Logan did not remember me, though it was not surprising. I had grown over the years, while he looked very much the same. He was tall and strong, rugged and primal. William knew what he had to do, and so he left me with one final order: do anything it takes to kill Wolverine.

I let William run to the safety of the helicopter that was waiting on top of the base, and faced my opponent. Logan was a man that had flirted with me once, when I was barely more than a little girl who had tagged along on her father's business trip. He did not know who I was or what had become of me- all he knew was that I was standing between him and all the answers to his past.

I pushed him back, and he drew his claws. It occurred to me that none of the mutants attacking the base had ever seen my talons. For once, I marveled at the reaction they drew. Logan's eyes widened, not in the terror that my assassination victims always displayed, but just in the simple understanding that he should not underestimate me.

"Holy shit."

Yes, Wolverine, it seems that Lady Deathstryke is more than meets the eye, doesn't it? She is just like you, but unlike you, she had been made a slave for over a decade while you were free to live…anger, irrational and stupid, rang out through my brain. For once it was not Lady Deathstryke fighting alone, but Yuriko as well. I hated Wolverine- if he hadn't attacked the base and ran away all those years ago, William wouldn't have had reason to kill my father, to use me as his adamantium project, to use me as his whore, his assassin, his slave!

I felt furious and despairing over what my life had amounted to- my freedom had been taken from me when I was seventeen, from then on the only vestige left of myself had been in my mind. The drug was still in my system, compelling me to obey William's command that I fight Wolverine for as long as it took so that he could make his escape. I knew that the dam would flood soon, but I didn't care.

I would die this day, from Logan or the water, and it didn't matter- I had died too long ago.

What followed between Logan and I was nothing more than a dirty knife fight. Stab, slash, slice, scratch, punch, kick…endless, endless violence! I don't recall exactly how it happened, my mind had been clouded, not only by the drug, but also my rage and despair.

I had my claws imbedded in Logan's back, the metal shredding the delicate tissues of his muscles and organs. I could feel his wounds healing around my metal talons even as I-

What? What is-?

I looked down to see one of the large injection needles protruding from my stomach. Looking back up to Logan, things suddenly became clear. His face softened toward me, and he stared deeply into my eyes. I felt adamantium course through my body without precision or accuracy- like water, it seeped into any space that it could find.

The drug's hold was released- my mind and body were my own again, I looked back to Logan and I couldn't say anything. I suddenly felt so sad, and then I began to shed adamantium tears. The metal leaked from my eyes, my nostrils and the corners of my mouth.

I felt myself slip down the edge of the tank, the water tasted stale and salty. I heard a distant clang and realized, just before my end, that it had been the sound of my body sinking to the bottom, where I would remain forever…

No!

Voices, muffled and distant, yet closer than they were moments ago…I forced my eyes to open. I was alive, impossible, but I was still alive, and damned if I wasn't going to help myself now. I could see shapes, blurred through the tank's dingy glass and water. Help me, please, I don't want to die like this, all alone in such a terrible place…

The shapes came closer, but my lungs were filling with the murky water and the adamantium was putting enormous pressure on my chest- I was dying, but I didn't want to die alone in the tank where the first terrors of my life took place.

Please…