"What is it about me that you find so repulsive, darling?"
It was one of those rare times when Ryuka would visit the reopened Guantanamo Bay prison, the complex itself being reopened for only one purpose: to hold the most dangerous of all villains since the death of Osama bin Laden. This was the new and permanent home for Vladimir Makarov, and she was there in the beautiful sitting-room the NATO countries had fashioned for him.
She was no longer the angst-ridden Lieutenant who had lost her entire unit, fighting for survival in the war that was to be the greatest hoax in history. She was no longer afraid of him, but her hatred for him still lingered, even if he was the one who technically blessed her with the greatest gift she could ever receive in her current lifetime.
Those eyes, her daughter had the same eyes as he did. It made her wonder if his long-deceased parents also had the condition, the oxymoronic common rarity. The Spanish said that if one's eyes had different colors, they were highly untrustworthy, and they were right about Makarov.
"Your existence, for starters," Ryuka replied haughtily, trying hard not to scowl before him. She did not understand why he was in Guantanamo Bay and was not behind bars. Apparently, his surrender had warranted him a life of comfort, in order to keep him the facility; he was able to live a life of luxury within its walls.
Makarov chuckled. "I would like to think that I was the one who built your career," he told her. She was in her twenties when he first met her. Almost ten years had passed and still, she was so beautiful to his eyes. She was like fine wine which got better with age, he deemed. "But let us put the past aside, you will not come here unless you have something about our daughter to tell me about."
It was her way of torturing him, that much he knew. She would show him pictures of Miryu every now and then, and she would give him a few of them. She took so much pleasure in telling him what the child did or said, how cute and adorable she was, calling the scum that killed Zakhaev the child's father instead of him. He knew that she was no saint, that she was not above low-handed attacks like that, and he allowed her torment of him in that manner, mostly because he was anxious of news of his daughter. He loved Miryu from the very moment he laid eyes on her, even if he had only seen her face to face for 18 hours since the child was born.
"She begins her training when I return," she told him, looking at the area where Makarov could never set foot in within the facility, where any weapons his guards or any of his visitors would be stored. She only brought her katana that day. "She will carry a katana like I do when she completes it."
He smiled. "Miryu will be a great warrior like you, darling," he told her, reaching out to take her hand in his. It had never been soft, and it made him sigh sadly, knowing his daughter's hands would be the same as hers, but it mattered not. Miryu was a blossoming beauty, it was true, but in the world that they lived in, a woman's worth was not how she looked, but in how she changed the world, no matter how large or small the degree.
"She will not," came Ryuka's reply. "There will always be war, but Miryu will never know it for herself, only through me and her father. I can feel it; her soul is not for the fight. She will carry her own katana because it is asked of her. No more."
Those words only made Makarov more intrigued with the woman before him. She had a sense of… mysticism about her, As if she had been one of Tolkien's creations, had authors of his time taken women into greater priority. "But she is your daughter…"
"She is not an Algren," Ryuka answered simply, the clear bile and poison devoid from her voice. "She is merely my daughter, one of the Ryujou, legally able to carry a katana in Japan in public." Makarov knew, however, that she did not deny that Miryu was not destined for great things in the future.
"Why did you choose to fight then? You are a descendant of the Algren line, as you are of the Ryujou. You could have chosen a life like what you see for Miryu," he asked her further.
She sighed. She had never done so in front of him before. "No one has ever asked me this before," she answered him, realizing that he had been holding her hand for a long, long time now. "My parents were divorced after 9/11. They had no time for each other, and my sister and I were sent to the Kyoto Mountains to live with my grandmother. We were home-schooled and when we finished our A Levels, Shepherd came to us and told us that the American and Japanese governments have decided that the two of us would have our degrees as soon as possible and we were first accepted into the TSG under our mother before we got into the USSOCOM with Shepherd and my father after our training."
"So, I wasn't wrong in saying that I built your career," he teased her further.
"I built my career upon taking you down, Makarov," Ryuka replied. If looks could kill, he would be a dead man when he looked into her black eyes.
"And I gave you that knight in shining armor," he whispered into her ear. He knew how much and how deeply she loved John MacTavish, a clandestine affair between subordinate and CO that turned into a love match. "You love him so much that you would even turn to me years ago."
She slapped him, and it was not the first time she had done so. "I did what I had to!" she growled. "You had your men infiltrate the MSF for God's sake! You knew that Uncle Price and John would go to them for medical help after killing Shepherd… Why did you even bring this up now?"
"You look so beautiful when you're angry, darling," was Makarov's answer and he smiled even more devilishly to see her anger subside somewhat. "It never gets old."
If Ryuka had still been that angst-ridden Lieutenant seeking for survival, if she still had been his prisoner in Shanghai, she knew that she would have done something that she would regret to do. However, she was no longer in that situation. "You asked me why I found you so repulsive, Vladimir Makarov," she said, leaning closer to him, so close that he could smell the scent of her perfume. "I hate your guts."
Thus, she left, and Makarov could not help but to shake his head at how much a fool he was.
"Defeated by a woman…" he moaned.
But then again, were great men not all defeated by the women they so desired in one way or another?
