much either way. Well, except for the amount of people that now started to settle in the infirmary, carried around by magic and stretchers.

“No, take them further!” came the voice of a young girl who was holding a bat in her hands all the way from the entrance. “We don’t have enough space as it is.”

“Hey April,” Raph nodded to her.

“Are all of them infected?” Donnie asked, nodding to the people who were now placed on the beds around.

“No,” April shook her head.

“But I specifically said-”

“They are wounded, Don.” April’s voice was harsh, but she seemed to be on the verge of passing out from exhaustion. “Sunita is too.”

The regret on Donnie’s face was painted in bright, neon colours.

“I’m sorry.”

As the room started filling up with people, the only person in the whole Med Bay whom Leonardo Hamato did not feel threatened by was a short-haired girl who lay on the bunk opposite his in an extremely uncomfortable position, kicking her arms and legs up into the air and shouting at the tall, goat-looking man next to her.

“Take that shit off me!”

“No.”

“What do you mean no?! Do you even know who you’re talking to?!”

“A Foot Recruit – one of the ones who started the invasion?”

“Hey- Woah! I quit and you know that!”

“Sure, sure.”

“What the hell do you mean by that, you- You quit first, how dare you doubt me?!”

“Eh.”

“Don’t you eh me!”

Leonardo Hamato blinked a couple of times, looking around.

And then some more.

And more.

And more…

It was weird, how calm he was. Usually, he killed all of those he came by. Every being in the Prison Dimension wanted to kill him too. But here, they didn’t. It seemed as if they tried to help him. Although he did not remember what help was. Even though he thought that it was just another way of getting killed. Another trap. Another way for the Krang to trick him into his tentacle jail. To kill him in a way that would make all his endeavors of survival meaningless. It made sense, but at the same time, it didn’t. Because the Krang didn’t know what help was, too. Because the Krang didn’t know who the people in the photo were, either. The only ones who knew were Karai and Shredder.  The only ones who were quieter now than ever before. They knew. And they didn’t tell him to run.

So maybe it wasn’t a dream anymore.

Maybe this is how being awake felt like.