Ryuka looked at the men before her, broken and highly in pain. They were well-trained and loyal indeed, for they would reveal nothing at all. "Perhaps I should have left them for you?" Ghost asked her, charging a couple of car batteries that the rest of the team was able to obtain from the city.

"No need," Ryuka told Ghost, placing a hand on his shoulders. "I told my grandmother that I would stay out of this." Her grandmother knew that she was an elite soldier, but Grandmother did not know the nature of her operations. She had told her grandmother that she specialized as a sniper, and information extraction... Grandmother Ryu thought that she was a hacker at most. Ryuka was a black-ops specialist before she had come into the Task Force 141, which meant that arson, torture and assassination were normal occurrences to her.

However, looking at her relatives, all standing before the tent, scared and confused, she could not help but to take her dagger (which Soap had duly returned in the morning) and thrust it into one of the men's shoulders. "You do not wish your own family to know this kind of fear," she said to him in Chinese. "When the ones you love are in danger, when every single move you make would bring them closer to their deaths..."

Tears ran down his eyes, either out of the pain, or out of what Ryuka had said. "I..."

"My grandmother is sixty this year," Ryuka added. "She is not like us, we are soldiers, we know what it is to die for our countries, but does your grandmother know what is it that you are doing? If she knew that you would be the one who would kill 40 women, unarmed with only but mere katana... how would she feel?"

This was more than just torture. Ryuka was using psychological torture, and Ghost knew it. Her dark eyes, they were filled with a dark light that threatened to kill anyone who dared to try anything else, but to the man, they were tear-filled and fearful as well. "My... my... grandmother... is... dead... cancer..." he stuttered between bouts of tears.

"She came to me last night," she told him, "She wants you to tell me what your superiors have planned for us... She does not want to have the blood of 40 women and girls on your hands. She would be very, very disappointed at you if you did not."

The man howled, both in pain and in sadness before divulging everything that he knew. She did not need to translate. Most of her family members could understand Chinese fluently, and the Task Force 141, they were so experienced in the field that they could even guess what that person had meant.

"So that's that," Soap concluded, poring over the maps that Grandmother Ryu had given him. "The radicals are based right here, in the center of your ancestral mountain, right beside a century-old cemetery. And to make things worse, there's a Chinese general behind this..." He had never thought that the Chinese would remember a grudge for so long. How many years had it been since the Japanese were defeated in WWII?

"We will not bow down to this!" Grandmother Ryu exclaimed angrily, slamming the table. "They are using this as an excuse to kill off innocent women and children!"

Mrs. Algren looked at her mother and shook her head. She had long retired from the field, but she knew that there was more than just that. "That general could not have thought all of this by himself," she told her mother. "And his target, may not be all of us... Only the Algrens..."

Aunty Algren, the matriarch of the American Algrens, nodded her head. This woman was the head of the US Army Rangers before General Shepherd had been. "I think you're right," she told Mrs. Algren. "From Ryuka-chan, our youngest, all of us are in rather high positions. Mother Matriarch, you must understand that this must be an organized operation from an organized enemy..."

"The Ultranationalists," Ryurei, Ryuka's sister said. "If a war would happen between America and Russia, they would benefit most without us hanging around..."

"The Ultranationalists, but what they quarrel do they have with us?" Grandmother Ryu asked Ryurei. "We have done nothing to them at all!"

It was at that moment in time when Ghost decided to butt in. "Ma'am, the Ultranationalists don't need any explanation to do what they do," he said, looking at Grandmother Ryu through his sunglasses and balaclava. His words, although blunt, were direct, and straight to the point. "Their target may be the Algrens, but I think that they'll just kill all of you for the heck of it."

"And we will not just sit here idly waiting for our deaths," Ryuka said, piercing her dagger onto the dot that represented the enemy base. "It does not matter whether they are Chinese or Russians, or that we are Japanese or Americans. They desecrate the lands of our ancestors; they will have to pay for what they have done."

Soap listened to her words, and knew that there was only one thing going in her pretty little head. "Alright Reddie, I'll comm Shepherd and see if you can be in on this one as well," he told her, with little more than a knowing smile. He knew that family was extremely important to her, and having almost the whole team right here with her, he knew that Ryuka would not pass up the chance of having the best of both worlds.

"Alright, if that is your wish, I will not stop you," Grandmother Ryu said to her youngest granddaughter after receiving a nod from Mrs. Algren. Whatever Ryuka had set her mind to do, could never, never be overturned, no matter what others had said. "But you have to promise me that you will be careful."

"Don't worry, I will," she said to her grandmother. "Ghost will make sure that MacTavish does not work me too hard..." She could tell that Ghost was smiling through his balaclava as she nudged him in front of everyone, while Soap just shook his head in slight disapproval along with her grandmother...

Those days had been the greatest days of her life...

Looking back, with her little daughter in her arms, she knew that no matter how the Task Force 141 had been rebuilt under the banner of the United Nations, whether or not she was now the leader of the new 141 with Soap and Uncle Price... Those days would never come back to her.

"Look at you, a warrior, just like your ancestors," Soap said to Ryuka just after she had shed her hakama and her gi, and changed into her light armor. "You should be shaking with fear right now for your family."

