If you ask me, I have many memories of Oka-chan. She is the best mother a girl could ever have.
You see, until I was older, I did not know that she was a soldier. All I remembered was that her office was very close to our home in New York, and that nice people in uniforms would always salute her whenever she passed them. Ever since I could remember, I could recognize that round emblem, with the winged skull and the sword. Before I could even understand what it meant, I understood that those nice people were all working for Oka-chan.
Oka-chan was a fighter. She would always have her katana beside her, whether she was at work, or at home making those pretty bento boxes for lunch, her katana would always hang at her hips. I knew that Daddy didn't really like it though, he said that guns were better in these modern times, but Oka-chan would just smile sweetly at him and roll her eyes behind his back.
I remember once when I was ten Daddy was called away for a mission in Israel that he had to personally lead himself, he came back severely wounded, and Oka-chan, she did not even let a tear escape from her black eyes. She just told their men to bring him to the infirmary downstairs and told me to go back home. I knew the mission had gone awry, and Grand-Uncle Price was nowhere to be found. Oka-chan went into the control room and gave out her orders. Five men were sent to our home to protect me, I knew that Oka-chan and Daddy trusted them with their lives.
Oka-chan was deployed into Israel that same night. Not only did she take a few of the best men in the 141, she brought with her 20,000 soldiers. All of them were UN-Coalition soldiers, and with their presence alone, the Islamist insurgents quickly fled from Jerusalem, leaving without their weapons. That was the first operation that I remember Oka-chan handling. Uncle Price told me that if the men under Daddy would willingly die if he told them to, Oka-chan's would follow her to the very end.
And when Oka-chan returned, she hardly left Daddy and me. In the morning, she would cook a simple breakfast for me, and brought all sorts of Chinese herbs, traditional remedies and other healing foods that she had inherited from Oba-chan. I knew that if Daddy could complain, he would, but in his current condition, he took everything in quietly, even enduring the ginseng. But the doctors were surprised that after two weeks, Daddy was as good as new, and was fit enough to go on another mission.
"I do not care how bitter it tastes MacTavish, you are going to drink the whole thing down or I will put it in the IV," she threatened Daddy once when he refused to drink another ginseng concoction, and I remembered that Daddy almost wanted to say something in return, but he didn't. The thing was, they said that Oka-chan used to be Daddy's subordinate a long time ago, I don't know when that was, but I could certainly see the disbelief in Daddy's eyes whenever he failed to pull rank on her, or she actually used it against him.
That night, I visited Daddy when I finished my homework, and I asked him, "Daddy, why do you drink that stuff Oka-chan makes when you know that it sucks?" I was very young then, and I only knew to avoid those things whenever Oka-chan made them.
Daddy smiled and put his good hand on my head. "Well, your Oka-chan means well, torturous spider she is," he answered me, blue eyes twinkling. "She's been brewin' those things ever since she got into the 141. Had Korean ginseng patches all over the place and she taught the caretakers how to take care of 'em." He was talking about that base that they had a long, long time ago. "Had a hard time getting all of us to drinking that stuff, too, especially after we were off the meds. But hey, it works."
That was when I was ten. A few weeks later, Oka-chan gave me a bokken and led me to the training grounds. I was to learn kenjutsu from her, as she had learnt from her mother. I tell you, those days were awfully grueling. Normally, Oka-chan was always smiling and gentle, but the moment she put on the hakama and gi like I did, she changed into a different person altogether. She was vicious, wanting better and better from me as time passed. It took me three years to master the kenjutsu style, but it was worth it. Oka-chan told me that it was with this style that our ancestors made it rain blood in Kyoto every single night, right until the Meiji era came into Japan, and like her, I received my own katana when I completed my training. I decided to keep mine with me at all times as well, whenever I could.
