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“There is no reason for us to finish each other.” Tiger Claw rumbles mournfully, fur dripping from his brief dunk in the lake. “Our masters are dead. Why must we bear the burden of their vengeance?”
Tears streak down the leader's eyes as he hollers across the rooftop, ignoring the flames that begin to engulf the modern mansion overlooking the city. “You killed my brothers!”
“I did not lay a claw on your brothers, turtle: you saw the Shredder finish the red one; Xever dragged purple into the lake, neither returned; and the little one… he was Bradford's responsibility.”
Leo knows it's true. He cut off Shredder’s head after he tore his claws through Raphael’s thigh, and he held Raph as he bled out from the cut femoral artery. He saw Fishface follow Donnie after throwing him off the roof towards the lake. Leo’s genius brother always carried electronics on him, it's pointless to consider which one might have broken and electrocuted them both. Mikey… Leo almost weeps at the thought of poor innocent Mikey being crushed beneath Rahzar’s claws.
“You are the enemy!” Leo screams, voice cracking as his knuckles grip his katanas tighter. It isn't even truly what he believes anymore, but he needs someone to unleash his grief and his fury on. He could chop Shredder's corpse into bite sized pieces and it wouldn't satisfy his burning need for revenge.
“Our masters are gone, your brothers and my sister, they are gone! What have we to fight for, cub!?” Tiger Claw roars, something mighty and powerful that reminds Leo not only of his mutation but the raw power he carries in his muscle. “You will quickly tire of being a ronin, turtle.”
There's a coldness in Tiger Claw’s eyes, a frost that reveals how intimately he understands what he speaks on.
“What do you even want?” Screams Leonardo, voice raw and pained.
Tiger Claw doesn't respond, piercing yellow eyes staring through the turtle rather than at him. He can sense that, whatever Tiger Claw does want, his pride will not allow him to voice it.
Leonardo is correct on that front. Inside of Tiger Claw, buried beneath the raw power and the unyielding bravado, a storm roars through his chest. It's one that's been building for years since Alopex’s betrayal. A bitter loneliness, a distrust in companionship but a vicious need for it. The Shredder had provided that in a strange way, and now he is gone.
The storm had only worsened after his final meeting with his sister, after he lost his arm, and then again when he'd fought this very turtle in his room of the mansion, and finally when his master's head rolled across the rooftop.
Alopex planted a seed, and it had been nurtured by the turtle brothers. A family shunned and hidden from society for their appearances, yet they work to protect the people who would hate them if they knew they existed. Until now, they had all seemed happy with their little lives. His sister, too, seemed to be doing fine without him. Her hatred towards him for leading them down a life of crime leads him to believe that she's walking the same path the Hamato's had.
Tiger Claw thought the only path for monsters like them was the one he'd walked his entire life, living in the shadows and spilling blood to be afforded his next meal. Somehow, though, these turtles were always well fed and taken care of, and in the blue ones eyes he sees himself. He sees the world crashing down around a cub, left to live all alone in a world completely on fire.
It's hard to find something to say to a boy who he once swore to kill. He'd always felt a pang of reluctance at the idea of killing these four, especially when they had been so young when they first met. That was four years ago now, and he realizes they really aren't cubs anymore. Not only have they reached adulthood in age, but they've seen so much bloodshed, experienced so much trauma, they must feel so much older than they really are. Yet, standing here on this rooftop biting back sobs, Leonardo still looks like a child to the mighty Tiger Claw.
“We are not as different as you think.” Tiger Claw finally speaks, face expressionless as though carved out of stone. His scarf, a blue dulled by years of weathering storms, blows in the wind. The fire around them, too, spreads with it.
“We are nothing alike!” Leo screams back, pointing one of his katanas at the mutant. “You're a monster!”
“A monster!?” Tiger Claw scoffs, taking an intimidating step forward. Leonardo doesn't even flinch– why should he? Not only does he have nothing to live for, but he just beheaded his worst enemy mere moments ago. The assassin probably seems easy to finish comparatively.
Then the feline’s ears flick backwards and his eyes widen at the sound. Creeeeak. Amber eyes look to the floor and see weaknesses forming in the stone beneath the turtle's feet.
Crack!
Despite his better judgement, Tiger Claw leaps into action. He tackles Leonardo who, in his stupor of exhaustion and mourning, doesn't react nearly fast enough. Clicking his jetpack into gear he drags the turtle into the sky above the mansion as the roof crumbles where he had just been. Briefly Leonardo struggles but the sound of the roof crashing in on itself causes him to pause and look down.
His enemy had just saved his life. “Why?”
No answer. The jetpack begins to sputter from its damage it had sustained earlier, and the assassin simply flies them down to the beach by the water where Donnie had supposedly perished. Dead fish float on the surface, confirming the electrocution theory.
When Tiger Claw releases his grip on Leo, the turtle simply falls to his knees. “Why?”
Tiger Claw isn't sure who he's asking now. Perhaps he's speaking to the universe, wondering why this is happening to him, the golden student, the good ninja, the caring and compassionate leader. Maybe he's just trying to get the tiger to reveal why he'd saved his life. Either way, he won't receive an answer.
The universe deals its hands with silent certainty, never revealing its reasons for the cards it provides, and Tiger Claw… He simply does not have an answer.
The silence stretches on for a moment too long, so he makes one up. “Why did I save you?” He repeats. “Why would I allow my last enemy to die and leave me in this world?”
Too honest. Leo looks up at him, “I didn't want to be saved.”
“You think I do not know that? Death would be a mercy for the both of us, and yet here we stand. Life is our curse, one we cannot break.”
