The next morning, birds chirp happily as they sing to the dawn, and the fire in the middle of the circle has been reduced to a pile of charred logs. Leonardo stirs first out of the five, blinking a few times as he takes in the early morning sunlight streaming through the trees. His face becomes serious as he stands up, moving towards the outer edge of the circle and gazing out at the trees.

Michelangelo cracks a yawn as he wakes up, making his brothers and Diaval wake immediately afterwards. They sit up, holding their heads and glancing at each other as if trying to decide whether the events of last night were real.

"Whoa, that was deep," Michelangelo comments, shattering the silence.

"Master Splinter made our quests clear," Leonardo says, turning back to his team. "It's time we begin, ninjas." He lifts his chin a little more. "Each of us will forge new armour and weapons, then journey on alone, where we'll be challenged in the spirit realm, the place where the unreal become real, and we meet our ultimate fate."

"Sweet!" Michelangelo grins.

Diaval stands and Donatello's attention is instantly on him. "And what about you?" the turtle asks. His tone holds the smallest amount of concern, one that isn't missed.

"Staying here," Diaval says. "Meet you after?"

"Sure." Raphael gives a sharp nod. He turns to his brothers. "Let's get started, huh?"

They bow to one another and split off to prepare for their quest. Diaval swallows and stares down at the charred fire pit, his hand tightening around his bow.

"Can't use a new weapon, not any good," he mutters. "Hope you don't mind."

One outfit change later, the four turtles stand around a flag decorated in Japanese symbols, their eyes shut. Leonardo wears a blue-grey mask that covers the entire top of his head, as well as a grey hood. His weapon of choice is a bow and arrows and his katanas remain in sheathes at his side.

Raphael also wears a white hood. His mask is still red, but has two longer sections that hang down and cover his cheeks. He has a small gas can on his back with a hose that connects to two blowtorches on his wrists. He has a pair of tekkō-kagi on his hands and fishnet sleeves cover his elbows, forearms, and hands. His sais are where they've always been.

Donatello wears a purple hood that covers his shoulders, as well as a white skull-like mask. Purple markings cover his legs and his bō staff has been transformed into a large axe. One could say that he looks like the Grim Reaper.

Michelangelo wields two kamas. His mask, still orange, is faded and covers the top of his head. The tails are long and tattered. He wears tree bark armour on his shoulders, arms, wrists, and feet, and his cheeks are painted with a spray of black dots.

Every turtle's belt, knee pads, elbow pads, and wrappings are off-white in colour. They stand in silence, eyes shut. The wind blows, rustling their hoods.

Diaval waits within the trees, out of sight. He tried to change his outfit, he really did, but his attempts have fallen flat when compared to those of the turtles. His pale hair is pulled into a high ponytail, exposing more of his face than before, and he's painted two black lines beneath his eyes. He tied his baggy red shirt around his waist and painted a few dark lines onto his body, covering any scars and blemishes, but left his pants and shoes alone. His cloak is still clasped around his neck and his bow and quiver are slung over his back.

The quiet is interrupted by Michelangelo chewing on a piece of pizza.

"Mikey, stay focused!" Raphael scolds. "Remember what Master Splinter said? The things we're gonna fight are just as dangerous as Shredder."

Michelangelo ponders his brother's words, then chucks the pizza into the trees. "Hope you like pizza, you lucky magic deer!" he calls. He straightens up and shuts his eyes. "Hm."

Leonardo opens his eyes, his face set and his gaze determined. "It's time."

They look to one another in turn. Each one can't help but wonder just what awaits them ahead, and not one of them isn't slightly nervous. Still, they keep their expressions composed so as to not give away their true feelings.

"Good luck, everyone," Leonardo says. He bows. "Kentou o."

"Kentou o," the other three respond.

Diaval bows his head and whispers to himself, "Kentou o."

The turtles turn and walk away, heading off in all different directions. Diaval pivots to the woods behind him, taking a deep breath in. One foot in front of the other, he tells himself. Whoever he comes across can't be too terrible to fight, even if they're "just as dangerous as the Shredder".

