Vendetta I:

Amaya sat in the hospital lobby, numb with grief, her mind struggling to process the past few days. She'd been on a deep cover mission for over two years now. The Hamato clan had sent her to infiltrate a particular political block of parliament and subtly redirect their extremist beliefs, when possible, while whittling away at their power base. It had been a long and tedious mission, but she had succeeded. She was very good at her work.

Now was supposed to be her down time, coming out of her deep cover persona and reconnecting with family and friends. She'd barely finished her debriefing when she heard about the fire. Past the ransacked dojo had been the remains of Shen's home.

She hadn't even known that her precious twin had gotten married. Now her other half was gone, along with a brother-in-law she vaguely recalled playing with as a child and a baby niece she'd never met. Who could have done this? Why?

When she'd seen Shen's charred corpse being pulled from the rubble, she'd turned and fled. It was suddenly real and she couldn't bear it. She and Shen might have seemed like polar opposites on the surface, despite their physical similarity, being identical twins.

Amaya had always been tough and bold, full of ferocity and anger. Shen had been playful and sweet and full of compassion. They were like night and day, two halves of a single whole. Now she was incomplete. Someone had stolen a part of her. The best part. Shen was the light to her darkness and she was lost without her.

She'd fled to the nearest city, although calling it a city might be generous, sat herself in a park and began a combination of denying what she'd seen with trying to unravel the threads of how it had been allowed to happen. Her ruminations had been rudely interrupted by a colleague she'd only known in passing.

Before she vented her pain and frustration on him, he told her about Saki and her world tilted again. And so here she was at the hospital waiting for permission to visit him. How could so much misfortune have befallen the people she cared about?

Although Saki had been more of Shen's friend, she'd liked him enough that they'd been off and on lovers over the years although both had known it was never serious. He was still a valued friend and a powerful warrior. How could he possibly have been injured enough to be hospitalized? She couldn't even picture him in a hospital. He seemed like he would be an awful convalescent. A nurse approached her.

"You can go up and see him now, but wash your hands before touching anything in the room. Burns are highly susceptible to infection." Burns? Her mind drifted back to Shen's fate as the nurse led her to the room. Could they be connected? Her thoughts completely derailed upon entering the room and she couldn't stop herself from flinching at what she could see of his face through the carefully placed bandages. He noticed, but seemed more surprised that she was here at all.

"Amaya. It's been a while."

"I've been on mission. Deep cover. Just got out." He nodded thoughtfully.

"Have you heard…?" He trailed off, his voice sounding like rusty metal as the thought drifted off.

"About Shen?" Her own voice sounded foreign to her as the words drifted out.

"Yes, I have. What happened?" She felt like she was whispering now, but her words ignited a fire in Saki's eyes, or at least the one not covered in bandages, turning him from grief to rage.

"Hamato Yoshi happened to her!" He spat the words out as though they left a bad taste in his mouth. Hamato Yoshi? She remembered him. Another close friend of Shen's. That's right, Shen, Saki and Yoshi had been inseparable as children. Clenching her jaw, she met the intensity of his gaze with her own.

"Tell me." It wasn't a request. He sighed.

"You knew Shen and I were close?" She nodded.

"After you left, we become more." He spoke carefully, keeping his good eye on her face. She shook her head.

"You and I were never serious that way. I'm actually kind of surprised it took you and Shen so long actually. She was very fond of you…" He smiled at that.

"…and Yoshi." The smile vanished.

"Yes, but he was never more than a friend, although he wanted more." Amaya stiffened at that. The thought of someone pressuring her gentle sister made her tense with fury. Saki continued.

"I was going to marry her. We had our life planned out, until he interfered. You know Yoshi's always been the golden child and I was they stray they took in. Well you could tell that the way they always had me where a different clan symbol, the foot in a circle instead of their precious Hamato flower.

