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Leo ran his thumb over the hilt of his katana and sighed. The two masks that were wrapped around it were so worn the color was fading. When he noticed, weeks before, he had been devastated. He couldn't stand ruining another thing his brothers had cared about.
But now he just felt a deep, sinking ache in his heart.
He wouldn’t last that much longer, anyway. It didn’t matter.
Nothing really mattered anymore, except the two figures curled against either side of him.
Casey Junior, his student turned ward turned almost-but-not-quite son. And Mikey, his littlest brother, despite his old, wrinkly features. They both seemed relaxed now, asleep while Leo kept watch. He hoped it was a peaceful sleep. A dreamless one. He knew his dreams weren’t.
Casey shifted closer to him, as if sensing his thoughts. His tiny human hand curled into Leo’s cloak. The kid seemed so delicate now, tucked against Leo’s side, weapons discarded in favor of a ratty old blanket he’d carried since he was a toddler.
It scared Leo to have him here, in a world of death and grief and pain. It scared him even more to wonder what would happen to Casey when he was gone. Leo wished Mikey could save himself and Casey, whisk them somewhere far across the world where the Kraang could never reach them.
And, yeah, it was true Leo didn’t think he was going to last much longer, what with being Kraang Prime's favorite target and how often he managed to put his family in danger. He wasn’t really sure if he deserve to have lasted this long, when Raph and Donnie had so little time.
He shivered at the thought of his dead brothers. Casey shifted again, but it did nothing to stop where Leo’s mind was going. God, he had Raph’s arm attached to his body and Donnie’s seal on all of his clothing.
How was he just supposed to forget about them?
He couldn't.
Not Raph, not Donnie, not April, not Splinter, not Cassandra, not any of them, because this was all his fault and he could not fix it now. No amount of fighting or convincing or swindling or begging would ever get his family back.
He couldn't have been less prepared for Mikey to die, even if they’d known this would happen for a long, long time. It was Draxum and Donnie who had helped Mikey make this plan, who had left Leo out of it until it was too late to change Mikey’s mind, who then died and left Leo with the burden of knowing one day his baby brother would kill himself trying to fix Leo’s mistakes.
The smile on Mikey’s face when he turned into dust didn’t do anything to comfort Leo. Neither did pushing Casey through the portal and watching his pride and joy disappear with tears streaming down his face.
Spirits, Leo was so tired.
The Kraang never stopped, though. So he kept going. He fought his way through the hordes and the bodies and the ruins of what used to be. He kept expecting something to descend from the sky and strike him down, the last act of the universe against his miserable life.
Damn, he sounded so self centered.
He wondered if Casey was okay.
The kid was resilient, to be sure, but Leo didn’t know how he’d react to the past. Or if Casey even knew enough to find his family in that timeline. Leo could run circles around how much he had prepared Casey for days, maybe longer. He couldn't stand the thought of Casey getting hurt or worse because Leo hadn’t reminded him of something one more time.
The ache came and went. Mikey’s smile was stained on the back of Leo’s eyelids. Casey’s cries echoed in his ears. And Leo kept going.
He wanted to die.
He wanted it to be over.
He didn’t understand how he was still alive, how he could fight off the Kraang forces like this, how he failed to do the same thing for years and years. Where was this strength when Raph needed it? When Donnie needed it? When his family needed it? When the entire goddamn world needed it, and he still couldn't find it until now?
He had gotten so used to the battlefield by now that leaning on a Kraang dog’s flank to rest barely fazed him. Here was his dead enemy, the same thing that he had seen tear people apart, and he was using it as a pillow.
But he was so tired. And he was never going to see Casey again.
Leo hoped Casey didn’t hate him for all of this. He had given up on redemption from the rest of his family, he knew they blamed him. He knew they couldn't forgive him, because no matter what they did for him they had never lied and told him it wasn’t his fault.
They wouldn’t do that to him.
Donnie was a terrible liar, anyway. Raph couldn't stand not telling the truth. Mikey was too bold to sugarcoat anything. April would never lie to people she trusted.
Splinter probably could have done it. Could have fooled Leo. But his dad had never been one to sing Leo’s praises. Not when he was little, not during his wild teenage years, and certainly not once Leo had condemned them all to death.
It ached, sure, but Leo had gotten used to it.
He’d keep going. He owed it to everyone in the Resistance. He owed it to his family.
He blinked a few times.
There was a flicker of something in the distance.
Kraang.
He heaved himself to his feet.
There wasn’t much left to do but fight after the Kraang had taken over New York. The Resistance had held out for longer than Leo had expected, though he would never admit that to anyone. It fell apart when Donnie died. It was truly over, now that Mikey was gone, too.
Leo understood, though. All of this started with him. All of this was his fault, the death, the pain, the grief that threatened to drag him under and drown him. It all came down to him.
So all of it would end with him, too.
He took a deep breath.
Kraang Prime came into view.
Leo swallowed down the ache.
“Did you miss me?”