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Leorai is the het ship between Leonardo and Karai from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fandom.
Canon[]
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012)[]
Leonardo is the first of the Turtles that Karai meets. While she attacks and fights with him often, she never does him any serious harm and just enjoys sparring with a worthy opponent. Leonardo, in turn, was both confused by and attracted to Karai (as shown in the episode "New Girl in Town"). She is dangerous, but Leo believed that there was some good in her, but she betrayed him. She seems to be deceitful and manipulative in The Alien Agenda, using Leo's feelings for her against him, especially in his time of need. In Enemy of My Enemy, she returns, seeking information about the Kraang from the turtles. This time, instead of wanting to fight the turtles, she decides to make a truce with the turtles in order to defeat the Kraang ship. She goes against the Shredder's orders because she knows they'll all die if they don't set aside their differences and take down the ship.
At first, the turtles, mainly Leo, are very skeptical of her, and decline her request for a truce, but after she leads it away from the Shellraiser, they comply. Because Leo saved her and allowed her to speak to all of the Turtles, Karai develops some friendships with them for him. However, because he and his brothers tried to attack her father, the truce was called off and her trust in him was left now uncertain. Now she's vengeful towards the turtles and is willing to do whatever it takes to take them down. It was revealed in the Season 1 finale that Karai is Splinter's lost daughter (Miwa), who was raised by the Shredder. Leo seems more aggravated with Karai as she wants to hurt him and his loved ones more often, he tells her that her vendetta is with him, not his family. In Follow The Leader, Splinter tells Leo that Karai is his daughter. Near the end of The Manhattan Project, Part 1, Leo told Karai that Splinter is her true father, but she neglects it. In The Wrath of Tiger Claw, Karai was thinking about what Leo said about Splinter being her true father.
When Karai finally realized that Splinter was her father, she betrayed Tiger Claw in trying to terminate the Turtles and Splinter, which caused Tiger Claw to take Karai BACK to Shredder to be locked in a cell. In Vengeance is Mine, Leo and his brothers stage a rescue operation to get Karai from Shredder. It worked well and Karai was reunited with Splinter. When Leo and Michaelangelo were training, Michaelangelo threw one of his water balloons at Leo, which made Karai giggle. When Karai was planning on taking down Shredder, Leo wanted to come along with her. Karai came close to Leo and temporarily blinded him with a smoke egg. Splinter, Leo and his brothers went to rescue Karai again. Leo was about to rescue Karai when all of a sudden Shredder broke the chain that was holding Karai's cage, which caused her to fall into the mutagen. When she becomes a mutant, Leo appears to be one of the only people (aside from Splinter) that can help briefly restore Karai's mind by reminding her of who she is. In the episode Tale of the Yokai, the baby Karai meets Leo, who had traveled back in time.
In season 3, the turtles search for Karai. Aided by a DNA tracker that Donnie has whipped up, the Turtles are able to locate and identify some serpent scales belonging to Karai where Splinter last saw her. Soon the search leads to the warehouse after a fight with Shredder’s henchmen. However, the Kraang droids are already inside the warehouse, and Karai fortuitously takes them down, saving the Turtles some trouble. The boys immediately try to communicate with Karai sans Donnie, who asserts that Karai is losing her sentience by the hour. However, Leo persists in communicating with her, eventually causing Karai to utter his name from memory and effortlessly shapeshift into her human form (still remaining a mutant). Leo asks her to return to their home with them, but she utters that she's too dangerous. Just then, Fishface and Rahzar arrive, Rahzar having picked up a whiff of the Turtles, stunning Karai with a taser. Leo yells, “Karai, no!” and the Turtles leapt to save her, but were kept at bay with a poisonous smoke bomb. What both Steranko and Zeck don't realize is that Donnie had planted some Spy-Roaches on Steranko during their fight with him. Down at the docks, the meeting goes down as scheduled, Zeck and Steranko proposing that the Shredder provide them with a safe passage out of the city in exchange for Karai's well-being. His proposal of allowing Zeck and Steranko to leave this encounter alive if they give him Karai is interrupted when Leo shouts out, making the predominant offer: If they free Karai, he'll let all of them walk away with their lives. Both Leo and his brothers leap down to battle the Shredder while Fishface and Zeck face off and Rahzar and Steranko face off, Karai caught in the middle of their confrontation. The Turtles manage to put up a good fight against the Shredder as they score some hits on him. Mikey, Raph, and Leo managing the majority of them. Leaving his fight with the Shredder, Leo manages to kick both Rahzar and Steranko away from Karai and manages to free her from her restraints with a Katana. He then whispers to her to flee while she has the opportunity; whereupon Karai motions to the east toward the city, and utters the word “comet” before heeding Leo and escaping into the ocean. Leo begins to puzzle over what she could've meant by that word, while the Shredder rants about the departure of his surrogate daughter. Leo quickly throws smoke bombs in his face, allowing himself and his brothers to escape, leaving the Shredder thoroughly upset.
