EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN

Part II

By Mike Bent

“I want some answers.”

I’m Wolverine. And if the thing I’m best at is screwin’ up my life, then I truly am th’ best there is at what I do.

I should be in Madripoor, waitin’ for my wife Elektra t’join me there for a second honeymoon. A chance to patch things up. See, we were happy. Somethin’ I ain’t truly been in a long time. But we were, even gonna’ have triplets. Didn’t seem that people like us, professional thugs ‘n assassins, could have it so good. Then Fate hadda’ go ‘n prove me right.

We lost the kids. Miscarriage, ‘n poor Elektra blames herself. If only she knew t’truth. Meant to tell her, only now I find myself in Japan shakin’ down agents of The Hand t’find my daughter they kidnapped. Thought The Hand were gone, but like always, they seem t’keep comin’ right back. Not that I mind right now, as I’m itchin’ for an invite t’do some hackin’. ‘Haps I should start with this goon I found lurkin’ outside a’Yukio’s place.

Logan knew that he was supposed to be headed towards Kanasawa, the lair and the ‘birthplace’ of the force behind all of this. It would seem that no matter how many times he buried the skeltons that kept popping out of his proverbial closet, they would always keep coming. And this one, this one may well have been one of the worst of them all.

Really, he wasn’t prepared for this. But then, when could he ever be? He wasn’t in the best of ways right now, not only from all of the mental and emotional trama of his failing marriage, but also from the fact that he was dying.

Normally blessed with his mutant healing factor, Logan was now without it, just as he had been for the past seven to eight months. And as the time went on, the worse his condition would get. He wasn’t even healing at a normal’s person’s rate by now, and cuts and scraps that he had with his last encounter with The Hand were still open and raw. His hands had to be heavily bandaged as those six holes where his claws popped from just wouldn’t heal over, the wrappings around his knuckles always being wet and red.

But he had to stop thinking about that now, and concentrate. The Hand had his little girl, the adoptive child he took in years ago. They were using him as bait, to lure him into a trap. And he would come. He had already lost three children before they were born. He wasn’t about to lose another.

But first he had to check on Yukio, the child’s guardian and protector. heck, for all intents and purposes, Yukio was the girl’s ‘mother’, at least as much of one as Amiko had ever known. And if The Hand got Amiko, they would have had to have gone through ‘The Wild One’, something Logan knew from experience was a difficult thing to do.

“Don’t make me repeat myself. Answers. Why are ya’ here? Where the flamin’ hell is my daughter?!”

He had found this lone assassin lurking outside of Yukio’s apartment, the place she maintained away from the Yoshida Palace, where guardian and daughter conventiuonally stayed, and trained. Likely after Amiko was nabbed Yukio came here, which is why Logan came here, to get Yukio’s help. Instead he found the scum he was looking for her help to take down.

But The Hand remained silent. Logan tighened his grip, leaning in close to the ‘man’. “I know you scum ain’t scared a’dying. But I guarantee, bub, I’ll make ya’ scared a’livin’.” But then before The Hand’s eyes could even go wide, a shuriken whizzed from over Logan’s left shoulder, striking the ninja cleanly between the eyes, reducing the spy to dust.

Whirling, Logan prepared for his assailants. His instincts, naturally, were right. There were more of The Hand, the ones who just silenced their associate. “Seems like a fellow can’t go anywhere these days without runnin’ into you guys. Not that I mind though,” he growled, as he could feel himself hunching over preparing to attack. “I’ll be glad t’ take ya’ down anyw-…”

<Not alone you won’t.>

Dropping down from above to land beside him was the very woman he had come to find; Yukio. Her ‘costume’ of a black body suit was ripped, torn and jagged in places, and there were clear open cuts and scraps over most of her body. Seemed like Logan wasn’t the only one The Hand had decided to torment.

<You look like hell.>

<Compliments, Logan, will get you nowhere. This time. Like you look better? But, I do not look near as bad as whoever took Amiko will once I get my hands on him.>

<Not if I get him first.>

<A challenge?> Yukio cracked a smirk at this, and Logan had to smile himself. Despite all that they had gone trhough, all that they would face and their individual physical conditions, Yukio still managed to maintain her ‘wild ways’. <First one to ten dead Hand doesn’t have to buy drinks.>

And with that she leapt.

