Sorry this was a little delayed! I always forget to post here, haha. Things might be looking up for the kids this chapter. A special guest star well loved in TMNT is here too. Thanks for reading.

"Leonardo."

Leo's eyes snap open and he almost leaps to his feet, crying out in surprise. He doesn't recognize that voice, and the figure in front of him scrambles backwards.

As he shifts, sensei's bones rattle together and Leo gives a horrified cry at the sound, holding the hood closer to his front. He sees Dante sitting up out of the corner of his eye—he must have moved to lie down after Leo fell asleep—and hears Donnie groan faintly, stirring behind them.

The figure's hands are out in front of him, protectively. "Leonardo! It's alright! It hasn't been that long since we've seen each other!"

Leo really looks then, and realizes who he almost kicked in the stomach. A tall, wide-eyed man, boyish despite his height and his age.

"Usagi?" he asks, disbelieving. The son of sensei's old friend, a frequent visitor before the war got bad. There is no way Usagi walked all this way for them, or would have remembered them in this chaos. Leo's family hasn't seen him since his father died last year.

Dante jumps up beside him, mouth wide open. "What are you doing here?" he exclaims. "You live in Kure! Did it get bombed too?"

Usagi shakes his head, but in seconds his eyes are taking in everything—Leo's wounded brothers wincing awake, their ragged clothes ... the bundle in Leo's lap, where part of sensei's skull is visible. His expression drops as he shares a pained look with Leonardo, before collecting himself and standing up.

Leo sets the bones aside carefully to join him, wincing at the cramp from sleeping sitting up. He tries to ignore how Mikey, barely awake, bites his trembling lip when he sees them, poking through where the hood doesn't cover.

Usagi is blinking suspiciously hard, but his voice is clear when he speaks. "I was giving up hope on finding you. When I saw your street ..."

"Finding us?" Donnie says, on the ground. He's sitting up, rubbing away tears with one hand and looking pointedly away from the bones. "You didn't seriously come from Kure to look for us, did you?"

Kure is to the east, a day trip from their childhoods that Leo thinks of when he's at his hungriest or unhappiest. Usagi would show Leo the family's samurai swords, passed down for generations, and even let Leonardo hold the wakizashi. The memory feels buried under rubble, impossible to pull out.

"I've been looking for my wife's brother," Usagi says, clearly taking in Mikey and Donnie's injuries. Next to tidy Usagi, come straight from the real world, they look even more worrying.

Leo can't help but feel a disappointed ache, though he isn't surprised. Leo has thought of no one else but his own family since that morning. He can't expect even their friends to make him and his brothers their first choice.

Usagi must notice Leo's expression because his eyes soften, and he claps a hand onto Leo's shoulder. "Don't think I'd forgotten you, Leonardo. You know the importance of family—and I know my brother-in-law's fate after meeting some of his coworkers," he adds, more softly.

"I'm sorry," says Leo, and means it. He remembers Usagi's brother-in-law too, a severe man who was living with them to reach his job in Hiroshima. He had disliked sensei, but Leo still feels a pang of sadness knowing this bomb has killed someone else he knew. Countless people, if he really thinks about it: neighbours, classmates, coworkers. He's been trying not to think about it.

"I'm sorry too," Usagi says. He glances toward the air-raid hood, apparently unable to look away, and Leo realizes that he might think two people are in that tangle of bones.

"My father is dead," he says in a soft, steady voice. "Raphael joined the army, so I'm hoping he can come back to us soon."

There's great sadness in Usagi's face, but relief too—they've always been close, Leo and his brothers. Sensei's loss is still a gaping wound, but thinking of the five of them together again ... it feels survivable.

"I need to leave him a message in our neighbourhood," Leo adds. "So he knows where we are." He needs to think about housing, or something like it ... he's sure he can pull some metal scraps together to make a shack, and when Raph finds them they can finally leave this place and find work to look after their brothers.