In the days of my childhood, Oka-chan was a fierce warrior, much like Daddy. They would always be bickering over one thing or another. On a good day, it would be operation tactics, while on a bad day, it would be how they should train the rookies, and/or the yearly budget. They just agreed to disagree. Oka-chan, whenever she was angry with Daddy, she would curse in almost every language possible, and Uncle Price would pull me away from her so that I'll remain a "proper lady".
But as I grew older, I realized that Daddy was not my biological father. I forgot how I came to know that, but it seemed like it did not matter at all at first. But when I wanted to know who he was, no one would tell me.
"He was a patriot who loved his country," Oka-chan would always say, her eyes suddenly distant. I never understood why. For a long time, I had thought that my real father was a soldier that Oka-chan had fallen in love with before she met Daddy, sometime around when she was carrying me. Those thoughts were quickly erased from my head when I started to see the name: Vladimir Makarov.
I remember I was 13, and our teacher, Mrs. Ramlah had been talking about terrorists. I knew all about them, practically, Oka-chan and Daddy took them down for a living, and we were assigned to write a report on Vladimir Makarov. That name had sounded familiar to me, somehow, and thus, without a thought about the subject, my classmates and I skipped to the library to read up some facts about him.
I was shocked, in fact, we all were.
He was the guy who had shot down all those people in that Russian airport the year before I was born. Oka-chan told me before that it was a horrible, horrible massacre. He was the guy who launched a reign of terror in Europe equal to that of Osama bin Laden's Afghan regime in the Middle East. Naturally, the more we found out, the more curious we were. As we delved deeper into his operations, we saw the Task Force 141 appearing over and over again.
By the end of the day, I knew that Oka-chan and Daddy had something to do with him.
"I will have to talk to your teacher," Oka-chan told me when I told her everything about the assignment. She did not say anything more. The next day, we were reassigned to another terrorist, but the name still hung onto me. From that day on, it had become an obsession of mine, so much so that I learned to hack into the Task Force 141 archives.
When I was 16, I managed to break into a high-security file, one that mentioned Oka-chan being captured by this Vladimir Makarov in Tajikistan. I was about to read further when Grand-Uncle Price came into the room, and brought me to his office.
"Now, little missy," Uncle Price said to me in a business-like voice. "I'm gonna let this slide once, but if you are caught hacking into our system again, I'm gonna have to arrest you." There was a look in his eyes that told me that he knew something that I didn't. I knew it.
"Jiji, you knew what happened, I know it," I replied, staring Grand-Uncle Price down, the very first time I dared to do so in my life. "Oka-chan said that I lost my father around this time, I want to know how."
It was at that moment when Oka-chan entered the room, her black eyes not filled with that regal authority that I had always known when she was with her men. "In time, I will tell you, Miryu-chan," she said, her voice filled with some pent-up emotion that I could never name. "You do not need to be burdened by this information so young. One day, you will choose the path you would take, and when you have chosen, I promise you, that I'll tell you everything about your father."
This was one time when I was in a pickle with Oka-chan and neither Daddy nor Uncle Price would help me escape, no matter what I tried. However, nothing changed, other than the fact that my internet use was closely monitored. Still, it did not stop me from constantly researching about Vladimir Makarov, feeling a strange connection with him. At that time, I had thought that it was only because I was obsessed about him.
"Hey, you know what?" one of my friends, Tommy asked me. His father was in the military too, and our parents often worked closely together. "I heard that Vladimir Makarov is still alive,"
"Alive?" I asked. Of course he was alive; no one ever said that he was dead. "Where is he now?" It was ironic. Oka-chan and Daddy were from the organization which took him down, but I couldn't get anything from them.
Tommy chewed on his French-fry absently and said, "Guantanamo Bay Prison, duh."
Guantanamo Bay prison? But the place was evacuated during the Obama administration, right? It's supposed to be empty right now. "Are there others there?"
"Nope, just the one. He's been living the high life there, too."