"Believe it or not, it turns out that was my family symbol. The family their clan destroyed when I was a baby. They stole me and branded me with it like a sick war prize without even having the decency to tell me. But I found out eventually. And you know what the Hamatos have always thought of your family…"

Yes, she did. Her grandfather had been a Chinese WWII POW that had ended up held by the Hamato clan. They had never forgiven him for somehow falling in love with a Hamato woman despite all the animosity between their countries. He had married her and stayed in Japan. His son, her and Shen's father, had also married into the Hamato clan, but it was a thinly veiled secret that everyone was a little uncomfortable with their Chinese heritage.

Their surname was Tang, still Chinese three generations in and her parents were too proud to bury it. Instead of being ashamed, they celebrated the joint heritage, naming their twin girls with Japanese and Chinese names. Shen was Chinese and meant spirit. Amaya was Japanese, a somewhat rare name that meant night rain.

It had been awkward how her parents rubbed it in everyone's face, but Amaya had never minded. She'd always liked challenging anyone who had a problem with her and enjoyed shutting them up with her undeniable skill.

Shen had been more sensitive and Amaya had known how the snide comments and sideways glances hurt and cowed her vibrant spirit, dimming her light. That had always infuriated Amaya and had been the cause of most of her childhood fights.

She'd always thought that Saki and Yoshi protected Shen from it too. To think that she'd been mistaken about Yoshi stung. When he was sure Amaya had absorbed his meaning, Saki continued.

"He wanted her to marry him instead and the family pushed and pushed until she gave in." Amaya cringed, considering how terrible that must have been for her sister. But he was right, Shen would have buckled under such pressure even as it suffocated her very soul.

"It was more complicated than that. She was already with child." Amaya's jaw fell open and Saki clenched his jaw. "I said that we had planned to get married. We would have been married before she was born. We were just…carried away." Amaya just sat there stunned.

"Did Yoshi know?"

"No. And when she broke off our engagement to please the Hamato clan, I thought it best it stay that way." The way he said it suggested, that he did not think it best, just better for Shen's miserable new future.

"There's no way Shen could have lived with such a lie." He shook his head.

"No. She could not. A few months after our daughter was born, she couldn't take it anymore. She sent word to me that she was going to tell him." He took a deep breath before continuing as though this next part was going to be hard to tell and Amaya knew they were coming up on the end of the tale.

"I went to the house as fast as I could, but I was too late. She'd already told him and he completely lost it." His voice wavered.

"Yoshi was destroying the house when I got there. The fallen candles had already started setting the place on fire. And…she was on the ground, stabbed to death." An image of her murdered sister appeared unbidden before her eyes as Saki collected himself enough to continue.

"I heard our daughter crying and barely saved her as Yoshi burned himself to death in his own home." So that's how he was burned. Saki gestured to a bassinet to the side of his bed, which Amaya had failed to notice upon her entrance, distracted by his scars. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she approached and gazed upon her sleeping niece, all that remained of her sister, Shen.

"Her name is Karai."

"It's a beautiful name."

"I intended to raise her on my own, but…"

"No, I'll help you. I wasn't there when Shen needed me, but I will be there for Karai."

"Thank you Amaya." His soft expression hardened once more.

"There's still the matter of the people who did this to her." Amaya's wonder at seeing her niece faded as her anger resurfaced.

"Will you help me destroy the Hamato clan?" Steeling her resolve, she met his gaze unflinchingly.

"Yes I will."

Saki winced internally at each bump in the uneven road, refusing to show any outward sign of his discomfort. The hospital staff had been stunned when he checked himself out with such serious burns.

Now he lay uncomfortably in the back seat of the car that he'd summoned one of his disciples to bring. Amaya sat in the passenger seat, holding Karai. He felt no guilt about lying to her. The core of it was true. Shen's death was the fault of Yoshi and the Hamato clan. That's all that mattered.

Amaya wouldn't understand the subtle web of events that connected it all. She was stubborn, direct and impatient. It was one of the reasons he kept pushing her away after pursuing her, despite her uncanny resemblance to Shen. He had needed to rephrase the past in a different way, so she would be able to see.

And it worked. She knew who was responsible now and they were on their way to his headquarters where he could recuperate while they planned the assault that would annihilate the Hamato clan. He would have his revenge.