Disclaimer: I own none of the characters from Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne or from Wolverine, I'm only borrowing them for awhile. Don't try to sue me, I'm broke anyway.

Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne/Wolverine

Rin Asogi liked to consider herself a practical woman. She handled jobs at her 'consulting' firm for various people, mostly just to keep herself occupied. The money, of course, was useful, but secondary to a challenge to keep her interested and occupied with a rapidly changing world. This case, however, had spurred her interest in a very different way.

"A male immortal?" Rin asked the client carefully, the black haired woman's eyes narrowing thoughtfully behind her glasses. Such a thing shouldn't have been possible, she knew. In her experience the mysterious 'Fruit of Time' only made women immortal, the poor men who encountered it were simply changed into maddened and deadly Angels.

Mimi looked equally startled, the purple haired young girl pausing as she carried in the tea. "It's impossible," she said as she set the tray down.

"I think not," the young woman said confidently as she put the folder on the desk and flipped it open, "I have photographic evidence."

"Oh?" Rin looked intrigued as she adjusted her square framed glasses. She gazed at the photos only to freeze in stunned recognition.

The first photo was dated from the nineteen sixties, featuring a brown haired man in rough, western clothing. His hair was swept back oddly, and distinctive sideburns marked the sides of his face. The second photo was from New York and was of more recent vintage, taken with a digital camera. The man in question matched the earlier photo down to the silly sideburns.

"Rin?" Mimi asked quietly.

Rin shook herself, recovering her poise as she looked at her client. "What would you like me to do, exactly?" she asked her calmly.

"Make contact with him," the client answered honestly, "and confirm if he is the individual in the sixties photo."

"And why do you want to know that?" Rin asked curiously.

"He was... very dear to my mother. She wanted a certain heirloom given to him," she explained with quiet dignity.

After the woman left Mimi put the tea away and hopped up onto the desk after pouring a shot of vodka for them both. "You looked pretty shaken," she said as she passed the glass of booze to Rin, "what's going on?"

"I've met that man in the photo," Rin admitted as she pointed to the earlier one, "but back in the fifties and he looked just the same." She downed her shot, "If she's telling us the truth, he really might be an immortal."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

When the yakuza pulled out a pistol and shot her in the chest, Rin was honestly surprised. Not that he was underworld slime, that she had already figured out. But she had expected things to follow a certain progression: threats, damaged property, more serious threats THEN a attack on her. Instead, the punk just opened fire and killed her.

He and a compatriot hefted her body and slung her out through the bullet damaged office window, letting her fall several stories to the ground. The heard the wet thump, and like most people assumed that the bullets, not to mention the fall, had killed her off.

They were wrong.

Her body's knitting itself together was always a painful process for Rin. Worse was that there was little she could do as she waited to heal, the broken bones realigning themselves and skin and flesh pulling back together. She bit back the groans as she came together, laying on the street in torn, blood stained clothes but otherwise unharmed.

"Did they have to break my glasses too?" Rin complained as she stood up in her ragged clothes, "They're so hard to replace."

Rin focused her mind on business as she trotted out of the alley, startling several passerby. Clearly the yakuza were determined to move in on the local businesses and they were not interested in holding back. They must have heard she had been hired to stop them and sent out goons to deal with her in the most efficient fashion possible.

'Well,' Rin thought as she reached the apartment building she had been staying in, 'at least now I know I don't have to hold back.'

After sneaking inside, showering and changing clothes Rin felt better, leaving the apartment in a business suit she'd had tailored for her. It was a rather scandalous outfit, by modern standards, but Rin found it easy to move in and it had plenty of places to hide certain surprises. She adjusted her replacement glasses, glad to be able to see well once more.

Rin returned to her office, covertly taking in the police and passerby watching the officers searching the bloody alley. And she spotted one of her attempted killers, watching the goings on with a frown on his face. 'He's probably wondering where the body went,' Rin thought with a slight smile.