"How do you know?" she asked incredulously. Tommy then explained to her that his father was now in charge of overseeing the NATO soldiers that guarded the site. Only one person had the clearance two see that man, and so far, no one ever came. "Wow…"
"And you know what, I think your Mom's the one with the clearance."
Tommy always had the craziest ideas. I did not believe him. "And why is that?"
"Hello, your Mom's a Four-star general, and we all know that only three people from the original Task Force 141 alive are your parents and your Grand-Uncle. She must have clearance to see the guy," Tommy replied. Still, I did not buy it, although a part of me knew that what he said was probably true. So, after that day, I left the case alone, and started to move on.
It was my sophomore year in the University of Columbia that I Oka-chan told me everything.
Vladimir Makarov was my father, my biological father. A few weeks before I was conceived, he had kidnapped her from her hiding place in Tajikistan and brought her to Shanghai, where he had been sheltered by a corrupt Chinese general. There, he seduced her, and threatened to kill Daddy and Grand-Uncle Price if she did not give in to him. That's how I came to be.
When they were able to pin him down, my father requested one week of freedom with Oka-chan in Geneva. He was supposed to make an escape at any time, but when they knew that Oka-chan was pregnant with me, he stopped and surrendered himself to the United Nations Security Council. That was why he was now imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. In return for his surrender, he was spared the death sentence, with three days of freedom remaining.
As it turned out, Tommy was right. Oka-chan was one of two people who could just go to Guantanamo Bay to see him without restrictions or questions. I was the other one. The very moment Oka-chan nodded her head, I packed my bags for Guantanamo Bay, with Daddy and Grand-Uncle Price's blessings. I never knew that there was a helicopter on-call for such trips.
When I stepped into the prison, it looked so freaking empty. But I could see that appearances were not to be judged at all. There were 100 NATO soldiers there, five tanks, and ten Little Birds with guns, which would be mobilized the moment anyone made any sudden moves.
I was led into a beautiful living room, with chandeliers and a roaring fireplace. This could not be a prison. This was a mansion. But there was one thing that caught my mind more than the finery. There were pictures, pictures that even I remember seeing. There were pictures of Oka-chan and I…
I saw a tall man, turning towards me in shock. And then I saw him, for the first time in my young life I saw him, that shadow that had haunted me. The funny thing was, he still looked like how he did in those documentaries and the security camera videos of his operation in Zakhaev International Airport, and that was about 20 years ago.
"Otou-san?" I asked. That was what I resolved to call him, ever since I knew that my real father was out there somewhere. This did not mean in any way that I had forsaken Daddy. I still love him to death, but knowing that my biological father was alive, it was as though a part of me that had always been empty had come back to me.
His eyes, they were heterochromic like mine. Well, one of my eyes was internally heterochromic, green on the inside and blue on the outside, while the other was hazel. Both his eyes, they were the exact same shades of green and blue that I had on my left eye. "Miryu," he murmured, the first time I would ever hear my father's voice.
He held me in his arms for the first time in my life, and I hugged him back. "You look just like your mother," he told me. In a way, I did. We had the same red hair and large, round and slanted eye-shapes. However, Oka-chan always disagreed whenever someone said that to her. She told them that I was a Slavic beauty with Asian charms, and it was only now that I knew what she had meant. I inherited Otou-san's high cheekbones and light skin.
"Funny, she always told me that I looked like you," I replied, causing Otou-san to chuckle. He told me that Oka-chan would never stop trying to contradict him, be it in the battlefield, or over how I looked. It turned out that she would visit him every year, and gave him photographs of me. No wonder he had every single photograph that even I had memories of.
This man, I might know of every single of his crimes, but he is my father. After so long, I finally could see him, and a tear ran down from my eyes.
It was the first memory I had of Otou-san, and I will never forget it.
HAN: Sorry for the Japanese family words. Oka-chan- Mother, Otou-san- Father, Jiji (usually not a nice word) - Old Man, Oba-chan- Grandma "-chan" is used for people close to you/or younger -san is for more formal settings.