Leonardo is silent, staring out at the water hoping his genius brother will pop his head up at any second. Then, suddenly, the ronin speaks in an accusatory tone. “What makes you think we're anything alike?”
It's an ironic question when they stand there, both staring out at the moonlit lake, blue tassels mimicking one another as they billow in the cool night breeze.
“I, too, carried the weight of the world upon my shoulders. I know the burden of carrying your kin on your back.”
“Your kin cut off your arm and your tail.”
A deep, angry rumble from Tiger Claws chest. “She sees a villain for the path I chose for us, she still does not understand the burden it was to provide for her. You had a sensei to light your way. We had lost our parents, our family, our friends. I had no guidance. I was still a cub, raising another, and she did not like the way I had found to do it.”
Leo thinks about Raph, as much as he wishes he didn't. He thinks about the angry brother who questioned his every order, who would yell and shout at him for any mistakes he'd make, who would get so angry he’d nearly beat his shell in.
“We needed to eat. The blood we spilled provided our meals.”
The leader gets that, too. He'd kill whoever he had to to resurrect his brothers, to undo the damage that had been done.
Tiger Claw catches the understanding in Leonardo's eyes before the turtle speaks again. “Why are you telling me this?” His voice cracks in sorrow and confusion.
It's a good question, another that Tiger Claw isn't sure how to answer. Is he looking for companionship, somebody to keep him company? Is this his convoluted way of looking for redemption? It doesn't really matter, he wouldn't tell the ronin either way. He just stares out at the lake, as though his mind is in another place entirely.
“Well?” Leonardo pushes. “Why are you telling me this when you were just taunting me less than an hour ago?”
Tiger Claw raises one brow, side eyeing the young turtle. “I do not know.”
This just seems to anger the ninja, his eyes squinting and his jaw tightening. “What do you mean you don't know? What is your game, Tiger Claw?”
“I do not know where my path will take me next.” The wildcat finally looks at Leo with a soft gaze the turtle has never seen on the mutant before. It’s an emotion other than rage, something strangely bittersweet. “Do you, cub?”
That forces Leo to think. He stares at Tiger Claw with a furious and analytical expression, searching his face and his body for signs he’s trying to deceive or manipulate him. He sees none. “I don’t.” Admits the turtle after a long stretch of silence, pulling his gaze away.
“Then we are both lost, it seems.” There is a crushing finality in his tone.
“You have more you want to say to me.” Leo blurts out the words. He can see it in the tenseness of Tiger Claw’s shoulders, in the eyes that never seem to be truly looking at anything.
“Perceptive.” He replies flatly, whiskers twitching. “I have no reason to follow the path I still walk.”
Why does he talk in riddles?
“I wonder if there may be redemption for me yet, or if hope is lost for my soul.”
Wow. Wow. Somehow, that isn’t what Leonardo was expecting. Tiger Claw looking for redemption? It has to be a trap, but why? The Shredder is dead, and Tiger Claw was just his bounty hunter. He could try to take Leonardo down right now if he wanted, but maybe he knows he’d lose. Maybe watching the turtle decapitate the Shredder was really enough to terrify him onto a new path.
There’s a part of him who wants to spit at Tiger Claws feet, ‘Of course all hope is lost for you. You worked for the Shredder, that’s damning enough.’ But that is not what his sensei would want from his son. A memory surfaces from when they had found Leatherhead and brought him back to the lair– “There is no monster more dangerous than a lack of compassion.”
“You want me to offer to help you.” Leo states it, even if it should be a question.
“No.” Replies Tiger Claw quickly and flatly. “I would have no right to ask for forgiveness from you, let alone assistance.”
“You’re right, you don’t.”
“It is, however, within my right to ask to help you, cub.”
Leonardo’s eyes widen in disbelief, “Help me? What makes you think I need your help?”
“Maybe you do not need my help, turtle, but you could use it.” Tiger Claw speaks like every word he states is a well known fact. “You have not spent enough time alone to know what it does to the mind, not after a loss as great as you have faced today.”
The ronin’s voice is dull and broken. “You don’t know how much I’ve lost.”
“Oh, I don’t?” Growls the tiger with a newly refreshed ferocity, making Leo regret his biting words as he remembers what they’d spoke about just minutes ago, “My mother, my father, and all of my friends when I was far younger than you, and then my sister– who tried to kill me with her own paws– and you dare say I do not know loss?” He is roaring in Leonardo’s face with slitted pupils, lips curled into an intimidating snarl.
“I am offering a truce, turtle.” Tiger Claw pulls his face from Leo’s personal space and turns away. His shoulders heave with his aggressive, frustrated breaths. “I am offering to teach you to survive through the grief because you, boy, would not without my help.”
“I don’t need anything from you, Tiger Claw.” Leo spits the words out like blood.
“Then you are dismissed, cub.” The assassin says mockingly before turning to scale the cliff surrounding every side of the small beach, leaping stone from stone with a dangerous grace. It feels like he’s at the top of the cliff in an instant, disappearing into the night without so much as a whisper.
Leonardo is left behind, staring out at the lake. There’s a part of him that wishes to go down there and find Donnie, to pull him out of his watery grave and give him a proper burial. His muscles scream and his bones ache, his eyelids like lead, reason telling him no. Besides, to his back, the mansion is up in flames. Raph was on the roof, Mikey and Rahzar somewhere inside– their bodies have likely burned up by now, and running into the fire was just going to get him killed, too.
He takes far too long to dismiss the idea. Instead, he settles himself into a seiza stance on the beach, closing his eyes and holding a silent, contemplative vigil for his fallen brothers.