"Will do this," he whispers. He nearly trips over a root, just managing to grasp a branch and catch himself before continuing on. "Can do this."

A harsh wind blows and his cloak flies off his shoulders. He gasps and tries to snatch it back, but the black cloth sails and twists away, drifting until it's out of sight. Diaval's lip trembles and his hands clench into fists, but he turns around and keeps going.

----------

He doesn't know how long he's walked for, but it's enough to make an unsure feeling curl into his gut like an unwelcome tapeworm. The trees around him have started to become thin and sickly with branches like malnourished hands, outstretched towards the sky as if it will provide them with food. The sky is grey, like smoke. It's far too quiet to be natural, something that only serves to set Diaval even more on edge, and he starts moving slower and slower as the minutes tick on.

He eventually comes to a complete stop. He's lost. He doesn't know what he's supposed to be doing or where he's supposed to go, plus there's nobody there to tell him what to do. His breaths pick up and his hands start to feel sweaty, his mouth suddenly dry. It's all too much.

"Should've...stayed...home," he croaks through strained breaths.

Something caws above him and he manages to get a full breath in, but he holds it. He tilts his head back to one of the trees above him to find a large black bird perched on a low hanging branch. Its beady black eyes stare back at him as if waiting for him to speak.

"A crow?" he whispers. He reaches his hand up and flaps it wildly, but the crow doesn't flinch at his movements. He drops his arm to his side. "Mhm, odd."

Not two seconds later, a second crow touches down. This one is slimmer and shinier than the other, leading Diaval to wonder as to whether the large one is male and the small one is female, but he doesn't dwell on that for long. They don't move, only watch.

Diaval takes a hesitant step beneath the tree, then another. The crows hop in a half circle, following him. He keeps shuffling forward, darting his head over his shoulder after every move, and the crows start hopping across the nearest branches, occasionally flapping their wings to get across the distance.

"Stop it," he says under his breath. The crows halt when he does and he looks up at them, eyebrows furrowing slightly. "Stop. You're being creepy."

The male crow caws and flaps his wings. The female tilts her head slightly and Diaval swears that, for a brief second, she looks saddened by his words. Diaval turns around but again, halts. Ahead of him are two identical paths, one going to the right and one to the left, and he feels his heart start to pound again. Are the turtles having as much trouble with their quests?

Diaval flinches as the needle-like talons of the female crow touch down on his shoulder. He doesn't dare turn his head. He imagines getting his eyes plucked out and instantly lets his eyelids slam shut, a shudder rolling through him when the crow shifts against his bare skin.

Some hair escapes his ponytail and drifts across the bridge of his nose. He moves to brush it away but can hardly lift a pinky before he feels the smooth texture of a beak brushing it back into place, tucking it behind his ear. His face goes blank, his eyes open without him realizing it, and all at once he's travelling down memory lane.

He can almost see himself at five years old, all bruised up with a head full of shaggy brown hair falling in his pale brown eyes. He's dripping wet, it must've been raining outside. His mother, blonde and smiling, wrinkles creasing her eyes, reaches down to tuck his hair behind his ears as he grins up at her.

"You'll hurt yourself if you can't see, love," she murmurs, a laugh making her accented voice flow like music. Her eyes are crystal clear and blue.

Diaval can't remember the last time he enjoyed blue so much.

He gasps, his hand flying to his chest. He forgot to breathe. How on earth does someone just forget to breathe? His head snaps to the crow on his shoulder but she's already gone. The male crow soars in tiny circles above the entrance to the path leading to the right, the female perched above him on one of the skeleton fingers.

Despite his pounding heart, his chest is warm and he feels pulled along by these birds. He walks to the right, passing under the arch, and the male crow lands next to the female. He lifts his wing and taps it to his forehead.

"It's scary, but you're being so brave right now," the voice of Diaval's father rings from the depths of his memories. Diaval was learning to ride a tricycle. He was four years old at the time. "That's a good chap. Keep on going. I'm right behind you!"

Diaval keeps walking.

