We'll Meet Again

He stood there, watching as Casey fell into the portal his brother had manifested, and then watched it shut behind him, leaving an empty space in it's wake. And just like that it was like a hole was in his heart, but also like a burden had been lifted off of his shoulders.

No more. He didn't have to fight for his life anymore.
He was done.

Leo pushed his blades into the ground, looking about at the chaos and destruction which had left their world in ruin. Fires were lit and scorched the debris, soldiers patrolling and slaughtering the limited survivors of their resistance to forever be covered in a glaze of crimson blood. Everything was filtered with a ruby lens; the sky, the dirt, even the air seemed to taste like burgundy which itched your lungs and threatened to make you cough. It was anarchy, and war, and Leo was finally able to stop.

He sat down, kneeling with his landing clicking up a cloud of restless dust, and he pulled out the ribbons he never let go of.

Red.
Purple.
Orange.
Brown.

He had no one left. And it filled him with an odd sense of relief.
With his brother's finally dead Leo didn't have to worry about their pain, or them suffering, or light night terrors, or panic attacks.
With Casey, his pride and joy, gone he didn't have to keep fighting. That boy was the only reason Leo kept going, kept pushing onwards and not letting death empower him with her sweet, irresistible temptations. Because if he died, Casey would be alone, and like hell he'd let a boy like him have to grow up on his own.

From his spot he connected debris, piling them into a small mound and smiling at it. Mikey's grave. They often joked how his funeral would go, seeing as it was a way they coped, and Leo hoped this was enough. It was better than nothing.
Raph had gotten a stone tablet, his blades left with him to take into the afterlife where he'd meet up with their ancestors.
Donnie had been burned, in a mound of debris with only a small carved plaque left once the ash had been swept away.
None of these graves had ever been by the bodies, but at least they had a permanent fixture to be remembered with.

Leo would not be getting a grave.
But neither would Casey, and that was enough.

His eyes filled with tears, blurring his vision as he held the ribbons closely. They were torn and tattered and ruined with age - never washed - but still all Leo would see were the faces that wore them.
He had long forgotten their voices, and sometimes their figures were haze in his head, but he knew his brothers. The brothers that peer pressured him into doing his first keg stand when they stumbled upon an abandoned wine cellar, the brothers who had his back throughout the invasion, the brothers he often would spend night sleeping with in a mound in their underground base. They were still the boys his father raised.

It seemed forever ago that his father was alive, killed early on and leaving the boys hopelessly lost in a world too old and too cruel for them. He was buried beneath a tree, one that may still be standing and growing deep beneath the earth. Or it could be crushed. It didn't matter anymore.

Nothing mattered anymore.

Because Leo was going to die, and he was ready.

He watched their leader approach, adorned in battle armour and weapons. They might have been the superior species with their tactics and brute strength, but Leo still pitied them. Their loveless lives, their insatiable thirst for more. They would never be content, never feel this numbing serenity that hollowed out his being as he stared death directly in the face. Let her cold, calculated eyes scrutinise his soul and make it weep under the gaze. Let her pale, smooth arms embrace his body and carrying him into the voided abyss of silence and nothing. He was ready. Willing.

"We'll meet again." Splinter had said it, as he was slowly dying from a wound they couldn't treat. It was an hour before he passed, Leo crowding him in the cold room of the infirmary as he laid on the table like an alter before God, being delivered to him for judgement. Leo had never been a man of faith, and he knew no God who would let him endure this was worth praying to.
"We'll meet again." Raph had said it, as Leo was frantically moving the rubble away from the collapsed building. He was hearing him, through the radio, as his chest collapsed and blood filled his lungs. His spiritual body was flickering, fading, and from it he was unable to hold up his impending death any longer. Leo never knew if it was the building or the fight that had killed him.
"We'll meet again." Donnie had said it, Leo pounding on the hard metal of the sealed door that separated them until it bruised with Mikey laying unconscious beside him. The Kraang had invaded their home and Donnie fought until he couldn't anymore to protect Mikey, but he got infected and shut the door, reminding Leo that he loved him before shooting himself in the head to stop himself from turning.
'We'll meet again.' Mikey may not have said it, but his expression spoke volumes. Mikey, his final brother, sacrificing himself, letting himself burst into embers under the pressure of his power as a way of ensuring they'd be safe. His compassionate, cheeky brother who never left anyone behind... except now, where he left himself behind to go out like the bright star he was. He wondered if Mikey would be upset Leo didn't jump with Casey. He didn't want to. He was tired.