With skills developed over years of practice Rin shadowed the man once he left the scene, following him until he reported to his boss. The under-boss seemed upset by the news and cuffed the boy hard upside the head, then loudly berated him. Soon enough the older man was off, hailing a car before driving off.

Cursing softly Rin flagged down a cab, ordering the driver, "Follow that car."

"You serious?" the driver blinked, "Why?"

"Because I want to catch that cheater with his floozie!" Rin lied boldly.

The driver apparently accepted that explaination, tailing the car while hanging back far enough not to be instantly spotted. The ended up near the compound of a fairly wealthy family, Rin paying him off and also tipping him generously. "Please forget about this," she said as she pressed the extra cash into his hand.

"I forgot it already," he saluted her before driving off.

The Hayagami clan was known for being ruthless business people, and there had always been rumors of a underworld connection. Still, no one had proven anything, and the power of the family complicated Rin's job. She circled the property cautiously, eventually settling in a nearby alley as she considered her options. Then a soft sound came out of the night...

"Move, and you're dead," the man warned softly and Rin felt the coolness of metal pressed up against her throat.

Rin froze, faintly surprised that the man had sneaked up on her. 'That's not a Japanese accent,' she noted, remembering that the Hayagami clan were fierce nationalists. There was no way they'd hire a foreigner, which meant....

"Actually, we might be on the same side," Rin answered calmly.

There was a beat of silence then the man eased up on the knife as he asked her, "What are you doing out here?"

"I was hired to help several small businesses being shaken down by the yakuza," Rin decided that honesty was the best policy as she told him, "I followed one of their thugs back to his boss, and his boss headed here."

"Yer telling the truth," the man noted, removing the knife.

Rin turned around to see a man slightly shorter than her, not handsome but possessed of a certain kind of animal magnetism that could be quite powerful under the right circumstances. He had black hair swept back from his face and the oddest sideburns going down to his chin. He wore dark colored clothing, much like hers, and seemed to blend into the shadows.

"Rin Asogi," she introduced herself calmly, "and you are?"

"James Logan," he said as he warily watched their surroundings, "some friends of mine have been threatened by this clan. I want to make 'em understand that's a bad idea."

"Well, Mr. Logan," Rin said thoughtfully, "it seems we have similar goals."

"Just Logan's fine," he shrugged as he studied the building's high outer wall, "you think we should work on this together?"

"Why not?" Rin agreed.

The break in went easier than planned, if only because of their combined knowledge of human nature,. A half naked Rin made a lovely distraction, one that Logan capitalized on to disable the guards on one side of the walls. With their uniforms the two snuck right in through the gate, the sleepy guards barely noticing them.

"I'm almost ashamed that they're Japanese," Rin said dryly as they walked purposefully down the halls towards the center of the building and the likely location of the boss, "they're so incompetent."

Logan shrugged as he noted, "I'm just glad we ain't killing too many of them yet. It'll get hard to get out if we do too much of that."

They reached a corner and peered around, seeing large doors with two guards in front. After exchanging a look with Logan Rin nodded, the two striding out of cover towards the guards. They were mostly relaxed seeing two 'men' of their own unit walking up to them, at least until one noticed Rin's curves under the uniform.

"You there, what...?" he started.

Rin moved without thinking, instantly drawing a throwing blade and silencing him instantly with a knife to the throat. As she did so Logan leaped on the other, taking them man down near silently even as Rin finished off the first guard.

Rin took the machine gun off one guard and as she chucked to see if it was chambered and ready she asked, "What now?"

Logan checked over the other man's gun as he said, "Go straight in. We need to talk to the boss anyway, so...."

Rin hefted the gun. She didn't like them, in fact she found them rather repulsive, but that didn't mean she didn't know how to use one. "You take the guards on the left, I the right," Rin suggested as she carried the gun in a ready posture.

"Works for me," Logan agreed as he kicked the door open and they rushed in.

