Raph's POV

The lair was quiet, no cheerful laughter, lab explosions, or even me yelling at someone. It just seemed as the lair lost its liveliness. It's true, actually, we lost two important people in our lives.. and now, they're gone..

I sat down in my room, head in my hands, I wasn't able to get much sleep for the last year. Which was driving me crazy, Mikey's cheerful attitude now became a dull and sad one, Donnie was constantly in his lab, and would rarely get out so we had to take him out of it ourselves.

Huh.. reminds me of the times you tried to do it yourself, big brother.. wherever you are...

I sighed deeply and looked into a mirror in my room, which was.. now cracked because I punched it. I looked at the bags under my eyes, and my bloody fists covered in bandages. I'm a wreck, believe me,

Luria and Dusk would be quite silent themselves, but they would only speak to Master Splinter and Mikey sometime. I couldn't really blame them. Without a leader, our team hasn't been the best, but not the worst either. We tried voting, but nobody agreed to anyone, we asked Master Splinter to pick, but he couldn't since it brought back memories..

Ah, let's just.. not go back there.

I stood up and rubbed my eyes tiredly, and went to eat something. I saw Mikey looking into nothingness by the kitchen counter, his eyes were just staring at nothing and his figure was slumped. I sighed and went to talk to him.

"Hey.. Mike." I started, my voice was a little raspy since I didn't talk much either, Mikey didn't flinch at all. "Look.. I know not having Leo around is very hard.. but we know he doesn't want us to be like this.." I started, he finally looked up at me with full, lifeless eyes that were once cheerful and full of life.

"He did what he had to do to keep us safe, to keep all of us safe. Even if it means sacrificing his own life." I stopped for a while to see his reaction to all this, but he just.. stared. "Look, what I'm trying to say is.."

"I know what you're trying to say, Raph." Mikey spoke, his voice was low and quiet. I jumped back a little in surprise, he changed.. a lot too.. Mikey looked at me and I noticed he was crying, "He loves us all so much that he'll do anything to protect us, any chance that he has he'll take it." Mikey spoke, a tear rolling down his cheek.

"Mike.." I mumbled.

"I understand he had to do that Raph, just..." Mikey paused and he started breaking down, he shook his head frantically and ran off to his room. I extended my hand but I retracted it, I knew he needed some space.

I walked to Donnie's lab and knocked a few times, "Don, it's Raph, can I come in?"

Silence. I knew he was in there but he was just ignoring everyone. I knocked a few more times before sighing.

Night Falls...

We jumped from rooftop to rooftop stealthily, our patrols from now on were quiet and the atmosphere between us three just felt uncomfortable. Not necessarily in a bad way, but.. we were all just affected by what happened. We crouched down when we saw a couple Footbots passing..

"Mutagen." Donnie whispered, "What.. are they doing with more mutagen...?" He asked.

"Don't know, but whatever it is, it's no good." I answered quietly, "Alright, so the plan is you two distract the Foot and I'll take the crate with mutagen over there." I pointed to the medium sized crate near a truck. Mikey and Donnie nodded and jumped down.

When they started taking down the Footbots, I climbed down and snuck up towards a Footbot guarding the crate, I impaled the Footbot with my sais nd opened the crate. Several canisters of Mutagen were inside.

I suddenly got kicked in the chest, I groaned in pain and came face to face with Karai. She narrowed her eyes at me.

"Karai." I muttered angrily.

"Raphael, what a pleasure to see you." Karai mocked and we started clashing our weapons together. I was able to successfully kick her but she retaliated by kicking my sais away then punching me. "Pathetic." She muttered, I growled in anger and kicked her towards a wall, she fell down and I pointed my sais against her neck.

"I'll give you this one time, tell me what Shredder wants to do with all that Mutagen." I growled, she scowled then smirked.

"I won't tell you anything. So, our new ninja will.." Karai said.

I was kicked to the ground before I could even react, I was sent at least three meters away, "Ow..." I groaned. It was dark so I couldn't get a clear look of this ninja. They helped Karai up. By now I saw Mikey and Donnie take down all the Footbots.

"Who are you?" I asked, clutching my chest in pain. The ninja turned to me and walked towards the light, Mikey and Donnie rushed to my side quickly. When the ninja showed himself...

Our hearts stopped. It was like we were hit by a truck.

Our eyes were wide, our bodies froze, and we didn't know what to feel. He stared at us, cold, blue eyes narrowed into slits. His katana was held tightly on both his hands as we stared at each other with no words.

"Leo... No..!" I exclaimed in disbelief.

To Be Continued...