Leonardo sighed, leaning his head down on the table. The old lair was awfully quiet now. It seemed that once Splinter had died, everything had changed radically. At least it hadn't been a violent end, though. The master had died of old age. Still, that didn't help much.

"So, Leo, what are you gonna do with your life?" he asked aloud. "You've killed your enemies, restored honor to the clan, and your brothers have all left. Now what?"

He looked at the tequila bottle and laughed. How ironic. He had always hated that Raphael drank, and now Raph was off in Japan, complete with a wife and child. Things change so much...

Hadn't that been a title of one of Mike's endless books, sometimes about the meaning of life, sometimes a volume of poetry. Mike. He was so happy, living somewhere in Florida, swimming in the Keys and making bunches of friends. He and Donatello were inseparable. Of course, it helped that Donnie was an oceanographer, but Leo had the feeling that the two of them wouldn't part if Mike wanted to move to the North Pole.

And me? he thought. The eldest brother stays with the father. Not that he had minded following tradition. But when his brothers had been too busy to attend their master's cremation...he still couldn't think about that straight. They said they had moved beyond that, that they all had their own lives now, why didn't he have one? He missed his father bitterly. It had only been two weeks since he had burned the body on the funeral pyre. He could still see the smoke.

"So what do you do now?"

Leo leaned back and thought. What skills did he have? Leadership? He started to laugh at the thought. Yeah, right, he hadn't even been able to keep the family together. Mike was the creative one, Don, the genius, and Raphael, well, he turned out to be pretty decent at whatever he put his mind to. So far, twelve paintings, three hundred thousand dollars. Stocks turned out hellacious dividends, and don't even get him started on the Internet business. They had all the talents, not him.

"Well, that's not exactly true," he said to himself. He pulled out a dagger and looked at it. What can I do? he thought, thinking of Donatello's last words to him, saying he must have some talent. He flipped the dagger suddenly at the far wall, onto the dart board he had never bothered to take down. Perfect bullseye. I can kill. I know thirty different ways to kill with a knife, maybe fifty with my bare hands, and infinite possibilities with my swords. Or anything else I can get my hands on. I can kill.

He thought about his brothers, who probably couldn't care less about him, Splinter, or the old lair. Or anything, really. He knew it was unfair, but that's how he felt. They had never cared about honor, not really. Leonardo had done all of the intentional killing. His eyes narrowed. Resentment built.

"All right, Donnie," he growled suddenly, "I'll do what I know. There are a lot of people in the world who'll pay dear for my services."

He stood up and started to walk around the room, the tequila totally gone now. One thing he could do was sober up fast. He pulled on his swords, went to the wall and opened up a secret compartment. He plucked out two flawless daggers and stowed them in his belt, then went to the table and picked up several small knives, which disappeared quickly in his wrist bands and belt. Two long, flexible pieces of metal were slipped into his mask. Finally he walked to the door.

Leonardo gave one last look to his home. "I'm sorry, Master. It's the only thing I know how to do. I'll never forget this place, though. It was the only place I was really happy. For about seventeen years, anyway."

He shut the door, then, and pulled it into place. The front was so perfectly camouflaged that the door disappeared from sight. He stared at it a moment, then scratched a message into the surface.

That done, he turned and left.

The End