She turned towards Soap, and chuckled. "I am least worried about them, but more about you, Captain," she told him, wrapping her white arms around him. Her dark eyes, they were filled a light that he knew could only come from the ones around her. "If they knew that their darling little Ryuka-chan, has spent more than just a few life-threatening missions with you... Can you imagine what they would do to you?"

Soap kissed the very top of her forehead and replied, "I'll greatly risk whatever they will have for me." That smile on her face, was a smile that he would gladly risk the whole world for. He knew that they were on a mission, he knew that he was supposed to protect her, not as one of his subordinates, but also was one of the individuals concerned with the mission, but it was moments like these that kept him going.

"Oh come on, you big softie..." she said, her weapons already strapped onto her person. Her katana, held onto a belt-hook on her catsuit; her M4A1, onto a strap that ran across her chest, its ammo carefully stored in the various compartments on her Kevlar corset. Come to think of it, it was the first time that she had said anything "modern" in a long, long time.

"Alright, alright," he said, but not before gathering her in his arms for a quick, but chaste kiss. "I'm right behind you."

The Ultranationalist looked at the map schematics provided by the General's men and said, "This wooden shack is at least thousands of years old... It may not seem like much, but much blood has been spilt there. For centuries, the world has tried to rob these Dragons of their secrets to kenjutsu, but each generation has protected it so well that they failed every time they tried." The red dot that indicated the old shack then traversed lower, as if there was something underground, hidden from the eyes of the world. "And with the advent of technology, they used whatever resources they had, and placed their secrets deeper and deeper under the ground..."

The General, however, did not understand a word that the Ultranationalist had said. "What use would these secrets be to us?" he asked his counterpart, furrowing his black brows. "I mean, what need do you have for kenjustsu secrets?"

"You misunderstand me... You see, these women and children are more than how they appear to be," the Ultranationalist replied. "Their secrets are underground, yes, but so are a series of sophisticated networks that are linked to the various governments that they themselves have pledged their loyalty to. Apart from the main branch of the Algrens in America, their various daughters are also famous for being modern warriors of sorts, businesswomen, arms dealers, you name it, they have it..."

Ah, so that was why the Ultranationalist had been so adamant in taking the entire mountain. "So, you want whatever is underground in that mountain?" the General asked.

"Indeed, my friend," he said. "Indeed... And these women, they will stop at nothing to protect what is so dear to them. Once we gain those networks, we will be able to reach ever single beating heart that powers the blood of every single government that they serve and cut them off one by one..."

"Reddie, where are you bringing us?" Roach asked as Ryuka brought them through the deep forests of that ancestral mountain, with the permission and blessings of her family.

Ryuka did not answer, and only continued moving forward. She needed no guidance device, not even a GPS, because when she was but a small child, she had been on this very mountain, blindfolded, and left to find her own way to their destination. The call of the birds, the scents of the trees and the feel of the grass beneath her feet, she knew her way just by judging their changes...

Soon, forest changed into a straight road, a pathway, leading to an ancient ceramics kiln, and an even older wooden shack. "We're here," she announced, a sense of relief evident in her voice.

"Where... are we?" Toad asked, looking all around him. "I mean, we're still on the same mountain?"

"Ken wa kioki... Kenjutsu wa satsujin jutsu..." Ryuka murmured, thrusting her katana into the ground. "The sword is only a weapon to kill, and kenjutsu is the skill of murder," she translated. "Toad, Archer, get the C4, we need to blow this place up before anyone is able to get in."

Soap did not understand why. "I thought that this place is highly sacred to your family..." he asked her. "Why do you want to..."

Ryuka did not give him a chance to talk further, covering his mouth with her hand. "Sir, enough," she said, "Ghost, Roach, come with us, the rest of you, plant the C4 as I told you to."

As it turned out, the shack and the kiln were just relics of history. What was important was far beneath the earth... Once they entered the shack, Ryuka turned one of the ceramic pots around, revealing a number pad... After keying in a few numbers, two flaps in the floor opened, revealing a stairway leading them underground.

Using the lights on their weapons to illuminate their way, the four members of the 141 descended the stairs, and came towards what seemed to be highly hidden bunker. "My line is called the Daughters of the Dragons. Not only do we extend to the Algrens, descended from the male line in America, but we are also linked to various other family dynasties around the world... And these families are linked to various institutions and governments around the world..."

The Rothschilds in the banking sector, the Hyatts in the hotel industry... If the enemy would lay hands on these networks of information, they would lay hands on the world itself. "So you'd have no choice but to destroy this bunker..." Soap concluded, looking at Ryuka, who was now busy tapping at a series of keyboards.

"Yes, but before that, I will need to inform those involved in this," she said, "They will know what to do..." With those words, she pressed a button, and told them to leave that place, including Soap. "I will be fine here. Captain, get the job done..."

As much as Soap felt that it was a bad idea to leave Ryuka alone right there, he knew that it was what he needed to do. "I'll wait for you," he told her, caressing the side of her face before he left with Roach and Ghost. But just as they had returned to the surface, the entrance to the bunker sealed from within, they were met with guns of various make, Toad, Archer and Meat, now bound and gagged.

A Chinese man stepped out of the many guns and soldiers, tall and mustached, he had an air of confidence and dominance. "Well, well, well, it seems that the Japanese have their Western protectors," he said to them in English. "Tell me, what is below that shack of yours, and I will think of letting you live."

HAN: Thank you wolfdemon22 for your kind and generous review!