CHAPTER FIVE
DIVIDED WE STAND
LEONARDO'S TALE

AUGUST 20, 2045
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK

Smells of last night's mu shu wafted with the updraft, other myriad scents mixing with the increasing babble of Chinatown, rising to where he sat in watch at the edge of a building. Where he had sat as nearly one with the aged brick and concrete.

Daylight... the night was done.

A straw basket-hat could not keep all that out. A simple, practical thing, the hat; shelter and carrying device in one. Even monks wore them on their travels, to keep their focus inward and not on the outside world of illusion. And yet, the focus inward seemed more the illusion to him...

The whole point to enlightenment was to come down from the mountain, back into the world...

But he was no monk. Worse, he wasn�t even close to enlightenment as he saw it.

The basket held nothing of value, the shelter was not of safety.

He shifted position, stretching muscles after hours of near stillness. Leather creaked in the humid air, the hilts to paired swords jutted up over his shoulder.

Once the night had been time for action. For doing instead of just sitting.

Casey...

Rising, he slipped along to the alley, dropping down next to the back door of the restaurant. Entering in a daze, he almost tripped over a giggling shape.

Shadow...

"Whoa, Li! You're not late for school yet!" His voice cracked after the long spell of silence.

The young boy's dark eyes gleamed with mischief at war with innocence, hands clutching a piece of candy. A gentle soul. "Sorry, Leo. Uhhh...want this?"

Leo frowned down, as he slowly removed his hat. "Candy before breakfast?"

Michaelangelo...

Li had no chance to respond, as his mother's voice called out. "There you are, you rascal!" She was several inches taller than Leo, her dark hair cropped short. "Oh! Good morning, Leonardo."

He smiled back, but it was her turn to frown. "You were out there all night weren't you! And you weren't doing katas..."

April...

"Perceptive as always, Mao Ling," he admitted, banishing the visions threatening to take over. The ones that chased him outside last night, that tormented and twisted. He could almost see them, as though they stood before him...

With a slight sigh, Ling deftly removed the candy from her son's hand, giving him a gentle scolding and turning him back. "Come on with you, Li, or you will be late!"

Leo followed them into the dining area, where a table was spread with breakfast. Mao Ling's father-in-law, Chang Lao, looked up with a happy smile and warm greeting. It was the young boy Donatello had helped years ago; now a grandfather, running a restaurant, with his own family.

Donatello...

"Leonardo!" Ling's voice broke his reverie. "You need to eat! You look like you have lost some weight! Not healthy to throw yourself out of balance..."

He grinned sadly at him, "Yes, Chang Lao. I give into your wisdom."

"Very wise," the old man laughed, eyes probing deep. "My daughter will not rest until you lose."

While Ling took it upon herself to fix him a bowl of rice and tea, Lao didn't waste time.

"What is wrong? Is there anything I can do for you?"

Looking at the chopsticks in his hand, Leo sighed. Picked up a grain of rice. Studied it. Silently asked it, "What answers can you give me?"

"One grain will not sustain you, my friend."

Leo froze, caught like the rice between his sticks...

Splinter...

"I'm sorry, Lao. I am bringing disharmony to this meal."

Lao clucked. "Leonardo, you do that only if you won't talk to me."

Leo thought back, many years ago, when he'd run across Lao. A fluke of chance, or maybe karma. He'd had an unfortunate and unplanned skirmish with some punks. They'd outnumbered him and got some good hits in before he could get away. One was a nasty, jagged leg wound from a broken bottle that had gotten infected despite his best efforts. He'd come up in Chinatown, hoping to scrounge something to help. Lao had found him in the alley, called him Donatello. Frozen in his retreat, Lao took Leo in for the debt owed to his brother. Leo'd been amazed at their ready acceptance of him, and had stayed on. He'd been worn thin from years of seeking food, finding shelter, and running alone with no one to watch his back. Lao's family filled that horrible, unhealable gap of loneliness and failure, gave him a positive direction to rechannel himself to. Their solid focus on family was something he understood, and their keeping to many traditions gave him a lifeline to a past he could never rid himself of. He aided or even taught some of the area residents that had learned of Chinatown's secret ninja, and helped out in the restaurant as he could. Through this he'd been able to safely survive "underground" after that horrible time of public exposure.

Exposure... Splinter died in violence... Blood that time could not wash away. That cried out still...

Raphael...

The visions were too strong! He saw the blood, saw his brother! "Why did I even stay here in this city?"

"Karma," Lao said, startling Leo who'd not realized he'd spoken aloud. The old man went on, now the instructor. "There is something unfulfilled, and until it is, you must wait."

"Karma..." That had certainly been their lives. But too much of it bad. Didn't seem fair, though that wasn't what troubled him; he'd gotten over the 'life's not fair o woe is me' decades ago. They were what they were, and that had been warriors. A path he still walked.

Splinter's bloody head returned to his inner sight, the long-unheard voice rasped in his ears, the feel of Splinter's limp hand in his, the eyes that burned into him: "Never forget that which binds you... do not forget me."

Long buried pain exploded. "Remember?! I tried! I tried to hold them together! But... they left."

"Ahhh, then you feel you have let your master down?"

Chopsticks stabbed back into the bowl, the lone grain of rice flung off, landing bright and white against the dark shine of the table. Leo's voice was bitter, emotional control cast aside. "It was what he wanted. But I let them scatter, couldn't keep them together. So fine, it's what they wanted, why should I care?! I don't control them, I'm not their master..." He heaved a deep breath, rubbed his eyes tiredly, thinking this was the price he paid for having stayed up all night. Soon he'd be whipping his swords out, stabbing at shadows. "After all these years... old dreams coming back, old nightmares. Past memories. Why? This is over with! History!"

"Nothing worse than wasted potential. Nothing worse than unhealed wounds. It's time to call them home..."

Leo snorted. "They haven't exactly left me forwarding numbers. Don't even know if they are still alive... hell, Raph probably got himself killed twenty years ago... And Splinter was wrong about those bonds of ours. The Clan died with him. When it comes down to it, we're just like the rest of this world, thinking only of ourselves, cold-hearted..." Leo stopped, looked at Lao, met him eye-to-eye. Leo had the edge for years, but who had the wisdom?

"Good, you are letting it out. And soon my debt will be repaid in full." Lao rose, placed an arm on Leo's shoulder. "This is your karma. Go home..."

"There's no home to go back to! It was all destroyed!"

The Turtle sat in shock, as the old man walked off humming to himself, his voice trailing as he disappeared into the noise of a boisterous kitchen, full of the sounds of family. "Ask yourself: 'what is home?' And go there... But not until you relax, and eat. Strength, Leonardo, is not found in one lone grain of rice... It is found in the oneness with all..."

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