Elektra was beginning to feel out of her league.

On all sides she was surrounded on all sides by ninja, warriors of The Hand. All in white garb. All looking to her like she was their savior. It was bewildering, to say the least.

It had been almost five days, nearly a week, since their appearance at her… correction, at Logan’s cabin, where they departed quickly, only giving her a name and a place to be to speak with them. A place in Japan, not far from Kanasawa. It had also been nearly a week since she had heard from her husband, Logan. Nearly a week since she had even thought about trying to contact him herself.

They were supposed to have gone to Madripoor together, to try to rekindle things. Only she had decided to stay behind. She didn’t tell Logan why, because she couldn’t. She reamined so that she could make an effort to truly walk away form her former life, to shed that away completely in hopes of finding a new purpose with her husband, a new way. But then, that’s when The Hand arrived and said that they needed her. And… she came.

She wasn’t sure, exactly, why she did it. Why she listened. Why she was willing to listen, especially to more, as she was sure she would find out in this meeting here. The Hand were her enemy, the nemesis of The Chaste, the chosen sect of warriors that Elektra had once been a part of. Once. Not now, but once. But maybe again?

Was that why she was here? Maybe it was because…

But before she could complete her thought process she was interupted by the speaking of one of the white-clad Hand before her. Here, in the middle of this abandoned warehouse thousands of miles away from home, surrounded by fifty or so ninja, she felt oddly… at peace. Comfortable. That worried her the most.

<Welcome, Elektra.>

<Please, I think we can skip the formalities, guys. I know we all know that I’m here, so I’m willing to listen to what you have to say. Please, just get to it.>

<Very well then. Elektra, we have asked you here because… because we wish for your guidance. Your teaching, and your leadership.>

And she thought she was stunned before. This… this she did not expect. She thought she might have been asked here to do a job for them, to call upon her for some dark and mysterious end, some bid for them to gain more power. Which they could still wish for, under her tutelage… yet, the manner in which the Hand facing her asked, it sounded so genuine, so sincere…

<I know, Elektra. It is difficult to trust us. To believe us. Perhaps it would help if we explained?>

She had sonce attempted to inflitrate The Hand, to try and change them from within, to ‘convert’ them for The Chaste in an effort to impress her mentors. Now… now they had come to her? <That might help, yes.> She couldn’t help but be a bit short. She was suspicious.

He hadn’t popped his claws yet and already his hands were a bloody mess.

The wounds hadn’t healed there yet, and the fact that he was slamming his fists repeatedly into the face of a Hand ninja likely wasn’t helping matters any. The assassins danced all around him, some brandishing weapons, others just using their bare hands. It didn’t matter to Logan, as none of them would stand in his way. None would stop him. They might cut him, and they did, they might wound him, and they did. But noneof it would matter, not until his little girl was safe. His only child. Ironically enough, the one he adopted and not the babies he had fathered The babies that he had caused…

But Logan was interupted from his thoughts by the sharp pain of a knife embedding in his shoulder, and then a bo staff colliding up alongside the back of his head. He lurched forward and collapsed onto his hands and knees. This wasn’t good. He was only getting weaker as this thing went on.

<Now I see why you always had a ‘sidekick’ or two around to help save you. For such a macho little man, you sure do get bailed out by women a lot.>

Yukio was a whirlwind of activity, leaping over one Hand to then strike another, defending the downed Wolverine. She wasn’t holding back, not in the slightest. She was just as angry as Logan was, if not more so. She had more of a right to be, as she spend her days with Amiko, raising her… in many ways the girl was her child, if not in name, then by right common sense. Yukio was known as the Wild One, and for a reason. She didn’t have a purpose to her self, she was reckless and regardless of her own being for the thrill and shock of it all. All for the dare to feel something, anything. But when she came to first guardian over and then raise the little girl… she indeed came to feel something. Something she was desperate to get back.

