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Leo watched the fire take everything.
He watched it burn with such intensity that it forced him to squint. It danced to the intense beat of his heart and climbed up to the dark sky, which that night had decided not to paint a single star.
A lump tightened his throat. He wanted to stop looking but simply could not. Hope clung to him like a sticky blanket, even though his mind was screaming at him that all was lost.
He wanted to stop looking, but instead watched as the fire swallowed everything he had ever known. His room, his bed, his katanas; the living room, the dojo... his parents. For they were still inside, and after spending fifteen minutes out there after his mother left to help her husband, Leo felt hope begin to leave him.
He could barely feel the weight of Mikey in his arms, who had fallen sound asleep on his shoulder. Perhaps it was the cold. It numbed his fingers and face, turning his cheeks pink and occasionally piercing his space heroes’ pajamas. He pulled Mikey tighter against his body.
The fire was still spreading, and for the first time Leo understood when people said that flames were beautiful and lethal at the same time. Despite the destruction, despite the fact that they were taking his home and his life with them, the blue-eyed boy couldn't help but think they were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Twenty minutes after his mother entered the house, Hamato Leonardo knew that no one was going to make it out of there alive anymore. Apparently, his remaining siblings had also understood, because Donnie was sobbing and Raph was shaking. The eldest didn't know if it was from anger, crying or cold, but his whole body was shaking noticeably.
It was then that the green-eyed boy stepped forward.
Less than a second later Leo advanced, gripping him tightly by the wrist. He felt the weight of the youngest of his brothers’ shift, but he managed to stabilize himself, and he didn't seem to wake up. Raph moved his arm forcefully, trying to get away, but Leo was not willing to let him go, not when he was going straight towards the fire, towards his parents.
“Raph, no...”
“They're still inside, Leo! We have to go!”
The green-eyed boy became desperate and tried even harder to get loose from his older brother, but Leo had an iron grip and wouldn't let go. He pulled the auburn toward him, turning him around in the process to look him in the eye. It was a difficult move, trying to carry the younger of his brothers while trying to keep the other from going into the fire itself.
But he succeeded; he managed to lock his blue eyes with Raphael's green ones, begging him with his eyes to stay there, next to him, instead of going to a certain death in the heat of the fire.
And he seemed to understand, because he no longer struggled to let go, and instead tears began to fall down his cheeks. That only brought the feelings Leo had been repressing to the surface, choking him, smothering him with his own unshed tears.
But he can't cry, he can't break down now. He must take care of his siblings, as his mother had asked him to do before she entered, as his father had confided in him when he looked at him for the last time. Now he was in charge, and he had to be strong, he had to resist, even if inside him everything seemed to be crumbling by leaps and bounds.
He pulled Raphael to himself, and Raphael did not resist. In fact, he leaned more against him, and hugged him tightly. Leo couldn't help but let out a silent sigh of relief, as he turned his gaze to his missing brother.
Donatello sobbed quietly, as he watched his brothers crouched in front of the fire, close enough to feel its heat without getting burned. Leo stretched out the arm he had been hugging Raph with in a silent invitation. Donatello ran to him and as he collided with his body hugged him with all the strength a five year old could manage. Soon Leo felt his pajamas getting wet, but he didn't care.
The snow under his feet, once white, now reflected orange, red and yellow as it melted to show the ground green and frozen. Leo continued to stare at the fire, inevitably remembering the events that led them there, to that decisive moment.
How he awoke to the screams of two men, recognizing his father's normally kind and calm voice sounding worried and angry, very angry. And the other, though not as familiar, just as recognizable. Oroku Saki. The man who had once been a brother to his father was now nothing more than a stranger Leo had seen him a few times. He sounded just as angry, if not more so.
They were fighting, but Leonardo was unable to make out their words. On a hunch he got up, thinking he must be going for his brothers, for his mother. But the woman beat him to it. Suddenly the door to his room slid open and Hamato Shen looked at him with nervous features, anxious about something Leo did not yet understand.
She approached him quickly, knelt before him and looked at him so intensely that the boy could feel her concern emanating from every pore of her skin.
“We must move quickly, my boy," she said in a whisper, taking his face in her hands, the voices still echoing throughout the house, muffled but evidently furious, "Go get Raphael; I'll get Donatello and Michelangelo. And don't, on any account, think of entering the dojo. I'll meet you outside," she ordered and got up, but Leo managed to grab her hand before she could pull away far enough.
“Mother...”
“Do as I say, Leonardo," she said in a voice that was surprisingly calm despite her eyes, bending down again to stare at him. “Everything will be all right, I promise.”