Continuing from the previous episode “Serpent Hunt”, the Turtles discuss what Karai could have met by the word "comet" that she told Leo, Casey wondering if a comet is hurtling towards Earth and April suggesting a hideout. On the internet, Donnie has managed to find three locations in the city with the word comet in them: Comet Cleaners, Argosy Theater (a movie with the word comet in it is playing there), and the Comet Coaster at Coney Island, so the team decides to split up into pairs to check each location. Donnie distributes Retro-mutagen sprayers to everyone just in case they see her but warns them that the Retro-mutagen may have no effect, as Karai is a "special mutant".
At Coney Island, Leo and Mikey are searching for Karai, but they are having no luck finding her like the others. The two then hear a noise behind them, which was made by Karai, who rapidly slithers into the Ghost House. Leo and Mikey pursue her into the building, getting spooked by the stuff that pops out at them. Eventually, they spot Karai again and chase her into the Hall of Mirrors. Leo manages to succeed in making her calm down, until Zeck and Steranko arrive and she is scared off. Zeck and Steranko manage to spot Mikey hiding and they threaten to kill the others in the van if he doesn't come out. Leo tells Mikey to stall for time so that he can pick the lock of the van.
Karai comes to their aid and makes Rocksteady crush the vile. They split up and fight the mutants. Rocksteady managed to hold his own while Bebop used his cloaking device to cloak himself. Bebop was defeated when Donnie threw a smoke bomb at him, revealing himself and allowing Donnie and Casey to score a hit. Rocksteady was defeated when a roller coaster hit him, sending him in the air... and landing on Bebop. With the villains defeated, Leo calls out for Karai. Leo tries to change her back but it doesn't work with Donnie reminding him of how special Karai is. Leo asks her to come with them but Karai says no because she is losing her mind and is becoming more dangerous. Leo asks why she wanted them to find her, she explains that she wants to say goodbye to all of them and then jumped into the sea much to Leo's despair. The gang got home sad because of their loss.
Later, Karai had gone back to the city trying to scavenge, but a cage falls on her. It is revealed that Bebop and Rocksteady captured her for Shredder. Shredder is pleased and he promises to cure her mutation, but Karai isn't happy about this.
In season 4 Leo and Karai are obviously growing closer than in Season 3 and before.
In season 5 Leo and Karai's relationship has been hinted more through the episodes. They stood closer and their interactions were no longer lethal and deadly compared to season 1 and 2.
Fanon[]
This section is in need of major improvement. Please help improve this article by editing it.
Leorai is a fairly popular ship in the TMNT fandom overall, with more popularity in the 2012 fandom. A big draw of the ship is the early Batman/Catwoman dynamic of their relationship. Leo being a hero, and Karai initially being a villain that Leo tries to turn to the good side. Many believe that Karai is based on Lotus Blossom, Leo's love interest from the 1987 series. Though initially the similarities were very surface level, only being a female ninja from the foot clan, and her being Leo's canon love interest not being a thing till the 2012 series.
The ship initially started in the 2003 fandom, with many people interpreting Leo's concern and interactions as him having a crush on her. 03 shipping did die down a bit after Karai, who seemed to be turning towards the turtle's side, decided to destroy the turtles and become the new Shredder. More people left ship after Karai seemed to have ended up with Chaplin at the end of the series. There were rumors that Leo was going to have a canon crush on Karai, but Peter Laird shut this down to his dislike of Turtle's x Humans ships. Although there is no source on whether or not this was actually an idea by the writers.
Shippers hoped on board during the 2012 series, as Karai's introduction shows Leo having a crush on her. Fans of the ship in previous versions were happy to have the two be canon in the 2012 series, while also gaining new fans who enjoyed their interactions as well. Shippers enjoyed their relationship, until the season 1 finale revealed that Karai was actually Splinter's daughter, making her and Leo adoptive siblings. Fans who enjoyed the ship in previous versions were upset that the 2012 writers turned them into relatives, as no other version had done this. Shipping then became split for the 2012 fandom. Some fans abandoned the ship, at least in this version, due to the incestuous nature of the pairing. Those that stayed argued that it didn't count as incest due to the fact that they weren't biologically related and didn't grow up as siblings. Others felt that there was a disconnect in the writers room over their relationship, due to the other turtles referring to Karai as their sister, but no one ever bringing up that Leo and Karai are also siblings. Many often compare the situation to Luther and Allison in The Umbrella Academy.
On AO3, Leorai is the most written ship for Karai and the eleventh most written for Leo. It is also the ninth most written ship in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012) tag. There are currently 400+ written works.
Fandom[]
FAN FICTION
- Karai/Leonardo (TMNT) tag on AO3
- Karai & Leonardo (TMNT) tag on AO3
- Leonardo/Karai (Ninja Turtles) tag on FanFiction.Net
- Leonardo/Karai (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) tag on FanFiction.Net
- Leorai stories on Wattpad
DEVIANTART
- Leorai tag on DeviantArt
TUMBLR
Gallery[]
Variations[]
- Leoraigami refers to the ship between Shinigami, Leo and Karai