All around then Hand lay crumpled to dust. And yet more of them continued to come, leaping free of the shadows they traveled in. Getting back to his feet, Logan knew he had to end this and quickly, because the deeper it got into the night, the more of them there would be.

<Did anyone ever tell you Yukio you have a real gift for kicking a guy while he’s down?>

<I told you Logan, flattery would get you nowhere. If you want to prove me wrong and you right I suggest you start upholding your end of the fight. You’re looking sloppy, old man And distracted, a bad combination.>

Returning to the fray, Logan made sure to grab and proceed to break the ‘man’ who had stabbed him in the shoulder, grinning while he did it. Not for a love of the violence, but for an appreciation of the banter. He’d missed that, as in the absurdity of fighting ninja assassins on the rooftops in downtown Tokyo, there could be this real and personable banter. For all of Yukio’s supposed ‘insanity’, she sured helped to keep things in perspective. Logan liked that.

But what he didn’t like is what he saw next.

A Hand lunged for him, spear ready. But Logan had just been swarmed by several men. If he popped his claws he could hack his way through them in time to repel his attacker, but before he could, there was Yukio. She lept to his defense again, this time in the way of that spearman. She took the blow to her side, the metallic head of the weapon coming away crimson.

<… real distracted…,> Yukio grunted, collapsing while holding her wounded side.

Logan felt a growl in his throat, and then he only saw red. There was an itch on the back of his hands, and once again blood flowed freely from his knuckles.

She was stunned. She didn’t know what to say.

She had to go back, replay the words exactly in her head. To try and let it sink in, the fact that they needed her. They wanted her. They sought the same thing she did.

<There have always been different ‘sects’ of The Hand, splintered fractions of a whole. Ten in all, one for each of the ‘fingers’, each fashioned in their own way after an ancient model of power. Coincidently, it is a pattern that is mapped out in the Rings of the Mandarin. Each representing a force of nature, a force within each of us. All of them powerful, and like any power, all leading to corruption.

<It is not something we are free of ourselves, Elektra of The Chaste. But we are of The Light, those who have come to realize the errors of our ways, and you wish to redeem ourselves.

<Over the years our numbers have been few, as the lure of power to the ninja is great. It is, in essence, what defines us, what compells us and what defines us as the ruthless creatures we are. And that is indead the very thing we are; a starving creature.

<And no matter how much we crave that power, how much of it we achieve, the hunger only grows. Yet… there has to be another way. Another existance.

<We shall be truthful with you, Elektra. We know not what this existance is, or how to find it in ourselves. But we know it exists, bcause we can see you walk it. See The Chaste walk it. And we wish to as well.

<We are still Hand, sworn enemies to The Chaste, and vice-versa. They would have nothing to do with us, just as our kind would have nothing to do with being honest to one of those from your Way. The Hand corrupt, pervert… as you know from personal experience.>

And that Elektra did indeed know about. When she had entered The Hand, attempted to inflitrate them in a means to impress her mentors, she was not aware of the dark powers they possessed. She had no idea of the scope of their influence, and their sway won her over. Every day she coud feel it, the cry within her to just release, to give in to temptation and claim what she wanted.

But did she want power, like Tha Hand preached as being necessary, the root of all their actions? Elektra knew better. She did not wish to possess power. Yet she did wish to know power in her self.

And these Hand wished the same? She continued to look around the room to all those assembled, all of them looking to her. She swore they appeared more desperate now than when she arrived. Their gazes more insistant, pleading. Or is that how she saw it, how she wanted to see it?

Or was it what she was being lead to believe? Perhaps this was another trick, another lure, to draw her in in attempts to taint her again. To claim power over her.

Whatever the case may be, she intended to find out.

<How do I know I can trust you? Everything you say, most of it I knew. It was taught to me, both by my sensei with The Chaste, and with my time among The Hand. There were the rumors, of those of The Hand that wished to be saved, of the potential. That is why, mistakenly, I tried to join your kind. To do what you ask now. Why didn’t you come forward then?> She had to ask. In a way she was honored to be presented with this opportunity, as bizzare as that felt, to be glad for this chance. But a chance at what? She also resented being toyed with, if that is what was going on. Or just having her life thrown into turmoil, once again, before she has a chance to mke it right on her own.