"We'll meet again." It's what he said to Casey, pushing him into the glowing portal and hoping to whatever chance he had it brought him somewhere safer. A New York that wasn't infested with violence and genocide. He deserved it. That little raven haired, toothy-grinned boy never deserved any of this. But Leo gave him all of his love, he loved him after Cassandra sacrificed herself for them, after April used herself as a human shield for Donnie who had curled up around that small boy, and he loved him now. He hoped he'd forgive him, and hoped he believed they'd meet again, because Leo doubted it. And he was fine with that if it meant his apprentice would be safe.

Leo watched them stalk closer, a malicious triumph contorting their fleshy features. Leo stared on coldly, smiling slightly through his tears.
No more pretending.
No more hiding the ways he kept his guard down for a little too long, no more hiding how he broke down in the middle of the night while Casey slept, no more hiding how he often stared absentmindedly at his Ōdachi and fantasised of his darkest desire. He didn't have to hide it anymore, because his reckoning had come, his judgement would be passed, and he would be reunited with his family.

Raph, Donnie, Mikey, Splinter, April, Cassandra.
It made his heart swell equally with excitement and woe which let a knot form in his throat despite his tears. He let out a shaky chuckle, verging on a sob as he let the mechanical battle armour approach, the pilot grinning down at him with a blaster attached to his arm. A deadly, red ray that vaporised countless members of his clan and resistance members. "Well well, the pest is finally all alone." They snarked, a sadistically amused expression supported. Their smile was almost like a scowling smirk, eyes dancing with nothing but pure, murderous evil. "There's no one left. You've lost." "I know." His voice was not shaky, and though not quite flat it oozed with his expectant melancholy "I'm ok with that." "Is that so?" They responded, their expression growing deeper and stronger as he observed him. A defeated soldier, ready for Valhalla. "You've lost your spark. I guess that really means that we have won." It was followed by a harking laugh, and it was shrill and offensive to hear, but Leo remained unfazed as he held the ribbons in his hand. Tucked tightly against his chest. Soon. Soon he would see them again.
The thought made his soul sing.

For once in months he permitted himself to think these thoughts, instead of repressing or dismissing them, it was all he could think about. Like floodgates had displaced with gushing streams of thought washing over him; how he could press the blades against his skin, or jump from an unstable rooftop, or just walk outside without a weapon. He let them feed his mind, and the Kraang looked like he enjoyed that expression, that state of being. "Normally I wouldn't give you the satisfaction." He spoke, raising his arm so the barrel of the laser was staring Leo down "But you have been a thorn long overdue."

Leo watched it, watched the beam charge and grow down the cylinder, then closed his eyes, pressing it against his forehead as he gripped the ribbons as tightly as he could. He thought about saying sorry, but he wasn't. He thought about saying thank you, but he wasn't thankful. Instead he sat there, and almost a breath later there was a light, then a darkness, then a thud.

The ribbons blew away on the wind, his own flying after them as the Kraang Leader watched them disappear from sight. They turned away and continued on, never noting his corpse, or his weapons, or his armour. He was dead, and there was nothing more too it.

The world was red; ablaze with discord and death.
However, somewhere dark, somewhere deep and distant, a blue light was surrounded by flickers of colour, and they cried seeing the familiar, aged faces of those who waited for him.