Usagi is quiet, stepping back to look them up and down. Leo is glad to see him here, but he's embarrassed, knowing that they look no different than the rest of these Hiroshima ghosts. He's about to say he had better get going, to leave the message, when Usagi speaks.

"Why don't you come home with me?" he asks, like it's just a day out to visit. "It's just my wife, my son and I in that big house. Leave a note saying you're safe in Kure with us and I'm sure it will ease his worries."

Leo stares—then shakes his head, disbelieving. "I couldn't ... we couldn't impose on you like this. It's too much, Usagi-san, I-"

Usagi shakes his head, and suddenly he looks very stern. Remarkably like sensei, actually. "I insist. You're lucky you all survived and your father would want you to stay that way. He would do the same for my son."

Leo is about to protest, but he looks at his brothers again, really seeing them. Donnie's exhaustion, Mikey's burns, Dante's small dirty face. Donnie is doing a good job of smoothing his expression, but Mikey and Dante are clearly feeling otherwise, looking slack-jawed at Usagi. Dante tugs Leo's arm.

"I heard a soldier say nothing will grow here for 75 years," he says, eyes round and serious. "The bomb ruined the earth. How are we gonna eat if we stay here?"

"Oh! Hold on," Usagi says, reaching into his shoulder bag at Dante's question. Leo is grateful for the distraction, because he had no answer for his brother.

Usagi pulls out three rice balls and a skein of water. "These were lunch, but I can eat when we get home. Please, boys. It would be my pleasure to have you as my guests."

Leo takes the food and finally relents, nodding his head. He doesn't eat, but makes sure his brothers finish every bite before they all take long drinks of water. Usagi disappears briefly, finally returning with a military handcart he must have begged off of the soldiers. Donatello still can't walk and they help him into it, Usagi pushing it along. With Mikey's arm slung over Leo's shoulder and Dante close beside them, they leave the relief area for good. Sensei's bones sit in Donnie's lap, clinking with every bump in the road.

When they get close to their old neighbourhood, Leo sits his brothers at the end of the street, pulling at debris in an effort to find something he can write on. He finally finds a metal sheet and grabs a burnt stick sticking out of a house. His kanji are messy, but readable enough:

RAPHAEL:

YOUR BROTHERS SAFE IN KURE WITH MIYAMOTOS, AUGUST 10 1945.

- LEONARDO

Leo sets his makeshift sign over what used to be their house, hoping it can stay where it belongs long enough for Raph to come back. He feels his brothers' eyes on him as he steadies it with some wood. It should be enough information, and there isn't room for more. He feels awful that this is all he can leave for his brother, and how long will it be before he can even leave to find them? Leo has not thought very hard about this, or about the impending invasion of Japan.

Maybe Usagi won't even let them stay long enough for his message to be relevant. Leo sighs and turns back to his brothers. There are more pressing problems.

They walk slowly and quietly to the nearest train station, and amazingly the line is running—though that is something Leo should have expected, since Usagi got to Hiroshima clean. Usagi is rummaging for fare money when Leo flashes his disaster certificate, and the soldier waves them onto the train without trouble. It's full of refugees, and people like Usagi, returning to Kure for the night. Leo only realizes then that it's getting late, the shadows growing long across the fields.

A young woman, well-dressed, gives Mikey and Dante each a cinnamon heart not long after they board the train. Dante stares at his for awhile, awed by the sight of candy, before Mikey threatens to eat his too if it's not in his mouth soon.

Kure platform is a mess of refugees, relief teams and soldiers, and Leo and Usagi barely manage to herd all of them, and their cart, off of it and towards the direction of Usagi's home. Leo holds tightly to sensei's bones with one arm, and Dante's hand with the other as they navigate the crowd. Mikey's good hand trembles where it clutches to the cart.

People stare in disbelief as they go, and Leo finds himself staring back. He dares them with his eyes to say a word against him or his brothers. Dante sticks his tongue out at one woman whose head turns as they head down a nice street. It's stained red from the candy, but Leo is reminded more of blood.