Rin fired as much as she could to disarm and cripple, but she knew at least some of the seven guards on her side weren't going to live out the night. She didn't feel sorry for them, they must have known what sort of person they worked for, but any death was regretable.

Logan seemed to have no such restraint, the smaller man going for head shots, mostly. He mowed the men down with savage efficiency, always moving to make sure he wasn't hit by a stray bullet. As the last man fell they turned to the far end of the room, where two figures waited stunned by shock and fear.

As they walked up Rin recognized the under-boss she had followed here. He had pissed himself in terror and now clung to the side of the raised chair, gazing on them as if they were demons. The woman in the chair, on the other hand, sat up straight, whatever terror she felt quelled by a iron will. She was a silver haired old woman, but she radiated a grim kind of control.

Logan smiled slightly as he gestured to Rin, "Ladies first."

"She's supposed to be dead!" the under-boss squeaked in terror.

"Lady Hayagami," Rin said respectfully, "I'm here on behalf of certain merchants." She tossed a look at the terrified under-boss as she explained, "Your employees have threatened them and their livelihoods. I want it stopped."

"And if we do not?" Lady Hayagami asked with remarkable calm.

Rin let another blade drop into her hand and flung it right into the under-boss' eye. He squealed and convulsed, blood spraying as Rin continued calmly, "If I have to come back, that will be you." As the man died she turned to her companion, "Mr. Logan?"

Logan gave her an admiring look as she walked up to Lady Hayagami. "There's a certain family your people have threatened," he told her flatly, "the Tokino family. One of your men has even threatened the life of the father, over your wish to gain their property." He looked her in the eye, "Stop it now, or what I will do to you if I have to return will make the lady here look gentle."

Lady Hayagami looked furious, but she also knew that these two strangers had already been able to break in and kill her guards and servant. "All right," she conceded to both of them, "but I will not forget this indignity."

"We wouldn't want you to," Rin answered mildly as they turned and walked out.

"Let's go," Logan said, the two of them starting to jog as they got out of sight.

"Saving a family in trouble?" Rin smirked, "How very samurai like of you."

"I ain't no samurai," Logan said as they made their way out, "but I can't stand a bully."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"That's a lot more violent than you're usually like," Mimi admitted as Rin finished her story.

"It was a more violent era," Rin shrugged. She took a drink of vodka, "Anyway, Logan went his way and I went mine. I never expected to see him again, much less find out he might be like us."

"So are we going to try to find him for the client?" Mimi asked.

"Take a closer look at the business card she left us to contact her," Rin smiled wryly, "I nearly choked when I saw it."

Mimi picked it up, "Hayate Hayagami?!" She looked at Rin, "So she's related to...."

"Probably she's the granddaughter," Rin smiled wryly, "I did name Logan in front of the head of the family." She finished off her drink as she mused, "The family heirloom she wants to give is probably a sword in the guts."

"So what we going to do?" Mimi wondered.

Rin put her glass down as she mused, "Find Logan, but do it quietly. We want to warn him this woman is after him, not lead her to him ourselves."

"Can do," Mimi agreed, knowing her hacking skills would be key to the search. She hesitated before going to her beloved computer, "Do you think he is immortal?"

"If he is, he isn't at all like us," Rin said honestly. "I felt none of the sensations that we tend to get around a angel." Mentally she added, 'But that doesn't mean he isn't something new....'

End

Notes: Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne, sometimes just shortened to 'Mnemosyne,' is a anime series staring a race of female immortals. Created by contact with the 'Fruit of Time' these women become ageless and heal from injury, but there is a downside: the Fruit locks them into whatever state they were in when they get the Fruit. Rin, for example, has vision problems which she can't get rid of and her partner Mimi is frozen at about ten years old.

Logan, in this story, is in between the periods where the villain Romulus was controlling him. He's in full 'wannabe samurai' mode, even if he still has his customary ruthlessness against anyone trying to kill him or his allies. I didn't have him pop his bone claws in this story as I'm not sure if he knew he had them at the time. Experts on Wolverine canon can let me know....