A/N: Hello, there. This isn't my first fic, but it will be my first for Ninja Assassin. After watching the movie and seeing that the film didn't do Mika and Raizo's chemistry justice, I had to write something. This fic's theme is the song Saltwater Room by Owl City. I do not own the rights to the movie or song. Please, feel free to R&R (read and review). :3 I'd also like to give a special thanks to by fantabulous Beta, Luna Rei. -applause- Thanks, hon~

And, without further ado...

Only Time

Time together is just never quite enough

When you and I are alone, I've never felt so at home

What will it take to make or break this hint of love?

Only time, only time.

Chapter 1: Tanjao

It was a cold, silent night.

Mika lounged in a recliner on the balcony, enjoying the picturesque scene before her. The sparkling lake, turned a navy blue in the darkness, sparkled and glinted from the light provided by offices and food establishments. A sigh pushed through pouty lips. It was nice to finally get away from it all. Europol, the Ozunu, Raizo… After the incident in the mountains three months ago where Mika earned an itching scar just above her left breast, the mysterious ninja had vanished. The brunette wondered idly what he would do. He no longer had a master—a clan to kill for. If she remembered correctly from her research, he was an orphan. What family did he have to fall back on?

She stood slowly and raised her arms high above her head and stretched. She then lazily wandered inside of her quaint hotel room in search of some pineapple juice. She would be returning to the city and to her busy, monotonous life at Europol in the morning.

Another sigh left her lips.

"What's wrong? You've barely touched your food."

Warm brown eyes looked up into ones of matching color. She smiled. "Nothing." Despite her words, she continued to push her food around in the Styrofoam box.

Ryan forked some beef into his mouth and chased it with a bite of salad. "You'd think that you'd know better than to lie to me. I've been your partner for how many years now?"

Her smile melted into a grin. "You want the truth?"

"Nothing but."

"Okay." She took a steadying breath and closed her eyes. She could do this. "I still think about him," she blurted out. She said the words so fast they seemed to slur together.

He needed no further explanation to know who she was talking about. The graying male rolled his eyes and the corners of his lips turned down into a scowl. "Not this again. Mika, I told you, just let him go. He's long gone by now and probably doesn't even remember us." He was obviously agitated. "He's a homicidal mass murderer. Do you really think he'd even remember you?" The condescending tone in his voice was hard to miss. It was like he was questioning her intelligence.

"You don't know him…," she murmured.

"You don't either!"

"Whatever, Ryan." She closed the Styrofoam container in one fluid motion and was on her feet in the following moment. She heard him calling out to her as she stormed off, but ignored him. What the hell did he have against Raizo, anyway? His words became a faint murmur as the distance between them grew.

On her way back to her car, she tossed seven bucks into the trash. She had barely even touched her lunch. Why couldn't she eat? Something was gnawing at her, telling her that something was amiss. She rolled her eyes in frustration, fumbled around in her purse for her keys, and got into her car. The drive back to the Europol Headquarters was a relatively peaceful one. Sure, she had left Ryan with no ride back, but he was a big boy. He could find his own damn ride.

Once inside the building, she shrugged off her coat and stripped the scarf from her neck. It was the beginning of spring in Berlin and the temperatures were blessedly low. She couldn't stand the heat. Dressed in a simple long-sleeved shirt that fit snugly around her bust, a pair of flattering denim jeans, and boots, she plopped down in her chair. Once Europol had found out about her involvement in the destruction of Ozunu, she was promoted to Head of Operations—meaning that the gunmen and special ops groups were under her command. Ryan was displaced and moved to her former job with a slight pay raise. Mika thought the promotion was fitting.

After about three hours of sifting through mind-numbing paperwork and enduring a maddening, obscenely long, and boring conference call, she decided she had earned a break. She tried vainly to rub the growing migraine from her temples. She needed something to take her mind off of the stress. Anything. Then, it hit her. Her eyes suddenly brightened and she logged on to her computer. Using special data keys and classified access codes, she easily maneuvered into Europol's databases. There, she found what she was looking for. Raizo and the Ozunu. Just reading over the two names made her shudder and her heart leap.

As she expected, there was nothing on his whereabouts. So, she decided to do further research into the Ozunu. Did they have brother or sister clans? Were they apart of something bigger? After toiling away and staring into a glowing screen for a couple hours, Mika was ready to throw her hands up in defeat and shut the damn machine off, when she got a lead. It was faint, but it was something. There was another clan. Tanjao? Upon reading further into their history, she found that although they didn't communicate much with Ozunu, they shared most of their beliefs. They were a rather silent clan that kept to themselves. And, well, there wasn't much more to it than that. The only interesting piece of information she learned was that whenever they did come out of the shadows and 'handle business', their ninja would leave a circular piece of steel with the head of a lion in its center at the scene. It was called the Seal of the Lion.

