"Ryuka..."
That voice... she knew that voice more than any single voice she had heard. From the very moment that he had spoken to her in Pyongyang, to the time when he had been arrested by her sister, in the name of the United Nations Security Council. It was the voice that she had both wanted, and yet dreaded to hear.
She had hunted him down, and he had done the same to her. The past five years when they had not known one another, the two of them had searched for one another to the verge of desperate obsession, using whatever resources they could find, until the day they had met in Pyongyang.
"Why?" she asked him one night in Shanghai. Still, she was not able to free herself from him, this man who had enslaved her in more ways than one. From the very moment they had arrived in that hotel in Shanghai, he had never left her, but she knew, that he had hunted her down for longer. Since that day in the hot deserts of the Middle East, his shadow had been cast upon her, and it had never left her, nor ever did hers leave his...
"Darling, you may be one of my enemies, but you are also a valuable asset to my plans," Makarov answered simply. "You, Lieutenant Ryuka Algren, are the most elusive jewel that I used five years to locate..." Slowly, he pressed a hand against her hair face, his expression almost tender.
Ryuka turned her head away, slapped his hand off her face. "Get away from me, you snake!" she shouted, but was only held closer towards him. Those dark eyes, they beheld him like how she beheld almost every single enemy that she had faced, with that sort of righteous vehemence that could only come from a daughter of an ancient line of warriors. In the end, it only made Makarov want her more.
He forced a kiss upon her coral-hued lips, remembering the threats that he had placed upon her. If she wanted the man she loved and the Uncle that she had respected so to live, she would have to give in to him, but still, she would not have submitted to him without a fair fight. "I admire your spirit, Ryuka," he whispered into her ear, his breath, so warm against her skin, slightly cold due to the winter's chill. "Alright, I will tell you why... Five years ago, a young Japanese-UN Black Ops combatant managed to sneak into a little mud-hut with her older sister... Like you have tried to locate me for the past five years, you were constantly on my mind."
"Why me, then?" Ryuka spat, pushing herself away from him, immediately using whatever she could to cover her ravishing body from his heterochromic eyes, knowing that her efforts would be futile... Makarov, he was a man of infinite hunger, and infinite desire, but apart from that, there was nothing else. Every single time she look at him, every single time his fingers had touched her skin, his lips took hers, she could see everything fleeting through her eyes... The deaths of her own brothers, the amount of blood that she had shed, just to take him down... "Why would you torture me so?"
This time, he did not advance upon her. "Ryuka, have you not done the same to me as well?" he asked her in return. "I know how it feels like, to see nothing but a shadow, when you seek that person that has been dwelling at the back of your mind, knowing that one day, you would meet right in the center of the battlefield... Do you remember Pyongyang, darling? You were so beautiful then, carefree and spirited, not embittered, as you are now."
"If I am embittered, you have caused all this!" she shouted back. From the very moment Shepherd had told her who he was, she knew. She knew that he was the Shadow of Zakhaev, that man who had caused the deaths of thirty thousand Marines, the man that had led the Chinese to defile the lands of her ancestors, and more importantly, that man for whom countless warriors had sacrificed themselves for, mission after mission, under the banner of the 141. She knew who this man was, and she wanted to kill him more than anything.
"If you are so displeased with me, then by all means, kill me," Makarov replied, handing her katana back to her. "You are proficient with this weapon, are you not?" He had seen her use it, and was almost a victim of her deadly dance... He knew how powerful she was with this in her hand.
Ryuka took the katana in her hand, feeling as though another piece of herself had been returned, and closed her eyes. In her mind, the image of Makarov appeared right before her, tall, and cold, and in her mind's eye, she would kill him before he was able to do anything to her... She would no longer be subject to his manipulations... However, something halted her hand, and it was more than just mercy.
No, it was something far darker than that. For five years, she had hunted him down almost to a degree of obsession, and for five years, she had fought to the end of her life and back, to undo the damage that he has done to the World. She would not stoop to his own level, no; she would do far better than that.
Without saying another word, she thrust her katana into the carpet of the hotel room, and walked past Makarov, only to have him pull her back towards him by her wrist. "I knew that you couldn't do it," he told her, pushing a stray lock of fiery red hair behind her ear. "You are far too honorable to strike down a hated enemy in cold blood..."
"Go to hell," she cursed, knowing that despite everything that she had tried, she was hopeless against him.
This time, Makarov chuckled. "Darling, there will come a time when you would understand, that the two of us, our meeting in Dushanbe, and our time here, they are decreed by the hand of Fate." Slowly, he started to kiss light trails from her neck, to her jaw line, nibbling softly where her neck and her shoulder met.
"Then Fate is the meanest bitch I'll ever know," she replied, knowing that there was no way out for her. For John, and for Uncle Price, she would have to pay any single price that he would have to ask.
The snowball that hit her right in her face brought her back to reality, from that memory etched so deeply into her thoughts, and when Ryuka opened her eyes again, all she could see was her beautiful, beautiful daughter, running towards her in her little footsteps, apologizing profusely.
"Oka-chan, I'm sorry!" Miryu said, blinking her large eyes at her mother, not knowing that they were heterochromic, just like her father's. Miryu, she was a perfect Slavic beauty, apart from the common rarities that she had inherited from either of her parents, red hair, and the mismatched color of her eyes. And yet, her eyes, although large, were slightly slanted, bringing an Asian charm about her.
Ryuka smiled, and petted Miryu's head. "It's alright Miryu-chan," she replied, hugging the child as tightly as she could. Her daughter, she looked so much like her father, not John MacTavish but Vladimir Makarov and she did not know it. She could not know it, until the time was right... Every time she looked at Miryu, she was instantly reminded of that man, whom she was supposed to hate and destroy, but could not, at the very end.
And even until that day, she could never comprehend why. Was her heart so weak, that it went all aflutter when he told her that she loved her, or was he right, that it was Fate that brought them together? So much so that from a single moment in time, their movements had shadowed one another?
Whether or not it was a cruel irony of life, or it was destiny at work, Ryuka knew that what had passed, already passed and it would do her no good to forever dwell upon those things. Yes, Fate was the meanest bitch the world would ever know, but Fate, however mean, was bountiful to the daughters that served the world well. From the darkest of her enemies Ryuka Algren received the gift of the greatest light, her daughter, her one and only child that had brought her from the deepest despairs of the last war that almost broke her in its final days...
And for that, Ryuka understood why she had to allow Makarov to live, even though he would forever be imprisoned, save for three more days of his own choosing. As the sun threatened to melt the effects of last night's heavy snowfall, she finally knew why she could never bring herself to kill him at all...
"Now, run along, child, don't waste this lovely day," she told her daughter, slowly chasing after her as the little ball of fire and of ice flitted amongst the trees that had guarded mother and daughter for many, many generations.
Long have they guarded those who would take their own fate into their own hands, and long have they protected those who would love and hate those they would by the sheer will of their own hearts... For when a Daughter of the Dragon comes through their boughs, she is safe, safe from the worries of the world, from the burden she herself had taken upon her shoulders, for the benefit of all.
And it was there, on that plain in the mountains where she would find peace, peace to still her own warrior's heart, amongst those that she had loved, far from those who would bring her harm. For on that sacred plain in the mountains, she was home.
HAN: Well, that's that! How do you find it? Not bad for a little ficcie, yes, no?