<We should also ask you, Elektra, how it is that we can trust you? Why you shouldn’t lead us into an ambush of The Chaste, or to allow yourself to be corrupted once more, taking us with you?>

She had to admit, they had a point there. Maybe they weren’t prepared before. Maybe she wasn’t prepared before.

<I’m not exactly on good terms with The Chaste any more. Frankly, I’m not even on speaking terms any more with them, unless they speak to me first. But I hardly know The Path, the Way of The Chaste myself. It’s about intrgrity and honor and a balance of self and spirit, all of which I’m not sure I can ever manage to achieve. Let alone help others to get there, when I am uncertain lately how to get there myself. How can I help you?>

<Just as how are we to help you?>

She honestly hadn’t considered that. She had been thinking in terms of her helping them, as they had asked back in Logan’s cabin. But then, they had also offered something.

<Such as a way to bring back Nina?> She had to ask, and she did.

<Yes, we know of the places to search, for ways to do this. Like us, there is a group of The Hand dedicated to the arts of the dead and the dying, the realm of spirits, demons and dust. They have the ways to return the living. Not as the undead, but the living once more. We are prepared, Elektra to do this for you if that is what you desire.>

She was honor bound to find a way to save her friend. What choice did she have? Or maybe a part of her wanted to have no choice in this. Or maybe, if she did manage to do this, she might have done something right with her life, fixed a mistake, undone one of the tradegies she had caused.

<In order to do this, in other to help us to help you… To lead us on this path, to gain success for what we are about to embark on together, there is one ‘favor’ that will be required of you, Elektra. One thing you must do, one challenge to be faced.>

Of course. There was always a catch.

<Just a little longer, Yukio. We’ll make it yet.>

Logan spoke quickly to the woman on the motorcycle behind him. She was in a bad way right now, having been run through by a spear of The Hand. Nothing fatal. She would live. But then, he too had been hacked pretty badly. Both were bleeding and hastely bandaged. But both were determined to end this, to save their little girl, no matter what the invididual costs. They couldn’t die, not yet. Not before this was finished.

They had handled The Hand. None were left, all now nothing more than soot. Just as they would handle any other. During that fight the ninja warned that they were not the greatest threat that the duo would face yet. No duh, right? Obviously Logan thought that, as he knew he still had yet to face the person behind all of this, the mastermind of this plot. Yet still, The Hand warned that there would be an assassin who would come for Wolverine, to stop him. That ‘she’ would come for him.

After the battle on the rooftops the two had done the best they could to get underway quickly, after a quick change of clothing, Logan himself pulling on the yellow and brown Wolverine costume he had brought with him.

Wrapping up what was leaking the most and then finding a means to get to where they had to go, they were off. Logan knew where they were headed, where this would all go down. He knew from the moment The Hand in Madripoor whispered the place, Kanasawa.

It was the place where there was a particular Dojo, where he met and trained with his sensei, The Lord Ogun.

Getting off the main roadways, Wolverine pushed the bike into the terrain. Closer now, they just had to go around a corner, over a hill, through some brush and they would be there. They were close. He could see the peaks of the temple just over the edge of the tree-line, the sight bringing back many memories from his youth. He was young and hostile when he came here, and it was through Ogun’s guidance that he managed to find a balance within himself, at least in part. The rest of that honor went to Seraph, the original lord and lady over Madripoor, a woman Logan had once served. And loved. But then Ogun was corrupted by power, craved it, and had to be stopped. Ogun’s revenge spread first to Kitty Pryde, and now, it would seem, Amiko. Ogun would be stopped again. Nearing the structure, Logan prepared hismelf. Which was when he was told to…

“Stop!”

Pulling the bike to a quick arrest, Logan had to reach back to keep the nearly unconscious Yukio on the cycle with him. The Wild One was out of it, badly injured. But whom he faced, Logan was glad that Yukio wouldn’t have to see this.

Standing before him was the one who commanded him to stop. It was his attacker that The Hand just this evening had promised him would come. A woman clad in wrappings of white stood directly before him, her hand extended. In it, a sai.

The assassin had come.

It was his wife, Elektra.