Missing scene, from the fourth episode of "The Big Brawl" storyline from the 2003 series of TMNT. I own none of the characters or places named here.

Leo watched his brother do the most "Mikey" thing possible: "accidentally" knock out his big, bad opponent in the Battle Nexus Tournament. Leo had noticed Usagi bristle out of the corner of his eye just moments after they landed on the pavement. That had caused him to raise his own head and look the same direction. Thus, he'd seen the big baddie approaching his brother's back and witnessed the comedic ending of what could have been a dramatic moment.

Soon after his little brother's voiced "Oops," Usagi turned to his attention away from Mikey and to him, laughing. The laugh wasn't loud. If Usagi's lungs were sucking in air as greedily as his after their shared experience being sucked up like dust-bunnies into the sky, he didn't have the breath for laughing loudly yet. Still, they were definitely both still laughing as much as they could at his brother's "knockout" move on the gigantic, purple and blue being from somewhere in the multiverse, who'd tried to take him from behind.

Leo felt a slight touch of surprise at sharing such a laugh with Usagi. The Samurai hadn't gotten Donnie's joke earlier in the Healer's Pavilion about "What 'hadn't happened" while he was unconscious at all. Wait …

Leo closed his mouth. He felt like a fool. Usagi wasn't from "their" earth, let alone their earth's western Hemisphere or New York City. Maybe that joke was better understood in those places. It made sense he wouldn't get all the jokes their respective homes didn't share. Leo wouldn't either. "But" Usagi had been the one to smile and remark right before their match in the arena on fate's "wry sense of Humor." Indeed, today had proved him right about that.

Leo felt an inner blush at his misunderstanding of the (slightly) older warrior, who was wise enough to laugh "with" the impossible to understand, metaphorical hand guiding things across the multiverse. Leo gave a graver smile and a nod to the Samurai. With a soft gaze shining with his wry sense of humor, the white-furred warrior nodded back.

Then Usagi's white-furred face stretched. His eyes widened and his ears stuck straight up. Leo's own expression mirrored Usagi's as much as it could. He was about to ask what was wrong, when the rabbit stood to his feet, placed his circled paws around his mouth, and shouted "Gennesuke!" Leo's new friend turned the opposite direction and shouted again, louder, almost angry "Murakami Gennesuke!"

"Usagi!"

The rabbit Samurai turned. His shoulders, ears, and the lids of his eyes seemed to lower. Then he smiled. His voice became soft and polite again. "Genn … old friend …"

Leo turned to look the same direction as Usagi. He felt his own eyes widen and form straighten. A … rhino in a kimono, walking on hind legs, and wearing swords in his belt, very like the rabbit Samurai's, approached them speaking in a low, mumbling voice. "No need to make everyone deaf, Usagi."

The rhino, whose horn was sawn off Leonardo now noticed, approached the rabbit. He dwarfed Leo's new friend by over an inch even counting Usagi's ears. Yet, Usagi looked up into the face with stubble on its chin without a hint of fear, at least not "of" the rhino. The white-furred warrior spoke softly, "I feared for you my friend, who knew, but behind my back you were picked up and swept away. You often watch public events like the last round of the 'Battle Nexus Tournament' closely."

"When I have a bet riding on them I do." The rhino scratched his chin as he replied, then he let his hand fall away and shrugged. "Not after I've already lost it."

Usagi gave his rhino friend a soft smile. "How much did you lose this time?"

The rhino looked down at the pavement and huffed through his nostrils." Usagi chuckled softly. Leo smiled again at his new friend's very real sense of humor.

Then the rabbit's face stretched and eyes widened again. He turned to look at the Daimyo whose head was still hanging. Leo noticed his father's hand resting on his old friend's arm. The rabbit Samurai shouted toward them, "Honored Daimyo, were there not guards watching over the War Staff?"

The Daimyo looked toward the Samurai. Then he raised his staff. Another bubble formed. Leo dashed over to be included in it as his father was standing right nest to the Daimyo, so did Raph and Don. Mickey seemed to have been slowly moving in the Daimyo and their father's direction anyway. He froze and glanced around with wide eyes as the bubble formed over him too.

