The moment Cassie let him go, Raph dove forward, barreling into Eric like a linebacker so hard he almost knocked him over the railing. Then he grabbed Nico, tackling her to the ground on the other side of the bridge, on solid ground again.

If they just let her keep clawing at the guy chances were she'd claw his eyes right out of his face or even knock him off the bridge and kill him and he didn't want her to have to be pushed into that, to look back on it with the same regret and self-loathing she'd felt when he'd seen her memory of what she'd done to her great-grandmother.

This was for her, not for Eric.

If he died, it wasn't going to be by Nico's hand. That was what Raph could do about this, what he could give her.

"Sshhh. Shhh," he said, as he held onto her, tightly, keeping her from just running after Eric again.

He wasn't going to tell her it was okay. It wasn't. So he just made comforting shushing noises.

And then he realized something, something he probably should have realized the first night he'd had that terrible dream where he'd killed all his enemies - and ones he didn't recognize - and died atop the heap of their broken bodies, and then had woken up in a cold sweat.

He realized he was able to kill someone.

"He's done," he whispered, a truth, a promise, "He's done."

The moment would come. He just had to wait. It was always about timing and patience, that was one of the things Splinter had taught him. Just like the other thing he'd taught him - that a ninja did no harm.

...Unless they had to do harm, then they did lots of harm.