Chapter Text
Leonardo held his breath and raised his katanas in front of him. He furrowed his brow and began the kata once more, chasing that impossible sense of perfection.
Again, the blades grew hot in his hands, forcing him to drop them with a muffled grunt.
“This has to be a joke…” he muttered through clenched teeth.
Frustrated, he let himself fall to the ground. His eyes lingered on the weapons before drifting upward toward the night sky.
The warmth still pulsed through his palms, and something inside his chest tightened, strange, uncomfortable; as if a part of him didn’t belong.
“Seriously… not even you,” he murmured, frustration heavy in his chest. “At least let me have this.”
He lowered his gaze, studying his hands, then the rest of his body.
“I don’t get it. I really don’t.”
A sick feeling settled in his stomach. He felt foreign, almost misshapen. He couldn’t even look at himself in the mirror without disgust creeping in.
“But everyone here misses him, right?” His voice came out barely above a whisper, thick with sorrow.
“Why can’t I be him?”
His eyes returned to the swords, anger blazing behind them.
“Why? There’s something wrong with me, isn’t there?” His voice broke. “Something wrong with my soul.”
“They’re just damn katanas! This shouldn’t be so hard!”
He began pacing along the rooftop’s edge, talking to himself, letting each word fall heavy into the night.
“What am I missing?”
He stopped. The silence around him thickened, pressing close.
What was he missing? He was giving it everything, yet nothing ever felt right. Every interaction felt off, hollow. Even though they knew him, that loved him, all he could see in their eyes were strangers.
He didn’t even understand himself anymore. How was he supposed to act? Who was he supposed to be?
He pressed his hands to his face, rubbing his eyes hard, as if forcing a memory out by sheer will, a spark, a picture, a familiar voice.
“Come on… please… just one,” he muttered under his breath. “Anything. Something.”
But nothing came. Only the hum of the night wind, the lingering burn of the blades, and that unbearable emptiness inside his chest.
“Why can’t I remember?” he hissed, teeth gritted, rage and despair bleeding together. “What kind of person forgets his life? His family? Himself?”
He shot to his feet, pacing in tight circles, as if moving could keep him from falling apart.
“If I could just have one image… one voice… how do they expect me to *be* him when I don’t even know what he was like?”
His eyes drifted back to the katanas, as if they might hold the answers his mind refused to give.
“I just want to remember. Anything. I want to know who I was. I want to be him again.”
His voice cracked at the end, barely audible; but inside, it felt like a scream.
“Because if I can’t… then who am I?”
“That’s a big question, actually,” said a voice behind him.
Leonardo recognized it instantly. For a split second, he thought about pretendin ( like he always did, like he was supposed to) but he couldn’t. Not this time.
He looked up and met Donnie’s gaze. The other turtle’s brow was furrowed, his usual skepticism carved deep into his face. His eyes flicked between Leo and the swords, calculating, assessing, as if trying to solve an especially stubborn equation.
“Didn’t mean to interrupt,” Donnie said, though the falseness in his tone was obvious, even in the rhythm of his breathing.
Leonardo’s gaze dropped to the floor, that familiar heaviness returning to his chest.
“You want me to play the fool too?” he asked, voice sharp with bitterness.
“Well,” Donnie said, raising an unimpressed brow, “you usually don’t ask… you just do. Quite irritatingly, might I add.”
Leonardo scoffed, frustration bubbling to the surface. Anger, helplessness, grief, they all blurred together.
“Yeah. That’s something he used to do, right?”
Donnie said nothing. His gaze stayed steady, cold enough to sting.
“You’re doing a good impression this time,” he said at last, his tone flat.
Leonardo blinked. “What?”
“It took you a few weeks, but you’ve nailed his tone. The way he slouches when he’s fed up. The timing of his sarcasm. Almost convincing.”
Leonardo frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“That you’re not him.”
The silence that followed was suffocating. A chill crawled down Leonardo’s spine.
“You’re joking.”
“I don’t joke. Not about this.” Donnie stepped closer, his voice tight with anger. “It’s not just the amnesia. It’s your fighting stance, your phrasing, your pronunciation…”
He paused, eyes narrowing.
“Your soul.”
Leonardo’s throat tightened. His hands trembled, but he forced them into fists.
“You’re paranoid.”
“I’m *observing*,” Donnie corrected sharply. “And so far, the evidence doesn’t add up.”
