An eight-year-old Miwa practically stumbled head over heels down the stairs, giggling uncontrollably and reeling into the living room. "Chichi! Father!" The little girl scanned the room intently, blue eyes narrowing. Not surprisingly, it was heavily furnished. Wooden chairs made for toddlers lay strewn about; a wide array of playthings scattered on the carpeted floor provided a challenging parkour-course for any who dared set foot within a five meter radius of the area. Off to the side of the room, there rested a red satin loveseat, where Hamato Yoshi would curl up with Tang-Shen every night and look cozy as the couple watched their children play. Only now, the seat was accommodating the needs of a less frequent customer. She liked to keep her black locks sharp and short; her fair skin somehow managed to look pale even in the warm light of the fireplace. Her milky brown eyes were always alert; she was the first-borndaughter of the Hamato family. Miwa's sister.

"Father's not home right now, Miwa," Karai stated darkly from her lonely corner on the loveseat.

Miwa frowned, looking agitated as she crossed her arms and fixed Karai with a quizzical stare. "What do you mean? Where is he?"
"I mean he's out," Karai repeated irritably, standing from her seat and returning her sister's stare. "Where he's going is none of our business."

Miwa sighed, slouching against the wall and sliding down it until she was sitting. She drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them, looking at the floor forlornly. "What about Haha?"

"Mother is making dinner. We shouldn't disturb her."

"I want her. Mother!"

"Miwa-" Karai started to hiss, but a shadow passed over the light of the fireplace, and a woman's silhouette was already framed in the doorway to the kitchen.

The moment only lasted briefly; almost instantaneously, Tang-Shen was in the room, drawn by the cries of her younger daughter. As always, her movements were hypnotically graceful, like a willow in the wind. She alighted next to Miwa, crouching down and placing a hand on the ginger's shoulder. "Do I hear my little Miwa-chan calling for me?"

Miwa nodded slightly, "Hai. Where's Father?"

Tang-Shen's face contorted into an apologetic expression. "Musume, he's out."

"But where?"

Tang-Shen lovingly brushed a strand of red hair out of her daughter's face. "I do not have any details for you, but I believe he spoke something of...going to get his daughters a surprise?"

Suddenly, the world didn't seem so bleak anymore. Miwa's face lit up, and she stared in disbelief. "A surprise?" she shot her sister an incredulous look. "Karai, a surprise!"

Karai cracked a smile, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, kid. Now will ya stop moping?"

Miwa wasn't even listening anymore - she was bouncing all over the room like a kangaroo. "When will Father get home? I wanna see the surprise!"

"Soon. Have patience, little one," Tang-Shen laughed, scooping Miwa up in her arms and cradling her there. "Oi, you're getting heavy, Mi-chan!"

"Hai, I have to get big and strong, because when I grow up, I wanna be a kunoichi, just like Father!"

Karai snorted. "Father's not a kunoichi, you airhead. He's a ninja master."

"You're the airhead, you airhead!" Miwa protested from her perch in her mother's arms.

"Yamete! No name calling," Tang-Shen instructed firmly, sitting down on the loveseat with Miwa in her lap. "No fighting."

Karai scoffed and leaned against the wall.

"Mother," Miwa peeped, tugging at her mother's kimono. "Mother, can you tell us the story? While we wait for Father to come home?"

Tang-Shen put on an oblivious expression. "Hmm, the story? Well, I know lots of stories, Mi-chan. You must be more specific."

"Haha!" Miwa cried in annoyance. "You know what story I'm talking about!"

Tang-Shen smirked, still holding Miwa in her lap, "Alright, calm yourself, little one." she settled down in the loveseat and got comfortable. "I'll tell you. Once upon a time, there was a great, noble, brave man named Hamato Yoshi..."

"...and that man fell in love with a be-yooooo-tiful woman named Tang-Shen!" Miwa interrupted, faithfully reciting the line that her father usually said.

"She wasn't at that part yet, Miwa," Karai muttered under her breath.

"Can't we just skip to that part?" Miwa inquired.

Tang-Shen's expression turned solemn. "No, Mi-chan. A story is not a story unless it is the whole story - both the good and the bad. You cannot simply ignore the parts that you do not wish to hear; ignoring something will not make it disappear." she tilted her head to the side, smiling weakly. "...to continue the story...Yoshi had a brother; Oroku Saki. Saki belonged to the Foot Clan...however, he was raised under the Hamato household. Yoshi and Saki grew up together, fought together, trained together, played together...naturally, they fell in love together."

"With the beautiful woman named Tang-Shen," Miwa confirmed.

"Yes, thank you for clearing that up for us," Karai murmured.

"I chose Yoshi," Tang-Shen went on. "We married, and, in time, had a beautiful baby girl. We were going to name her Miwa, but..."

"But Oroku Saki was jealous." Karai cut in, like an ominous, sharp-edged blade. "So he broke in, started a fire, whooped your rear ends, and then stole me."

A heavy silence blanketed the room. Tang-Shen and Miwa stared at Karai, concern and shock clearly written across their faces.

"That's what happened, isn't it?" Karai rasped with a glare.

No response.

"Isn't it?!"

Tang-Shen stared for a few more moments, in stunned silence, before regaining her composition. "Yes," she whispered. "He took you away. Raised you for the first four years of your life. But Yoshi and I...we had survived the fire. And we had never stopped looking for you. We heard that the Foot Clan had changed its base of operations to be located in America...so your father and I moved here, to New York, shortly after the fire, in the hopes that we would somehow find you...It was around this time that...we found a redheaded baby, in a basket, on our front porch. There was a tag attached to the basket...but the only thing it told us was that this red-haired child was in great danger. That she needed a new family. We took her in and named her Miwa, in memory of our...lost daughter. When we finally found you, Karai...saved you from Saki..." she paused to take a shaky breath. "...it took a lot of...adjustment. For all of us."

"What matters," came a familiar voice from the man at the front door. "is that we are all together now."

"Father!" Miwa squealed joyfully, dashing up to her father and latching onto his leg in an affectionate embrace. Karai hung back, staring at Hamato Yoshi with an unreadable expression.

"Yoshi," Tang-Shen greeted joyfully, dipping her head in a slight nod before rising from her seat and moving across the room to reach her husband. She placed a slender hand on his chest, tracing the collar of his shirt until her fingertips reached his shoulder. Her gaze slowly traveled up his torso until it landed on his face, where she found that her vision was locked in place. They stared into each other's eyes for a few brief moments. Up until Miwa started tugging at her father's leg.

"Father, what's the surprise?!"
Yoshi gave Tang-Shen a rather unamused expression. "You told them!"

Tang-Shen gave a small shrug and a silly grin, "You were taking too long, I had to give them something to nibble on."

Yoshi shook his head and laughed, presenting his family with a box. "Yes. I stopped by the pet-shop today." He handed the box to Miwa. "Look inside."

In a matter of seconds, Miwa was cross-legged on the floor, admiring the contents of the box. "Wow! It's a turtle!" she giggled. "Father, I've always wanted a turtle!"

"I know," Yoshi replied evenly, the trace of a smile still fresh on his lips. "So have I."

Miwa gasped, holding the turtle up to the light and subsequently hugging him to her chest, "He's adorable! Let's name him Spike!"

Karai made a face. "Ew. That's unoriginal. Let's call the little runt Slash instead."

"I always thought a Renaissance name-" Yoshi started to say, but the girls were already arguing, and the words died on his tongue. He shot Tang-Shen a look. "Perhaps it would be best if we let them settle this dispute on their own."