She gently stroked his black hair just like hers and stood up. This time, Leo didn't stop her. She left the room and turned down the hall, heading for the younger children's rooms. Leo took a breath and tried to calm his own nerves. The voices were louder now, and he managed to make out words.
“You've taken everything from me!”
Saki.
Without thinking any more about what was happening, he stood up quickly, and obeyed his mother's orders. She turned to her right and slid the door swiftly, observing the sleeping figure of her younger brother immediately and woke him up by shaking his shoulder.
“Raph, Raph! Wake up!”
The kid stirred in his futon, and his green eyes opened in just two slits.
“ W-what? Leo?”
“Come on, Raph, we have to go.”
The boy straightened up, rubbing his eyes, trying to wipe the sleep from his eyelids. But his older brother wouldn't let him wake up completely. He took him by the arm and lifted him up. The other one let out a cry of surprise, but managed to stabilize himself. He immediately let go of Leo, and looked at him as if he were crazy. And then he heard the screams. Just then his father said something that was clear enough for both children to hear.
“Get out of here, Saki! Leave my family alone!”
Rafael's eyes widened, recognizing the voice and the name he had heard. Leo, taking advantage of the doubt in the green-eyed boy, grabbed him by the hand again and dragged him out of the room. He followed.
He watched the hallway as the screams grew louder. But he saw no one. His mother must already be outside; she must be waiting for them. She had told him not to enter the dojo, but in order to get out he had to go through there. The door was locked but, by fate or bad luck, it opened as the two children passed through.
Saki's fury-filled gaze froze them in mid-motion, but immediately his father appeared behind him, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and pulling him back. He looked at them. His eyes looked wild too, but as he looked at them they softened. Maybe it was Leo's imagination or his nerves making him see things, but he could have sworn that in the half-second his father looked at him, he spoke to him with his eyes.
I trust you.
And without a word he walked back into the dojo, forcing Leo to move and take Raphael with him. By the time they reached the door they could already hear rusting, but even though he wanted to, he didn't stop. Not until he was next to his mother and younger siblings, who approached him. Donnie looked frightened, but little Mikey, who was only two years old, didn't seem to understand what was happening.
Without much thought, he took the baby in his arms, and settled him so that he could lean against his shoulder. He seemed comfortable, because his body relaxed and snuggled against him. The four siblings, close to each other watched their mother, but she paid no attention to them. She kept looking to her house, waiting for her husband to come out, to come back to them and tell them it was all over.
But that didn’t happen.
And then the fire started.
It came so suddenly that it took the older a second to understand what was happening. It appeared through a window near the dojo and burned it in an instant, turning it to ashes. The speed with which it spread was incredibly overwhelming, and Shen wasted no time.
He knelt down in front of his sons, and looked carefully at each of them. Until she laid his eyes on Leo.
“You are in charge, Leonardo. Take care of your brothers and keep yourselves safe. I'll be back soon.”
He nodded apologetically, undecided whether to stay with his little brothers or go to his mother.
“No! You can't go, Mommy, the fire!" exclaimed Donatello, shifting his eyes between his mother and the burning house.
“I won't be long. I'll see you soon," she reassured him. She kissed each of them on the forehead and left.
And that was the last time Leo ever saw her.
And at that moment he was all alone. Without an adult to tell him what to do, where to go, or who to meet. He was only eight years old, and he had just watched his life burn, as the ashes blew away in the cold January wind, never to return.
A tear managed to escape from his fortress, but he was not strong enough to brush it away. A sob caught in his chest.
And then a noise.
One very different from wood burning or snow melting. Leo looked up and saw a figure emerge from what was once his home, and for a moment, hope returned again, tucked him in and protected him from the cold. He thought maybe it was his father that had won, that had come back to them.
But it was not him.
His build was too big, and he was too tall to be him. It was obvious he was a man, and if it wasn't his father then it could only be....
Saki had a burn on the left side of his face, and was limping noticeably. His hair was gone and his clothes were singed in many places. Suddenly, his knees gave away and he fell to the snow, as Leo dragged his brothers backwards with him, away from the man.
The blue-eyed boy didn't know what to do. His house was burning and he had nowhere else to go, he had no family to ask for help, and he couldn't think of which friend to turn to. But worst of all, the person responsible for it all was right in front of him, and Leo could do nothing about it.
Finally Oroku Saki raised his head, and in a coincidence of life, locked eyes with Leo. His burn was horrible, but the boy forced himself to hold his gaze as he hugged his brothers tighter and pulled them slightly behind him. They too looked at Saki with eyes somewhere between frightened and defiant, but no one said anything.
An eternal moment later, the man struggled to his feet, and giving them one last look, he left. He was lost among the trees, his figure disintegrating in the dark and cold, and soon his footprints were covered by the snow that had begun to fall.
And so Leo was alone again.