Mika's eyebrows came together in curiosity. What did the Seal represent? What did it say about the supposedly 'calm' clan? She didn't have much longer to ponder because a box popped up on the computer screen. It was a reminder telling her that her shift was up. She instituted such a reminder to tell the workaholic side of her to give it a rest. She shut down the computer, put her coat and scarf back on, and left.

Mika felt cozy and warm on her living room sofa, thick blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She had a bowl of fresh chunks of pineapple in one hand and the remote in another. After flicking through channel after channel of reality show garbage, she finally happened upon the news. A serious looking blonde in a tight blue suit was on the screen, speaking of the horrifying death of the manager of one of the local banks. Parts of his body had been found strewn throughout his home. The surveillance cameras in his condo hadn't caught the killer enter, or even exit the building. The only clue the murderer left behind was a circular piece of metal.

With the carving of a lion's head in the center.

"The Seal of the Lion," Mika breathed. Holy shit. Talk about your coincidences. She turned up the volume, trying to get more of the story, but she was too late. The reporter tossed it back to the newsroom to check the weather. The brunette flung the remote across the room in frustration, not even caring as the batteries jumped free and rolled about.

Mika was already an admiring fan of the ninja and their mysterious ways, so it didn't take long for her want to figure everything out about Tanjao to take root. She had to get her hands on that Seal. Who knew? Perhaps it held the secret to Tanjao's whereabouts or a hint as to what their ideals were. So, she decided to call up the one person she knew would have any chance of gaining access to classified information.

"Oh, look who it is."

"Hey, Ryan."

"That's it? Just a 'hey, Ryan' after you left me stranded earlier?"

They sat for a couple moments in silence. He was waiting for an apology and she was waiting for him to give up the idea.

He snorted and she could tell he was rolling his eyes. "What do you want this time?"

"Did you see what just popped up on the news?"

He scoffed. "How couldn't I? That bank manager's death has been all over every news channel I've watched."

"So, um, do you think you could do me a favor?"

"Oh, God, what now?" he sounded exasperated.

"Could you maybe, oh, I dunno, get your hands on that Seal thing for me?"

"What? Are you insane? You want to go poking around in ninja clan business again? Do you not recall what happened three months ago?"

"Yeah, yeah, I remember. It's just I'm…"

"Curious? Nosy? Too stubborn to know when to quit?" he finished for her.

"Thanks."

He sighed and went silent, seeming to mull it over. After a while, he yawned and switched his cell to his other hand. "Fine. I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks! Oh, Ryan, you're—"

"But I am not getting involved this time. I'm sorry to say it, Mika, but you're on your own with this one."

"Yeah," she sighed, "I understand. Thanks a lot for the help."

His chuckle was dark. "Don't thank me yet."

In the morning when she came in to work, the brunette found a manila folder on her desk with her name scrawled on the front. Inside was a sticky note that read:

Sorry, but this was the best I could do.

Eagerly, she stuffed her hand inside of the bag and removed its contents. She was disappointed but grateful at the same time. He had managed to get photographs of the Seal but not the actual Seal itself. Which was understandable. After all, a man was just murdered the night before. There was no way in Hell the police were going to just loan out their sole piece of evidence to anyone who came asking.

Mika spread the pictures across her desk; looking for miniscule engravings, words etched into the metal, a way it could be used as a key to unlock something. She quickly yanked open a drawer in her desk and retrieved her handy dandy magnifying glass. She closely examined each picture once, twice, and then thrice. Her efforts seemed fruitless. Was there even anything to find on that piece of steel? Then, she noticed something. In the opened mouth of the lion, something was engraved! Even with her magnifying glass, Mika had to squint to read the writing. She scrambled for something to write with and something to write on. Finally! A breakthrough. Once she had copied the words down, she looked over her neat, lacy script.

"Inter terram et caelum. Aquis multis quasi magistro…," she murmured. What was that…Latin? She knew four languages: German, English, French, and Spanish. Latin was said to be a 'dead' language so she didn't bother to learn it. She only went as far as learning the prefixes and suffixes incorporated into English words.

Skilled, delicate fingers flew across her keyboard as she typed the words into a translator. Translated directly, the words meant: Between the earth and the sky. Him as a master of many waters.

Mika fell into her chair—a smile plain on her face. I've got something. Even though it's vague and cryptic, I've finally got something.

The brunette waltzed up to the receptionist's desk in the front of the building and flashed her a smile. "Hold my calls and push my meeting back to tomorrow at three. I'll be back soon." The old woman behind the desk nodded and scribbled something down on a pad next to her.

Mika had finally gotten a lead and she wasn't about to let it slip away.