He stared hard at Leo.
“So I’ll ask you directly… who are you?”
Leonardo took a step back. His pulse thundered, more from fury than fear.
“I’m me! I’m Leonardo! I don’t have your damn data or theories, but I have these—” he lifted the katanas “—and I’m here. With you. What more do you want?”
Donnie held his gaze a moment longer, something fragile flickering behind his eyes. Then he straightened, his tone cooling again.
“I don’t know yet.”
With that, he turned and lifted off the rooftop.
Leonardo lunged forward, desperate to reach him, to explain, to prove him wrong. But as soon as his feet hit the concrete, the katanas blazed violently in his hands.
The scream that tore from him was raw and unrestrained.
This time, he didn’t let go.
“No,” he gasped through his teeth. “I am him. I can be him.”
The pain was excruciating, like unseen hands tearing at his muscles and nerves, trying to rip the blades away. But he held on, like his entire being depended on it.
And maybe it did.
In the distance, Donnie’s silhouette faded into the night sky, jetpack humming. No words. No backward glance.
Leonardo fell to his knees as the burning spread up his arms, his spine, his mind.
Something was changing. He could feel it.
Then he saw her.
Before him, drawn in light against the darkness, stood the figure of a woman, graceful, serene. Her eyes were soft, knowing, as if she recognized him.
She smiled gently.
“あなたは一人じゃない,” she said.
Leonardo stared, breathing ragged, pain flooding every thought. The world blurred at the edges. Just as he was about to lose consciousness, the pain stopped.
Not suddenly. It eased, fading like an exhale.
And then, the forces that had been crushing him… shifted.
They didn’t drag him down anymore. They lifted him.
The katanas glowed with a new kind of light. They didn’t burn. They sang.
And he… floated.
Not clumsily, not as if suspended by something unseen. He rose lightly, as if gravity itself hesitated to claim him.
The blades trembled in his hands, humming in rhythm with his heartbeat. There was no agony now, only a deep discomfort, like something inside him was breaking to make room for something new.
The air stirred. Bits of gravel, scraps of paper, even a metal cap began to rise with him, orbiting slowly.
He drew a shaky breath. “This… this isn’t what I expected,” he murmured, wonder and confusion twisting in his chest.
He could feel gravity bending to his will, but it wasn’t natural, not clean or controlled. It was raw, unstable, a power still learning what he was.
A chill ran through him, not fear, but uncertainty.
He wasn’t supposed to do this. The Leonardo from the memories, from the recordings, he couldn’t fly. He could teleport, open portals in the air, vanish between spaces. But this was different. This broke every rule.
“What’s happening? Why is this different?”
His eyes moved from the katanas to the floating debris. The world felt lighter, as if reality itself was unraveling quietly around him.
No answers came. Only that shadowed feeling, slipping just out of reach.
The woman appeared again, distant but steady, her smile unchanged. Leonardo could feel her presence, not guiding, just there.
He thought of Donnie, of that cold, analytical stare.
Nothing made sense. Nothing felt safe.
Only one thing was certain: something inside him had shifted, and he couldn’t afford to lose control.
Something powerful was stirring, something foreign. Countless emotions flooded in ones he was sure didn’t belong to him.
Yeah, this definitely wasn’t going to be easy.
Mikey’s eyes flew open. He gasped, like he’d just escaped a long nightmare. His hands trembled; his chest heaved with a mix of relief and a fear he couldn’t name.
The candles around him flickered, their wax melted more than it should’ve been, a sign he’d gone too deep into meditation again. But this time, he didn’t care.
“That… that was Leo, wasn’t it?” he whispered, his voice cracking, the name sacred on his tongue. The presence, the energy, the familiarity. It had all been real. For the first time in months, he could breathe again.
Then, something else crept into his awareness. A second presence, colder, hollow, like an echo trying and failing to imitate what he’d just felt.
A chill of doubt ran through him. That new energy, it was off. Wrong.
Mikey stayed frozen, breath trembling, heart pounding. It felt like waking from a dream only to realize the nightmare hadn’t ended.
“What’s happening?” he whispered. “How can this be real?”
The mix of comfort and dread left him dizzy.
The room was silent, except for the soft crackle of the candles and the sound of his own breath.
Because if that was Leo…
Then what was the thing living with them now?