----------

The trees disappear, replaced with shrubs that reach to Diaval's waist, maybe a little higher. There's the occasional tree, sure, but for the most part he's left the forest for a more grassy expanse, and while he's comforted by the fact that the sky is getting clearer and it's more open, he's still nervous. There could be something else coming at any time.

He looks to the horizon, right where the path meets the sky, and there's storm clouds. His gut clenches and he drags his tongue over his lips, scuffing his shoe on a loose stone. A wind blows his ponytail back.

Could just turn back, he thinks, slowing to a stop between a crab apple tree and a bush decorated with little white flowers. Wouldn't hurt, right?

The clouds ahead of him rumble and he's spinning around without a second thought. He takes one step before a tiny animal hops out of the nearest bush, stopping in his path. It's a rabbit with yellow fur, more like a pet store breed than something you would find in the forests of upstate New York. Diaval gives it a little shooing gesture but much like the crows, it's not afraid of him.

It scratches its ear with its hind leg, then shifts to face forward. Diaval starts back the way he came but the rabbit hops in front of him. He tries the other way but he's blocked again. He pouts. The rabbit's eyes glint, like it's teasing him.

He takes in a long breath, getting more and more frustrated. He steels himself and stomps forward, determined to pass this rabbit. He'll step over it and scare its fluffy tail off in the process, whatever! He has to go back.

His plan fails miserably. The rabbit gets under foot and Diaval's face meets the ground for the millionth time in his life. He spits dirt from his mouth as the rabbit appears before him. Its little pink nose twitches.

The fluttering of wings sounds right next to his right ear and there's a gentle tug. He frowns and rolls onto his side, where he's greeted by a little robin: all brown feathered with a brilliantly red breast. What startles Diaval most is that the bird's eyes aren't black, they're blue. It's subtle, but the colour is there: blue. Clutched in the robin's beak is a silver ring.

Diaval's hand bolts to his ear, where there's now only two earrings. His face flushes and he stumbles to his feet as the robin flies to the crab apple tree. It's challenging him, sitting there with one of his few possessions just clamped in its beak, taunting him.

"Give it back," he says, storming towards the tree. "Give it!"

The robin flits away with a laughing chirp. The rabbit hops after it and Diaval gives chase without a second thought. The path gets wider and more crowded with foliage. The robin soars above it all and the rabbit dodges and leaps across obstacles as if they don't exist.

Another faint memory crosses Diaval's mind as he narrowly avoids getting a tree branch across the face, one he remembers seeing in an old home video. He's running in a playground with his big sisters, Mallory and Fiona. Mallory, eleven years old, hangs onto a zip-line leading to the slide platform, her brown hair flying behind her. Fiona, seven, hops across various pedestals leading to the same place, her choppy blonde hair flashing in the sunlight.

Diaval is three years old and he can hardly toddle fast enough to keep up with his sisters. He keeps falling, the gravel dust staining his fat knees and chubby fingers with every drop. He keeps getting up anyway.

"Ma! Ona!" he cries, his flapping toddler lips trying to form the names of his sisters but failing after barely two syllables.

Fiona stops and spins to him, a gap-filled smile spreading her cheeks. She flops down on the playground platform and lets her skinny legs sway to and fro. Mallory grips the nearest pole and slides down to the ground, dropping to her knees and extending her arms to Diaval.

"It's okay, baby brother. Just keep up, we'll help you the rest of the way," she urges. Her bright blue eyes are encouraging.

Diaval jolts to a stop at the crest of a small hill, his chest burning with exertion. The robin and rabbit turn to him as he stares ahead, the dark clouds getting nearer every second.

"I..." he says, forcing out the word, "can't turn back?"

The robin flutters over to him and drops the silver earring into his hand. The rabbit hops up to his leg and sits there, tapping its paws against the ground. Diaval fixes his earring back into his ear, pausing to brush each one as the robin flies in circles around the top of his head.

He shuts his eyes and nods. "Mhm, guess so."

He walks towards the storm, weapons bouncing against his back and animals wandering alongside him as the sunlight fades before his feet.