As she trudged through the streets, the roads slick from a previous rain, Mika couldn't help feeling a bit guilty. She was taking time when she should be at work to investigate a little fascination of hers. She wouldn't be missed, though. Being Head of Operations sounded like a soul-sucking, imposing job, but it was just filled with completing mounds upon mounds of paperwork. In triplicate. Mika shuddered at the thought of returning to her office only to find a monument of papers awaiting her.

She pulled her coat closer as a sudden gust of wind picked up and blew across her face. Her nose was probably a soft hue of red from the cold and her shoulder length, curly, brown hair had been blown back and away from her face.

After turning around a few corners, she arrived at her destination. The brunette wasn't surprised to see yellow tape, police, and investigators scattered about. She looked up and chocolate-toned orbs scanned the building. She was glad she had come in the middle of the day. Walking anywhere alone at night—especially with the possibility of ninja lurking around—unnerved her.

Mika eventually gave up trying to get in through the front doors of the building and settled for the alley at the back. She walked along the narrow passageway for sometime before finding what she was looking for. The circuit breaker. There was yellow tape around that too, but Mika managed to maneuver around it and pry the small metal door of the circuit breaker open. It was just as she thought. The wires had all been cut. She looked up, searching for an open window. Sure enough, the only window that was open was open by, at the most, three inches and yellow tape surrounded that too. Yep. It was definitely ninja they were dealing with. The question of the day: Why? "Inter terram et caelum. Aquis multis quasi magistro." She recited the Latin words aloud, trusting that no one could hear her. "Tanjao, Tanjao…," she murmured, "Where are you?"

Mika locked the doors to her car and headed towards the front doors of her apartment building, only to stop and take notice of a man standing on the outskirts of a park across the street. After looking both ways, the brunette crossed the street and walked up to him. Her smile was small as she turned her body to mimic his and looked up at her building.

"What're you looking at?"

"Power's out again."

Her heart nearly stopped. "The power's out? How'd that happen?"

He shrugged. "Who knows? It's pretty strange, though. One minute, everything's on n' bright, next thang ya know, lights out."

When she didn't speak, he looked at her and grinned. "What's got you spooked? You're too pretty to be lookin' all scared."

The softest shade of red danced across brown cheeks. "Oh, it's nothing," she said, trying to assure them both. "It was nice talking to you."

He winked. "Yeah. You too."

As she walked away, she could feel his probing eyes on her back. She shuddered. But it wasn't out of disgust. It was out of fear. Had Tanjao decided to target someone in her building? Did they know she was attempting to track them?

Before entering her apartment building, she fished around in her purse for her mini flashlight. She switched it on and entered the building cautiously.

It was strangely quiet. Everyone seemed to be inside their homes or just out. She swallowed. Her limbs shook as she crept up the old cement stairs to the second floor. Every now and again her beam of light would jump to a corner or behind her when she thought she heard something. It was hard to hear anything, really, with her heart pounding against her ribs and ringing in her ears with its erratic pulse.

When she reached her door, her keys nearly fell from her hands, they were trembling so badly. Once she finally managed to unlock both locks, she pushed the door open with the toe of her shoe. Mika shined her light all around; into every corner she could possibly find. She took one step. Then another. Slowly, she entered her home shrouded in darkness. The moon wasn't visible from her living room window, so she only had the faint light of the street lights outside and her flashlight to go by. Everything in her home was either black or a dull grey. As she wandered further and further into the room, she felt bumps rise along her skin and the air became colder.

"Hello?" There was silence. "Hello?" she tried again. Then, her light fell on something. It was a bundle of a stark white clothe on the back of her couch. She passed her narrow kitchen and walked into the adjoining living room hesitantly, head constantly turning. Once she had convinced herself (barely) that she was safe, she reached out for the clothe. She ran her fingers over it and found that there was something hard in its folds.

Her palms started to sweat and her breathes became shallow. She gently and carefully unfolded the fabric until it was spread out across her hand. What she saw made her heart skip two beats and made her head swim.

The Seal of the Lion. She wanted to cry, she wanted to shout.

Suddenly, there was an arm around her waist and before she could scream, a hand over her mouth. Mika whimpered like a poor, defenseless little girl. The flashlight fell from her hands. Her purse fell from her shoulder.

Then, there was a dark, calm voice in her ear. "Mika…" Male. Familiar. Well, he's obviously not here to kill me or my head would be rolling on the floor by now.

She didn't respond. She was shell-shocked.

The intruder whirled her around and stared her dead in the eyes. She felt paralyzed. The ninja was clad in all black, katana strapped to his back. Then, he raised a gloved hand and tugged his mask up and over his head. Raven locks fell down and around his shoulders and a bold smile played upon his lips. "Mika. It's nice to see you again."

-End-