Taken from the 2003 TMNT episode "A Tale of Master Yoshi," the sources on Usagi listed before, and my own imagination. I own nothing but the latter if one can say they "own" their own imagination. I also make no money from this. Enjoy!

Usagi closed his eyes and kept them so for some time while breathing deeply. Shame welled up from deep inside to fill him again. It needed to be stilled and settled before he opened his mouth next to speak. This family had wished to welcome him, to honor him, and he had mistaken their intent so greatly …

He realized now he had been angry for Gennesuke's sake before. Perhaps that anger had colored everything else he'd heard said afterwards. The healer as well, had confided to him, after Gennesuke left and before Splinter came, that such injuries as his often affected the mood especially when mixed with alcohol to turn it dark. That also explained some things.

The shame he felt now though, drove Usagi along. Leonardo had been right, and he had been right of Leonardo's words, in one thing. He was master-less now and family-less. He felt he had done this family wrong and there was only one way for him to make it up to them. "What would you have me do, honorable Splinter-san?"

"I?" Splinter grinned down at him. "Am I not the one making the request of you?"

Usagi then opened his eyes and turned them on the smiling rat. The latter's face went serious at full view of Usagi's own expression. The Ronin asked again with a voice tense, "Would I fit into your world well, do you think?" He had no wish to dishonor this family further.

Splinter's frown caused the folds of his face to droop further. He sighed. His whole, slim body seemed to deflate with the escape of air. "Usagi … our world is different from your own. Veeerrrrrry different. It is not one of mountains, valleys, plains and forests … Not where my sons and I live in it at least. We live in a city, one of the greatest in fact. A large, large city, which can seem rather crowded for everyone else, but as we live …" He paused. His stare became more intense, in fact he became tense this time. "We live beneath it … in tunnels without the light of the sun, let alone moon or stars, and not much air movement either." His eyes grew sad and head tilted. "I … do not know if you, who have wondered the countryside … would like such a life."

Usagi blinked. How could ..? No. He must be mistaken.

This was an honorable family. The father, Splinter-san, was famous among those from the multi-verse now here, a hero, a winner not only of a competition, but of the hearts of those who'd watched him and many who had fought him only three years ago. His master, one he's sometimes referred to as his father, had been a winner of this battle of warriors some time before him. He'd raised his sons to be warriors, and one had won this competition of the greatest warriors today. This was a great family. The only stranger thing than such a family living underground was such a family's greatness going unnoticed by their own people in their own homeland.

Usagi could only say now in a somewhat dazed voice, "I … will take this into account."

Splinter sighed and bowed his head his own eyes closing. "Young one … what know you of my history?"

Usagi tilted his head while staring at the nezumi again. "Well, I know when my sensei Katsuichi first saw you, you were much smaller, and silent, and … "skittery" … as he put it. He said you crawled all over the Daimyo watching while your maser Yoshi fought, and the Daimyo chuckled at this while his son looked on with a sneer."

Splinter lifted his head and laughed long before he looked down at the rabbit again. Usagi smiled seeing tears of a different variety shining in the nezumi's eyes now. "Ah, thank you, Usagi for bringing back that memory to me."

Usagi nodded. "Katsuichi said he was only a little surprised when the Daimyo gave you permission to compete in your master's stead later, when you told him …" Usagi went silent and bowed his head.

Splinter though, did not lose his smile, though it became sad. "And since I did such a thing then, how could you think I would look down on you when 'I' have outlived my master by so long myself?"

Usagi looked up with curiosity again. "But … was he not … an adoptive father to you, like you are with your sons?"

"Hmmmmmm …" The nezumi sat up. His own eyes closed. He remained still and silent for a long moment. Usagi watched while his own nose quivered slightly an old hangover from childhood showing his curiosity.

The nezumi finally opened his eyes and looked down. "I considered him my father … in some ways. In truth, I was already grown when he took interest in me, and it was more the woman he loved who did so in the beginning. He did the same mostly after her death."

Usagi flinched at these words but listened on in silence and with a focused stare.

The nezumi continued. "Like his love before him, Yoshi was kind, gentle, and generous toward me. In truth that was all I needed to know about him to care for him then. The lack of danger from him, the constant care he took of me, was comforting, was safety. It felt much like the time I had had a mother constantly giving those things to me when I was very young indeed. And thus, it felt like family." Splinter smiled wider. His eyes became wet again. "Still, when he was taken from me, I didn't have the same considerations you did after you lost your Lord Mifune. I neither thought of a need to regain my own honor nor pass along Yoshi's bloodline or even his name to a next generation. I thought … well, I 'didn't' think sometimes, out of the loss, the shock of it. And then, when I did think and act again, it was out of hunger and the familiarity of finding food as I had before his lost love found me. It was only when I found my sons, I thought of something else, of the love shown to me first by a kind lady and then by a generous man. And I felt the need to be both kind and generous to my sons too. I then passed on his name to them."

Usagi watched Splinter. He slowly mulled over his words like a tough, yet sweet mouthful of food. He was a member of a class beneath his master Yoshi's and this woman's, far beneath, maybe even an outcast! An orphan with a mother, but no father perhaps? That can often happen in terrible circumstances. Yoshi's beloved and then he took Splinter in and cared for him even after he was grown out of their kindness, and he was thus loyal to them. "That" is what he is telling me that he comes not out of, but was brought into, a house, a lineage of honor.

It would be rude though, beyond rude, to state this to the nezumi's face. Splinter had attempted to be both clear and yet not vulgar in telling him this. Usagi would not mention it back. How could he communicate, though, he understood?

Usagi tilted his head in thought. He realized he had never noticed Splinter carrying a sword or a weapon of any kind beyond the walking stick given to him by the Daimyo when his leg was injured during his last bout right before his win. However, when thinking of Leonardo and his brothers ... "Why do you carry no weapon, but your sons do?"

Splinter nodded gravely. "I had an enemy by then. The one who murdered my master was out there, alive, as far as I knew." Splinter's eyes turned to steel and his face to stone. "I was determined not to lose my family again." The nezumi's gaze and expression gentled again. "I told all my fears to a benefactor of mine, the adopted father of Yoshi. And he sent the gift of my sons weapons and other things over the years. We do not live in a land only a certain class and certain bloodlines are allowed to carry weapons in. The poor are allowed to carry things more dangerous than we do to protect themselves with." A cheeky smile came to the nezumi's mouth. "Something like those weapons Traximus told you about."

Usagi shuddered thinking of the "weapons" Traximus told him of. "I am somewhat glad you kept your family using weapons it takes longer to learn to wield affectively, and which cause less damage."

Splinter chuckled in his throat. Then his expression grew serious again. "I am not of my master's blood, nor was he of his teacher and father's, nor are my sons of theirs or mine, but that has not mattered in the formation of our family. My only concern is for your own happiness. Would you even be healthy in our home or pine for the life you knew?"

Usagi paused and looked away. "May I tell you of my own history?"

Splinter's eyes widened slightly, but he nodded.

Usagi smiled and went on. "I was the only son of my father. That is true. But I spent much of my childhood with two other children, Mariko and Kenichi. I had a friendship with Mariko and a rivalry with Kenichi, but it was with him I traveled to a school which was supposed to make great warriors out of us. On the way, we saw some who'd been to that school attacking someone else. The one they attacked defeated them all. I was awed. I turned aside determined to learn from that one instead. Kenichi did not."

Usagi's smile widened. "That one I saw on the road was Katsuichi, my sensei, who first brought me here. It took me a long time to convince him I could be a good student, but eventually he agreed to teach me." Usagi's smile fell away. "The next time I saw Kenichi, perhaps the closest I had to a brother, was when we faced each other in a tournament. We were the last two competitors. He had grown in skill in my absence, but so had I. I defeated him. I gained the attention of, and an offer to be the "retainer" of, Lord Mifune. Lord Mifune also gave me my swords then." Usagi tucked his chin into his chest and went silent a moment his eyes only half-open.

Splinter watched in silence with a straight face. Inwardly, he feared where this story would go. He knew Usagi was a ronin now. He knew Lord Mifune was dead. In spite of the pain he felt for the young rabbit, he feared more personally the ending of the story between the young rabbit and this "Kenichi."

He had not forgotten it was a partially an unrequited love and a rivalry that had caused the death of Teng Shen and the saddening of Yoshi. Even his own name came from that tragedy. And his memories of it had caused uneasiness when he watched his sons, particularly Leonardo and Raphael, compete and fight each other with words and fists.

Usagi went on. "I did not go with Lord MIfune right away, but continued my training and even returned to my home village to say goodbye. On my way, I stopped by an inn and was asked to evict a drunken sword-fighter, who was not easily parted from his cups." Usagi gave a gentle, sad smile and lowered his voice. "That one too deep in his cups, but still dangerous with his swords, was Kenichi."

Splinter's eyes widened slightly. His grip on the top of his staff tightened, but he remained silent as Usagi went on. "I got him away from Saki and into a bed. He blamed me for his failures. I, in my wisdom, told him his own choices had made his own course just as mine had made my own. He had none to blame, but himself. He came to believe the same, and we traveled home together."

Splinter released a soft breath. His whole body relaxed at this turn in the tale. He otherwise remained quiet and still as he listened. Usagi went on perhaps unaware at this change in the Nezumi's demeanor. "Our village needed us both as it turned out. It was attacked by bandits while we were there together. They even took Mariko captive. They regretted it. Between the three of us and my father, the attack failed. I was set on going to my Lord Mifune, but someone had to become my father's successor and our village's protector in my place."

Usagi fell silent. He seemed to look down his own chest with half-open eyes again. "It was Kenichi who did that and even married Mariko after I left as I later heard."

The rat sat straighter and his ears lifted at this.

Usagi went on. "Meanwhile … I served Lord Mifune, loving him and my service to him until it ended. Then, when I looked back toward the home of my childhood, Kenichi had taken my place so fully there, I tasted the bitter cup that had driven Kenichi to others. I realized then how hard it is to be wise sometimes."

The young rabbit fell silent his eyelids low and form drooping. Splinter gazed in silence and sadness upon him. The rabbit shrugged. "Some are born in high places with high duties. Yet, a single battle, a single death, can send them hurtling to low places. Some start out in lower places and climb up to higher ones. I have seen and done both, but without my own decisions, the path set out for me would have taken me different places. I admit this. Your own path seems strange to me, but I understand climbing up through the kindnesses of the great and falling again with their deaths, and then having no place to go afterwards you belong to."

Splinter laid a hand on Usagi's shoulder. His voice was soft and raspy. "That is what Leonardo is offering you now …"

Usagi looked up with curiosity shining in his eyes again. "Do 'you' want me to join your life?"

Splinter slumped slightly at the question, but his keen eyes meant Usagi's unflinchingly. "It is a hard life and a lonely one, and perhaps more cramped than you are used to. Its possible unfitness for you, not your unfitness for it, concerns me."

Usagi's eyes scrunched up. He turned his head to stare down toward his stomach again. Splinter himself then looked down toward the floor, cleared his throat, and said, "There is one more thing I must tell you of us before you make your decision, Usagi."

The rabbit looked up his curiosity shining in his eyes again. Splinter raised his gaze, but his eyes looked less eager to meet the gaze of Usagi this time. "We are ninja."

The Samurai jerked away from the nezumi's touch.

What do you think now?

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes