I own nothing!

Leonardo was fearless. I knew that the first time we met. He stood firm against well-trained and professional assassins trying to murder him. He showed no fear before them just a fierce determination to survive. And despite the desperate situation, he fought with honor.

That was the first time we fought together, he and I. I could not turn away and do nothing upon seeing such a scene. They fled. We talked. He thanked me, listened to me, and asked for even more advice than I had already given him. Right after that, we had to fight together again.

Then, when the assassins had "truly" fled from the Hall of Champions, we both agreed we did not want to face each other in the competition. We had both seen the skill of the other. "That" when I first saw the closest thing to fear in him I'd see for a while, but I think it was better described as humility. He admitted in so many words, he might lose to me. I openly reciprocated.

That was the beginning of a friendship I would ever take pride and joy in. I did not know it would grow so deep, or grow so long, but I thought then I would always have fond feeling for the kami warrior known as Leonardo. I was proven right.

When we did fight each other in the competition, he smiled and met me steel for steel despite his earlier words. We fought with vigor, excitement, and honor. I still wish we could have finished that fight fairly, but it was neither he nor I who cheated the other.

One outside the ring did. After I saw him wince in pain, Leonardo spoke tried to tell me he needed aid. His face and voice seemed more concerned and determined than fearful. For all he knew, he could have been dying. Indeed, the purpose of the poison on the dart was to kill him. But he did not seem to even try to scream. His eyes did not bulge when they met my gaze. He simply tried to communicate he needed help. He did not seem to fear I might take advantage of his weakness in the most competitive ring in the multiverse.

I am glad it was me. To this day, I am glad I was the one who able to turn him over, check his breathing, and help him up. Perhaps it would have been better if it was one of his brothers or his father there. I would have stood aside for them to do so if any of them had been right there, and yet, it is an honor I would not easily release from my own grasp even now.

I am glad even it was me who faced Donatello's wrath in those first moments of our meeting. And my heart still lifts at how Leonardo fought against the weakness that poison afflicted him with to lift his head and voice to defend me to his own flesh and blood, one of only three he had. Their father, though, I now know, is just as dear to them. Perhaps, he is even more so since he decided to make them his own under no compulsion not even blood ties. I have known similar love and loyalty from those who have been like a father to me, though I don't wish to disrespect the memory of the father who begat me either.

Either way, though I am sorry for the reason Splinter was absent for most of that day, I am glad to have been able to sit by Leonardo with one of his brothers in the healer's pavilion. I am especially glad I was able to find and draw out the poison from his wound. I had to relieve Donatello's suspicions of me first. He seemed just as fearless as Leonardo then. I even had to take off my precious swords, but it was worth it.

I am glad to have been the one who protected Leonardo and the Daimyo with Donatello, who seemed just slightly more reluctant and thoughtful in his approach than Leonardo would have been. Nonetheless, he never left the fight. Bravery seemed to run in this family. And, if I let go of my own great pride a little, I can be honored that the fearless Leonardo fought through the after effects of the poison that had harmed him not just to aid his brother, but to defend and save my life as well. Though, I am happier I was released by his sword to return the favor. In short, I was honored by our meeting as well as being included in the list of heroes, among which were every member of his family and other allies they called friends, who saved the multiverse that day. It was a wonderful beginning for a friendship between two warriors.

In like fearlessness, Leonardo later offered to open his home to me, and my friend, traveling companion, and partner in shared work sometimes Gennesuke. It was there, I came to realize my friend's fearlessness in his own world. Among his friends was a lady whose life he had saved along with his brothers, a man who had fought alone against criminals before they joined him, the impoverished, and the "super-powered" as they put it. Of course, the Daimyo of the Battle Nexus, Gennesuke, and I were among them as well. And there were still others.

I was overwhelmed by all the stories I heard of battles against just as many and more foes of Leonardo and his family and friends. And they had made all these friends and faced all these foes for the first time in the span of a little over two years. He had only been out of his family's old home and among those outside his own clan for less than three years. And he already had scars from the battles he'd been in during that time.

Then they spoke of their last Christmas together. The gathering they'd had then had only included his father, brothers, and Casey and April. They had celebrated far from this place they called home under their city. They had then been aboveground, but in the countryside where few went.

Leonardo had barley spent any of that celebration on his feet having still been recovering from facing nearly an army, from the sound of it, alone. He had faced at least five, different, elite warriors in their great enemy's forces before facing that enemy himself all after being ambushed on what was meant to be a training run. The attack had ended with the attempted murder of his two friends and four family members, as well as himself, and the successful burning of April's home and business.

April tearfully related how Leonardo had asked her to leave them, since their enemy might not have specifically been targeting her. He had tried to save her even as the shadow of destruction an death tried to engulf his clan. She had declared she was family. Loyalty, breeds loyalty, and courage inspires courage, it seems …

Leonardo hung his head as they related that the Christmas right after that attack he'd lain on a couch and participated by making a few ornaments with his recovering hands before instructing them in how he thought they should be placed for full effect. I wondered why he looked so ashamed. The knowledge of how to produce beauty in your surroundings is a skill honored greatly by my people.

Despite his shame, though, Leonardo was still fearless. He eagerly joined his youngest brother in going up to the surface of this city populated by humans who might fear and thus attempt to destroy us. We went in disguise, but those disguises barely covered up anything of what we were, turtles, a rat, a rabbit, and a rhino. I think the humans we met in them, thought our forms under our costumes, still other costumes. So, they let us play with many human children.

I kept seeing Leonardo glancing out windows and up at any human we'd not met yet who entered the room we were in. His eyes were wide and his lips drawn tight into their smile. I knew the look of a warrior in enemy territory.

Later, I questioned him on it. He admitted humans, with the several exceptions of those who'd been invited into their home with us, often attacked at the mere sight of he and his family members. Even Casey Jones had attacked Raphael upon their first meeting though for other reasons. And April, it seemed, had fainted at the sight of them several times upon their first meeting.

This was all curious to me. I had traveled many places and seen many different looking people both in my own world and in the Battle Nexus. The majority of those people did not look much like me, I admitted. The only reason my white fur, long ears, and large feet endangered me at times was because they identified me as me. I had made many enemies through my own actions and chosen alliances.

I had seen for myself, though, how alike these humans seemed to be to each other. I was, of course, accustomed to more variety in form, shape, and color of those within the same village, even the same clan. Necko alone could have black, white, grey, tan, or orange fur the last usually with stripes. Tomoe Ame is a lovely tan …

Not everyone in my own home village has long ears. Not all who do have white fur. Mariko does, but Kenichi has brown. We were rather unique in our home village, but I am now more likely to be stared at in my own world due to my swords and the mon I wear, rather than my long ears even if I am often referred to by them. So Leonardo and his family's predicament seemed strange to me.

Leonardo, for instance, related the law Splinter had laid down for he and his brothers in their youth about not going above ground. It had instilled within him on the day he and his brothers had had to, after their old home had been destroyed and the way to the new blocked. It occurred to me then, he might still be conquering that old fear every time he walked in the shadows among the humans above ground.

I understood better then, why they called themselves ninja even if they attempted to be honorable. They could not travel freely, being honored by farmers, craftsmen, and foot soldiers, as I once had before becoming a ronin. The fear they inspired among non-warriors was not like the one I still did as one who carried twin swords and could use them well. It was not aimed at them due to their weapons and proficiency with them, but their unusual appearances.

This all made me admire Leonardo even more. He and his family clung to the shadows to avoid detection by these thousands of humans who lived above them, but they also defended these humans from one another. Raphael declared most of the fights between humans they became a part of weren't any of their business. Apparently, Leonardo had once taken it upon himself to do such rescues alone, when none of his brothers or father would go out with him to do so, though they joined him later.

This was why I was not entirely surprised when he did such in my own world. Even before I arrived, he helped Tomoe Ame defend Lord Noriyuki. Noriyuki was not his lord, nor had the two had any time to offer him a reward for his help. Yet, when Tomoe Ame was captured, he fought on to protect Noriyuki alone before Gennesuke and I arrived.

I then listened to his story. Our shared enemies had declared their intention of scattering his family through time and space after invading their home. Then he had awoken in my world. Upon his realization the Daimyo of the Battle Nexus could help him, I offered to help him reach the Battle Nexus after I delivered Lord Noriyuki safely to the shogun. Leonardo helped.

Indeed, he went to Lord Noriyuki's aid alone, when neither Gennesuke or I could help other than by keeping a few foes from going to stop him. He still had plenty of others to fight himself. He also held the lord of the Geisha clan close to his chest as they fell off a cliff into the river below.

Later, I offered him a way out instead of following us to our quite possible, and even likely, doom of trying to rescue Tomoe Ame from Hebi's own castle. Leonardo insisted on coming though saying, "What were friends for?" He came up with a plan, a ninja's plan too, to defeat a ninja clan and the daimyo who had hired them. I felt sullied as I put on the stinking garments of the necko ninja we had stripped them off of, though we left their undergarments on them. We were desperate not vengeful.

We climbed the outer wall of the building in black that blended into the night rather than fight our way through the gate. We snuck through the halls by way of the rafters. I was acting as much a ninja as him. However, I, in my pride, identified myself outside Tomoe Ame's cell to a single guard who found me there instead of making up an excuse for being there as a ninja. I knocked him unconscious and freed Tomoe Ame, but we were both caught by more guards, and I no longer wore a ninja's mask. Tomoe Ame soon had a blade to her throat, and I was forced to surrender myself to capture.

Leonardo showed that discretion is often better than boldness. Instead of rescuing us right away, he waited until we were all in one place. Tomoe Ame and I were led before Lord Hebi. We found Gennesuke and Noriyuki already there. I'd thought them safe back in a camp some ways from the force surrounding Hebi's castle, but they had been captured by Mogura ninja whom we had made the mistake of assuming were not there since they were not out in the open guarding the castle like the Necko clan were. If it were not for the Fearless Leonardo being free, I would have despaired in the moment. Just as Hebi was boasting to us all, Leonardo dropped down on top of him.

Leonardo then said it was those like Hebi who gave honorable reptiles like him a bad name. I think the opposite can be said as well. I almost have hope for Hebi since both he and Leonardo have scales.

We fought then, I and my friends and allies from my own world were freed and crossed steel, along with Leonardo, against Hebi's and his forces. We won. Even Lord Noriyuki lifted a sword, placing it at the throat of the snake who'd paid for his capture and delivery to save Leonardo himself. My friend had made the cub fearless.

Nonetheless, we all might have died had the shogun's forces not come to our aid by surrounding Hebi's. First, Hebi's hired ninja, and then Hebi himself, slipped away rather than face them. Not all ninja are as loyal or fierce as Leonardo, neither are all daimyo as fearless and loyal as lord Noriyuki, it seems.

Noriyuki gave Leonardo his thanks, and Leonardo took no reward from him, or me, only wanting to go home and find his father and brothers. I helped him with that by not only helping him reach the Battle Nexus but accompanying him there. After all, I then asked him, "What are friends for?"

We did not find what we expected. I knew the Daimyo was still grieved, when I accompanied him to the Christmas celebration in Leonardo's world, over the loss of his son. Now, he was mad with that grief, and perhaps for other reasons too. We barely escaped his command we be arrested.

I followed the fearless Leonardo, after a mere command from the leader of the ninja turtles to "follow (his) lead." I did so by leaping out a window after him. He caught himself on the outer wall before we could land in a waterfall, and I caught onto and then clung to one of his legs. We had to sneak back inside the Daimyo's palace. I commented to Leonardo how much more ninja-like I seemed to become whenever I spent time with him.

Still, when we realized our foes were disguised as the friend we had thought right in front of us, all that time thwarting our efforts to bring his family back from where they'd been scattered before they thus revealed themselves to us, and we were cast out we knew not where to face foes who seemed endless back to back with no support or rescuers within view, Leonardo did not give up or panic. The closest he came to an exclamation of fear, was "They just keep coming Usagi!" I knew he was right.

When I replied, though, I only said "Then we will just keep fighting them Leonardo." He did not argue with me. Even when I was knocked out briefly, he kept fighting for the both of us. Thus, we survived until his family forced our foes to release us.

I was honored to have so fought by the side of fearless Leonardo again along with his ninja family. I went back home happy for them, Tomoe Ame and Lord Noriyuki, as well as the Daimyo of the Battle Nexus and his son. Indeed, our joint adventures, Leonardo's and mine, seemed to end more happily than many of mine.

He said it often happened that way, he and his family would often get into the craziest and most incredibly dangerous situations, and then find a way to conquer and come out alive every time. I should have known then, my friend was headed for a hard lesson. However, there is no way to prepare someone for that. Perhaps it is best then I said nothing of it at the time.

Months later, I got a disturbing message from Leonardo's father. All was not well with my fearless friend. Instead of panic, a knowledge he had been helpless in battle to save his family had manifested itself as a determination to the point of ruthlessness with enemy, friend, and family member alike. Making himself and his family members invincible was all he though about now, all he worked toward, all anyone could see in him.

He no longer laughed. He no longer smiled unless it was a sneer. That last bit was proven untrue when I came to visit him, though.

I came with the excuse of wanting to see more of his world. I was after all, a traveling Samurai. He showed us around his city, Gennesuke and I, but not as enthusiastically as his brothers. He often stood to the side or leaned against in a wall further in the shadows even if his brothers dared to stand in the light. He often remained silent even if his brothers chattered enthusiastically.

I am afraid I asked them many silly questions. So did Gennesuke. It was fascinating, but it did not make me eager to stay. Only Leonardo's guardedness and unspoken misery did that.

I wanted to help him before I left. I almost did, sharing my own story, my own failure to protect one I had loved and still loved more than any other, even him, even Mariko and Tomoe Ame, who awakened feelings in me no others did. Yet, if love is measured in loyalty, my continued loyalty to Lord Mifune spoke for itself. And I had failed my lord.

Leonardo loved his family most of all. His actions and continued loyalty to them spoke for itself. And he felt he had failed them to the point their survival was in spite of, not due, to his limited abilities to protect them. Now he fought to make his strength and skill limitless no matter the cost.

I had come out the other side of the hardness that followed my failure to guard Lord Mifune. Leonardo had not come out the other side of his after his inability to guard his family. He almost did.

He took a step toward it, but then … Then my friend, Gennesuke was found missing. We had to find him. He was being a fool, though he didn't know it, wandering the city the turtle ninja called home, yet hid in, by himself like it was "our" land, "our" home, as if it would not find him strange. It did.

People panicked. I asked the turtles how one tracked in a city of stone and then we heard screams. They merely said, "that way."

We found him there, and Casey Jones, who looked enough like all the others who lived in that city not to frighten them, saved Gennesuke with some excuse about a costume party. They both rode away on a vehicle that seemed to move by itself. Donatello assured me it didn't. It had something called an "engine" powering it, something like sails on a ship catching the invisible winds that then push them, I guess.

I should have been free to help Leonardo again then. Fate, though, had other ideas. One had followed Gennesuke and I to this world in search of us and Leonardo, for Lord Hebi. He was a member of the much feared "Assassins Guild." He was thus a hard foe to defeat, for all of us, and for a time, I feared we had lost two of Leonardo's brothers to his tricks.

Yet, it was my endangerment that caused Leonardo to "lose it" as I heard one of his brother's put it later. He landed a blow that began the great assassin's defeat. And yet, after that … Leonardo still feared.

Instead of a scream of terror, it was a growl of anger in his voice, when he pulled away from my hand on his shoulder saying he alone would decide what he could and could not change … Splinter thanked me for trying, and I went home. I felt I had failed again, but I knew how to handle failure better this time. I hoped Leonardo would learn to do the same.

It was over a year before I saw Leonardo again, but this would be a happy occasion. I came to see yet another celebration I did not know of before, one that only happened, or was hoped to only happen, once a lifetime rather than once every year. Casey and April, the two human friends of my dearest friend outside of my own world, were going to be husband and wife. But first, they had to both attend, and indeed be the centerpiece of, a ceremony it seemed would make it so. I was invited, along with Gennesuke, to this event.

Friends of my friend whom I'd seen before, and many I had not, gathered together in a place I'd heard of before. Everyone seemed dressed in the finery of that world. Leonardo himself was so dressed along with his brothers.

The ceremony was ready to start save for the missing presence of Master Splinter. Then he appeared, but only because he was being attacked. We were all attacked.

The enemy I'd heard of my friend, his family, and other friends facing, but had never seen, who had once so badly shaken Leonardo and stolen his joy and confidence, appeared. He had decided to crush them all at this precious ceremony. For once, I got to help them face this foe.

We were all, however, save the turtles themselves, nearly crushed under the building the ceremony was supposed to take place in. My ears caught the nearly fearful exclamation of despair from my friend and his brothers outside. Thankfully, some of their allies are very strong. We all escaped and helped them win the battle that day.

Then Casey and April "were wed," as they put it there, and a whole new life began for them. I stayed near Leonardo as the dancing and feasting to celebrate the event began. He had a peace and contentment on his face and in his walk I had not seen there before. My fearless friend had grown up.

He seemed older, wiser, somehow, but still fearless though perhaps in a new way. Soon, he would no longer be a "teenage" mutant ninja turtle as I heard his brother, Michelangelo, say later. They were all nearing the twentieth anniversary of their "mutation."

I wondered at how much he and his family had experienced already in so short a time. I had often been told by others much seemed to have happened to me in my brief life, how experienced I was for a warrior who had not yet reached seeing thirty full rotations of the seasons yet.

From bits of conversation I overheard among the many wedding guests, my friend and his brothers had had adventures beyond their stars, so far below the city they already lived under they called that place "the underground," and traveled through time itself to see the newly married Casey and April's fourth generation descendant. Their experiences thus seemed far vaster than those ascribed to me.

And yet, here was Leonardo, my friend, eating beside me calmly, the night after a day that had almost claimed all our lives. He was fearless indeed. I am still proud to be "Fearless" Leonardo's friend.

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes