What makes a Family
Orphan, street rat and part time stalker Karao was never cut out for the life of a Foot Ninja, he's too much of a nice guy...Okay, and he's a total doormat. But after finally finding his twin sister Karai after all these years he's not about to let the opportunity to reunite with her pass him by. To stay with his sister he becomes the son of Oroku Saki and right hand man of the Shredder. But Karao can see how wrong and immoral this life is, will he be able to convince his sister to leave the Shredder's side or be sucked down with her? And can four strange green mutants help him convince his sister or will they just make things worse? 2003 version. Follows an OC.
Hi everyone, it's nice to meet you, this is my first TMNT fanfiction so I hope you like it.
The only TMNT I own is a bunch of stickers and a pillowcase and doona cover my youngest brothers use. Therefore I own practically nothing. Except Karao, I own him, yay!
Chapter 1: Perhaps I came on too strong?
Seventeen year old Karao watched his sister over the top of his newspaper, well, it wasn't actually his, he'd found it on the park bench he was sitting on but he doubted the previous owner –miles away by now- would mind him using it.
Even if he was using it to hide his spying on a teenage girl.
But she's my sister, so it's okay, right? Thought Karao. She's my sister so it's not creepy, I'm not using it to perv on her or anything, and I'm sitting on a bench in broad daylight. I mean, sure, she doesn't know that I'm her brother or that I'm watching her, or that her brother's still alive. But I am her brother, so it's not creepy, right?
He dismissed the thought but he did fold up the newspaper and throw it in the nearest rubbish bin and stroll casually away. Karai would be here tomorrow, she came here at 5pm every day to run around the track one hundred times before dinner. He knew this because he'd followed her around and memorized her schedule –like a stalker- plenty of times before.
Karao shoved his hands into the pockets of his baggy, patched pants and snickered slightly, "I'm not stalking, I prefer to think I follow at a distance, incidentally, she's out of milk," he said aloud.
People around him gave him weird looks but he ignored them, they'd give him weird looks anyway, poor, homeless little thing that he was.
The last part of Karao's statement was a joke, he had no idea if Karai was out of milk or not, how could he? But the first part of that, while intended as a joke, was actually true. He didn't like to think of himself as a stalker.
Was he? Well...yeah, kinda. But could you blame him? And he had a good reason! Honest! And his intentions were pure. It had been six months since he had found his sister again, now living as the adoptive daughter of billionaire Oroku Saki, and he'd been following her around ever since.
He wasn't stalking for the sake of stalking; he wanted to get to know what Karai was like before he broke the news to her that he was the twin brother she hadn't seen in eight years.
The twin brother who had gone out to scavenge for food when their parents abandoned him and his twin sister.
The twin brother who had come back from his scavenging to find his sister gone and assumed the worst.
The twin brother who had spent seven and a half years searching Japan for her only to find her the adoptive daughter of Japan's wealthiest billionaire.
Why Karai? He wondered, why did you leave without me? I knew, back then, that nothing short of death could ever separate us, so when I got back and found out you were gone I thought... And then I find out your Oroku Saki's daughter. What made you leave? Why?
These were the questions he had asked himself every day for the past six months, since he had found his sister. When he had returned with a loaf of partly moldy bread that he had found and discovered the warehouse empty he had thought that maybe his sister had been killed, since he was sure nothing short of death would make her leave him.
But while Karao was much more flexible now he had been a stubborn little thing as a child and refused to believe his sister was dead. She must've been found by some policemen who had forcibly dragged her to an orphanage without waiting for him. Or maybe some bad men had taken her, his heart quailed at that thought but he'd pressed on determinedly, no matter what, she was alive and he was going to find her.
Which led to where he was now.
He'd tried to approach her before now but had always lost his nerve at the last second. This was partly because of the two bodyguards who followed Karai around everywhere and prevented people from getting close to her; one did not simply walk up and speak to the daughter of a millionaire. This was also partly because Karao was a bit of a coward and was afraid of how his sister would react. Maybe she had assumed he was dead? Maybe she had been desperately searching for him too over the last eight years? Maybe she hadn't and didn't care about him any more? He had no idea.
Which was why he had decided to study her from a distance to try and gauge the best way to approach her and what her reaction would be.
But it had to be from a distance, aside from the fact that he was a boy and Karai was a girl they looked exactly like each other.
They had small differences, the shape of their bodies, of course, Karao was slightly taller (or at least he thought he was), Karai's lips were fuller and her face more feminine.
But they had the same face shape, the same hair colour and cut, the same one they'd had as children, though Karao tended to pull his hair back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck with an old red ribbon he'd found a couple of years ago.
They had exactly the same eye colour and shape; it was their eyes that Karao was sure would give him away if he were to ever talk to her or someone who knew her.
It was these physical similarities that made Karao so sure he had finally found his long lost sister. Oh, and the fact that her name was Karai while his was Karao, that was a bit of a giveaway.
And even if they didn't have almost identical looks and twin theme naming he would've been certain it was her. Come on, this was his twin sister for crying out loud! They may not have come from the same egg but they had been in their mother's womb together, come into this world together, and spent the first nine years of their lives always together! He could tell his twin sister when he saw her.
And now he had to find some way to tell her about him too.
Preferably without freaking her out.
Karao glanced back to the park and saw Karai finish her last lap and head towards her huge mansion across the street from the park. That building probably had a track course of it's own complete with a tennis court and Olympic-sized pool, he had no idea why she bothered to come to a public park to run laps.
He was also slightly awed that his sister could jog one hundred laps without stopping. He could barely get through five.
"She must be some kind of ninja or something," he said to himself, out loud, Karao said a lot of his thoughts out loud to himself, he said them out loud because he'd gotten into the habit of telling Karai everything as a child and he said them to himself because Karai was gone now, so who else was he supposed to say them to?
He sighed, his sister was a billionaire and perhaps some kind of kung-fu wizard and he was a hobo, his chances of getting to talk to her just kept getting worse and worse by the second.
Actually, Karao wasn't that bad off for a hobo, he had some decent(ish) clothes he had bought with money he got from doing odd jobs here and there and there were a couple of nearby homeless shelters and shelters for runaway and kicked-out kids where he showered and sometimes ate so he at least didn't smell like a hobo. Or look like one, not too much anyway.
He rarely slept at the shelters anyway, only when the weather was really, really bad. On nice nights he liked to sleep on the park bench facing the Saki house. He couldn't see Karai even when he did this, partly because the windows were tinted black, partly because the driveway and front lawn were far too long for him to see through the windows from the park and partly because he wasn't that much of a stalker. There was no way he'd look even if he could see through the windows.
He just liked to stay close to her, he had eight years of being together that he had to catch up on after all. Besides, there were people who needed the beds at the shelters more than he did.
I am such a stalker, Karao contemplated with a grim smile, circling the block and coming back to the park to sit on the same bench he'd been on before, Karai was back at her house now so there was no danger of her seeing him.
This can't go on. I have to face her eventually. Every day I wait is a day she forgets about me more and more, he thought, folding his arms behind his head, crossing his ankles and leaning back with a yawn, shutting his eyes against the dim light. He wasn't worried about being mugged or anything, this was a good neighborhood, the Saki's lived here after all. And it was obvious he had nothing to take.
Tomorrow, he decided, I'll tell her tomorrow, it's as good a time as any.
He only hoped he had enough courage to go through with his decision.
I know I said I'd do it, thought Karao nervously, hiding behind a tree –like a stalker-watching Karai warm up, but how does one walk up to his long lost twin sister and say 'hey Karai, I'm your long lost twin brother Karao, long time no see'?
Deciding to just get it over with before he lost his nerve –what's the worst that could happen?!- he jogged towards her, calling out for her.
"Hey Karai!" He called, waving, his heart thudding a million miles per hour though he forced himself to keep his easygoing smile on his face.
He saw the eyes of both her bodyguards, Yin and Yang, widen as they caught sight of his appearance, they were probably wondering how he knew their mistresses name too.
Karai's face was unreadable, Karao could tell she hadn't recognized him yet, why would she? The odds of him being her long lost, probably deceased brother, where not very good, to put it mildly.
The bodyguards didn't stop him so Karao jogged up to his sister and stuck out a hand, "I'm your long lost twin brother Karao, long time no see," he said cheerily.
The skin around Karai's eyes tightened and the usually composed female gave him a look full of fury, her dead brother was still a sore spot for her.
She forced herself to remain calm, "pardon me mister, you must be mistaken, I don't know how you know what you know but my brother died eight years ago. And I would highly appreciate it if you did not impersonate him." There was a sharp edge to the words 'highly appreciate it' that suggested physical violence and bloody retribution if he didn't stop his trolling right now.
Karao wasn't bothered though, he had, of course, considered that his sister wouldn't believe him, him and her being reunited like this was a long shot after all.
"It's me Karai," he said, grinning, "our mother, Hanako, and father, Iko, abandoned us in an old warehouse in Hiroshima when we were nine, I went out to find food and when I got back you were gone." He saw his sister's eyes widen, she had been so sure she was the only person who knew that.
He rolled up his left sleeve, "and I can prove it, look," he held out his left forearm, on the inside of his wrist was a large crescent-shaped scar, "I got that when we tried to climb the huge tree outside our window when we were seven, cut my arm open. I know you remember that." Well, he was reasonably sure anyway.
He looked his sister dead in the eye, "your name is Karai, and you used to be Karai Kimura. You were born on the seventh of May and used to attend HiwakiPrimary School. We shared a room together and you got angry at mother for painting one side pink because you were happy with having a whole blue room. We even had a pet fish we named Puppy, remember? I'm your brother Karai, it's really me."
Karai's lips parted slightly, her eyes wide as she searched for some way for this to be a trick, some way for him to be an imposter. He couldn't really be her brother, her brother was dead.
Right?
Karao smiled gently, "I know you have a scar across your left forefinger where you tried to cut your own meat for the first time when you were four." He didn't really remember the incident but he remembered the scar.
Karai gasped softly, she did have a scar there that she had gotten from cutting herself by accident.
Is it really you? She wondered, hoping against hope. She didn't want to hope because her wish would be destroyed if he was a liar of some sort but still... only Karao could know these things.
Karao reached for his sister's left hand, "and you have a burn mark on your left palm when you put it too close to the fire the winter when we were eight."
His hand closed gently around hers, his fingers brushed the burn mark he had mentioned as he brought her hand up so they could all see the wounds he had mentioned.
He touch was slow and gentle, trying not to startle her. But it was still a touch and she was startled anyway. So Karai did what any startled teenage ninja would do when touched.
Karai grabbed her brother's arm in both of hers and flipped him, letting go and sending him flying into a tree a good seven meters away.
The back of Karao's head cracked against the trunk, making him see stars, he slid down the tree, hitting his head against the dirt too.
He heard the sound of his sister and her bodyguards running towards him and he smiled ruefully. His last thought before the blow(s) to his head dragged him into unconsciousness was that yeah, maybe he had come on too strong.
Then blackness surrounded Karao and he lost consciousness.
There you have it guys, hope you enjoyed. (I've always wanted to write about a male OC and this idea would just not go away). If you've got something to say leave me a review, I look forwards to hearing from you.
Bye!