Underneath the Sakura Tree is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) fanfic written by BabyPinkPuppy where Tang Shen survived that fated night and the Turtles are her and Splinter's human sons.
This fanfic can be read on Archive of Our Own here
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Underneath the Sakura Tree provides examples of:
- Adaptation Species Change:
- While Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo were mutant turtles in canon, here they are very much human.
- Downplayed with Hamato Yoshi. Unlike his canon counterpart, Splinter remains human.
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Leonardo is portrayed as the least sociable of his brothers, having the fewest friends among them and even partakes in Self-Harm via cutting when the stress of leadership starts weighing on him.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: While we weren't introduced to Shinigami in the series until midway through Season 4, here we are introduced to her partying with Karai right before the Shredder finds out that there is presence of the Hamato Clan in New York.
- Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: Mei Pai Chi is implied to be rich. She had a ridiculous amount of money to casually give to Yoshi and Tang Shen to rebuild their lives in New York, and later she rents an elephant for the boy's birthday party, apparently as a joke at Yoshi and Tang Shen's expense.
- Dead Guy Junior: Miwa was named after her then-deceased paternal grandmother.
- Death by Adaptation: While in canon it was revealed that Miwa survived the night her mother died and was raised as Karai, here that isn't the case.
- Decomposite Character: This version of Karai is not Hamato Miwa, Miwa having really died when the Hamato estate burned down.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Before the boys were conceived, Yoshi would sometimes help himself to red wine when his daughter's death and clan's collapse start to get to him.
- In Spite of a Nail: While Karai isn't Miwa in this version, she was still raised by Shredder to believe that Yoshi killed her mother.
- It's All My Fault: Shen feels responsible for Miwa's death because the place she hid her while the Foot Clan attacked burned down before she could get to her.
- Lethal Chef: Without supervision, Michelangelo tends to be this, having hospitalized several people with his contributions to the bake sale.
- Making Room for Baby: After Tang Shen has quadruplets, the Hamato clan moves into a house that would double as a dojo.
- Mythology Gag:
- Tang Shen's friend who helped her and Yoshi move to America is named Mei Pei Chi.
- In the second chapter, Tang Shen visits an antique called Second Time Around ran by Aggie O'Neil, an the antique store April O'Neil ran in the original Mirage comics, the 2003 series and the live-action trilogy.
- The antique Tang Shen gets from Second Time Around is a figurine of a rat and four turtles, an obvious allusion to Splinter and the Turtles from canon. According to Aggie, it was sculpted by an artist named Peter Eastman who was popular in The '80s.
- Murikami's granddaughter is named Lotus, an obvious reference to Lotus Blossom from the 1987 series.
- Named by the Adaptation: While's April's aunt goes unnamed in the parent series, here her name is Aunt Agatha, a character in the 1987 episode "Case of the Hot Kimono".
- Related in the Adaptation: While in canon it's implied that Splinter's human DNA is what gave the mutant turtles their humanoid physiologies (making him their biological father in the loosest sense of the term), here they are Splinter and Tang Shen's naturally born sons.
- Younger and Hipper: Like with April and Casey, Vernon Fenwick is much younger here, happening to share a few classes with Leo.