When the bubble melted away, Leo took in their new surroundings. They were in a long room with a throne on a dias on one end of it, and many windows lining its sides. The floor was littered with men in ceremonial garb. Their weapons were scattered around them.

Leo heard a sniffing sound near his elbow. He turned almost flinching away. He froze ,when he realized who it was. He was still unaware of how he got there, though.

The rabbit's nose twitched. His eyes were squinted and staring straight ahead. "I smell no blood." His ears swiveled somewhat even in their topknot. Leo thought they looked like radar instruments scanning the area. Usagi continued in the same firm, level voice, though there was a lowering and softening near his words' end. "I do not think their armor allowed any of their lungs to be pierced."

Leo felt somewhat better at this news from his new friend, but as he glanced around his heart sank again. The men on the floor were moaning as they turned over on their sides, rose to their knees, or attempted to bow and speak to their Daimyo. Their lord was waving once arm and speaking gently to them one moment, but the in next, adding a firmness to his tone as he asked that eternal question, "What happened here?"

Leo stiffened as he listened for the reply. Though, he noted around him his father helping one man to his feet in one direction, Raph doing the same in another, and Mikey edging over toward Don awkwardly as his genius brother tried to get a guard whose leg was twisted at a wince-inducing angle to stop trying to move. Usagi knelt next to a guard who had neither moved nor moaned since they got there. The rabbit's eyes scanned the guard's body.

Still, Leo heard what the guard speaking to the Daimyo said, "Dddddraco, my lord! He came in and attacked all of us. He swept through every group of reinforcements that came to our aid! And then …" A pause followed.

Leo looked away from Usagi's examination of the still guard on the floor to watch the exchange between servant and the lord of this realm. The Daimyo pressed his man. "And then …"

"I … I … I … Forgive me, my lord …"

The Daimyo's voice lowered and softened further. "Just tell me, my servant."

The guard bowed over onto his hands and knees his head hanging, "I thought … I thought I heard the voice of your son … speaking to Draco. It sounded as though he mocked him. I thought I heard the War Staff being used, then they were arguing over it. There was the sound of breaking glass. After that, I heard them not over the crowd sounds outside until I lost consciousness when I tried to rise and go after them. Forgive me my failure …"

There was a deep sigh. "I do … Draco came second in a tournament against the greatest warriors of the multiverse some time ago, and the one who came first after defeating him was in a cell downstairs."

Suddenly, wanting to hear and see no more of this discussion, Leo walked over to and then knelt down beside Usagi. The rabbit Samurai was farthest away from the grieving father of the man who'd slipped through his fingers. The turtle in blue cast his gaze over the still guard. "How is he?"

Usagi looked up at him. "His breathing is good, but I believe this one took a blow to his head. Observe …"

Usagi bent over and Leo did the same. He winced. One side of the guard's face was bruised deep. The darkest shade of purple went under his hairline at the temple. Usagi's voice lowered and softened as he spoke. "I think Draco's tail did that as the guard now lies nowhere near a wall and this is the opposite side of his face as that pressed into the floor."

Leo lifted his head and looked around, then back to Usagi. "Why didn't they disappear like the guards in the Healing Ward did?"

Usagi's lips pressed together until they became a hard line before parting to answer, "I would think it because most of them remained awake, simply in pain, disability, and semi-consciousness. However, with this one like this …"

When his friend went silent, Leonardo pressed, "With this one like this?"

Usagi sighed deeply still staring down at the bruise. "I think … the safety measures in this room may have been lifted."

Leo's eyes widened and the corners of his mouth drooped. He glanced back at the Daimyo whose head seemed to hang even lower now, his shoulders too, as he turned from his trembling guards. However, the voice was kind. "Thank you, for staying awake and alert long enough to tell me of all of this … You did well."

Leo thought he saw the guard's trembling stop right before he bowed even lower before his Daimyo. But, Leo also thought he caught the expression on the face before it was lowered back to the floor. Sad, sympathetic …

Leo's heart squeezed. What was it like to be the servant, not the son, and then to realize you loved, respected, and honored your lord more than your lord's son? What was it like to be these guards? Sure Mikey, Raph, and even Don showed Master Splinter less respect than him sometimes, but …" Leo froze and turned to his new friend. "Why did you remember these guards, when no one else did, Usagi?"

The rabbit Samurai sent him a slanting, almost angry glance. His voice held the threat of a growl. "Firstly, for any house to leave such as the War Staff 'unguarded,' especially when its wielder is unconscious, would be the height of foolishness."

Leo continued to stare at his friend. "And secondly?"

Usagi's eyes widened. His voice sounded soft again. "I am also a guard Leonardo san. If this was my duty, to guard the staff, I would not have let Draco get near enough to touch it with his claws unless my blood already stained the stones." Usagi looked back to the guard before him. "Thankfully, though these seem just as loyal to their Lord as I was to mine, their armor is better than what I now wear. And, thankfully, the War Staff is again safely in the Daimyo's hands."

Leo felt he should have nodded in agreement, but his mind was now firmly on a different track than his friend's seemed to be. He glanced over the rabbit's form noticing, for the first time, the distinct lack of armor. If the Samurai had such, should he not have worn it to the battle nexus tournament? It sounded like he had none at all. That … seemed unusual for a Samurai. But … Usagi had described himself as a "Yojimbo," a bodyguard … for hire … as in no steady work, no particular lord to be in service to. "Usagi?"

"Yes, Leonardo?"

"Do you have a family?"

The rabbit Samurai turned his gaze, hard, piercing, sad to meet his own. "I 'had' one."

Leo looked back feeling his face sag in sadness. "Did you used to have a Lord too?"

Usagi lifted a corner of his kimono to bring an emblem, three dots in the pattern of a triangle, closer to Leonardo's eyes. There was a fierceness, a hardness, a challenge in his reply. "I still count myself Lord Mifune's Samurai. I always will."

Leo decided not to meet that challenge. He nodded instead. Usagi looked back down to his brother in arms, one of those loyal to another above them and not of their blood to the point of spending their sweat and their lives.

Leo gave a little sigh and spoke again wondering as he did so if it would raise the Samurai, Ronin's, hackles still higher, yet he dared to ask "So … you're all alone in your world then?"

The most heart-breaking reaction Leonardo couldn't have imagined occurred before him. Without looking at him again, Usagi shrugged. His eyes never ceased watching his own hand rubbing an ointment Leo had somehow missed him retrieving over the guard's face. His shoulders simply lifted gently, carelessly under the folds of his kimono. His voice matched the gesture. "I have Gennesuke my partner in my work at times. He helps me guard others if he thinks the money good enough or he's particularly desperate for some." A fond smile twitched the rabbit's lips. He continued with that smile still in place. "When I think it an honorable job, I assist him in his bounty-hunting. We travel together often." Usagi chuckled softly, "During such travels, I find myself wishing for a little more solitude at night, when he is snoring nearby even at my back in particularly dangerous places. I swear, our enemies have found us more times simply because of that sound ..."

"You've … 'both' made a lot of enemies then?"

Usagi's wide eyes turned back to him even though he was still rubbing the ointment into the guard's face. "Of course, Leonardo san. You do not guard well those others try to kill without doing so.'"

Leo looked away. He thought, once he and this new friend parted, they might never see each other again. What strangely hurt worse was this rabbit's indifference to how few others might be sad about that. He was family-less, master-less, and almost friendless. He had only one, semi-steady friend who traveled with him, so they could better ply their respective trades and share their rewards, perhaps so they wouldn't starve or be slain doing so apart.

Leo sometimes thought out possible ways to shake his brothers for a few hours, even his father, Casey, or April. He did not often carry-through though. He was the team's leader. The position carried too much responsibility to enjoy solitude away from that team often. He knew about snorers too. When they'd all had their hammocks hanging so close together in their old home "good-night!" Or rather "not-good-night!"

Leo glanced back to Usagi now rising from this guard turned his patient's side. He seemed to be finished treating him with the ointment. The rabbit glanced around until his gaze landed on another guard sitting against a wall clutching his arm. Usagi headed his direction even Leo saw Donnie do the same. They'd probably both end up treating that guard.

Leo's heart clenched even as his head rose at the sight. They already worked together his brother and new friend ... After another moment of thought, Leo nodded to himself. A warrior as honorable, skilled, and loyal as Usagi Yojimbo shouldn't fight and die without a team by his side, preferably, a team of family.

What do you think?

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes