Who Are You?

Daken walked slowly down the hallway in the mansion following Rouge. His dark eyes warily watched for signs of movement, but there were none. Rouge had told him that the children were afraid, both the ones who had been imprisoned and those who hadn't. They hid in their rooms, sleeping away their fears. Daken wanted to laugh – those mutant children had no idea what imprisonment meant. Imprisonment went locked up in a tiny cell, deprived of food and water until you begged to be experimented on. Daken had been at the mercy of Stryker, as his father had, or so the now-dead man had said. He had wanted to laugh at the naivety of the mutant children, but stopped himself. He had been like that once, fifteen years ago, when Stryker first found him.

Daken's claws threatened to come out, but he managed to hold them in. A part of him told him that he was safe here. Rouge led him to a room down the hall. She opened the door, and entered it. For the first time, Daken realized that Rouge was wearing gloves. Why is she wearing them? He thought with narrowed eyes as he watched her caress a boy's face with the gloves. She whispered something to him, and he saw the boy's eyes widen. He looked back at Daken and then at Rouge. Then he cleared his throat and put his arm around Rouge's shoulders, as if to protect her from Daken.

"Hello," he mumbled to Daken. "I'm Bobby Drake, and this is –"

"I know who she is," Daken snarled. He glared at Bobby, who flinched and looked away.

"You could at least be nice to him, Akira." Rouge was fuming, and she counterattacked Daken's glare.

Daken gave a laugh that startled the other two mutants in the room. It was high and had an intense volume. As he quieted, he looked at Rouge and at Bobby with contempt in his gaze.

"No one has been kind or nice to me since Stryker came and took me." He spat at them. The saliva dripped down onto the floor. "For fifteen years I lived in that hellhole. I've been starved, beaten, and experimented on since you two were fetuses! How can I be nice to anyone?"

"How old are you?" Bobby whispered.

"Why do want to know?" Daken smirked with amusement. "Will it matter to you?"

"Fine, then." Rouge whispered as well. She had become wary of angering Daken since his outburst. "What can you do? What is your power? Stryker must have wanted you for something." Daken's expression darkened suddenly. His eyes narrowed again, and she felt his muscles ripple and tense. His voice was blunt and curt.

"Hand me the knife over there." Rouge complied.

Without hesitation, Daken cut his a long laceration on his arm with the tip of the knife. His face was expressionless as he watched the blood flow. Then, the wound began to heal. The broken skin mended and healed completely. The blood was still there, its tear-like drips falling on the floor. Daken faced them. Rouge's and Bobby's expressions were complete shock.

"I can heal, I can regenerate from anything," Daken said gruffly, dripping the last of his blood onto the floor. "I don't age. This," he motioned his face, "has been what I looked like since I turned twenty-four, a long time ago," he added. "I also have animal-like senses an claws. I have three very sharp claws on three of my knuckles. I can kill someone with them." He gave them a lopsided smile. "Are still trying to process the information?"

"No, it's not that," Rouge spoke. Her voice trembled, and she swallowed. "Logan has that mutation too. He can heal from anything, and he has animal-like sense and bone claws too."

"Is that so?" Daken remembered the tall mutant who had been there when he had woken up. "Is that the guy with the strange hair and beard?"

"Yes." He could see that Rouge was trying to hold in her laughter at his description of Logan. "He saved us from Stryker, when he invaded the mansion. He's my friend too, though he's more like a father to me," she added quietly. Daken noticed the tenderness in her gaze when she spoke of him. He knew this Logan by his codename, Wolverine. Stryker had spoken of him many times during the fifteen years, and had angrily snapped more than once that Daken was just like him in his gruff manner, ruthlessness, and stubbornness. Perhaps there's another side to him too. Perhaps there's another side to him that doesn't murder innocent pregnant women. Anger threatened to engulf him again, and he felt the tips of his claws, but he breathed deeply until he was calm again. I hate you for what you did to her, Wolverine. He would tell no one of what Stryker told him, of what he knew about him, especially to Rouge.

"Who are you?" Bobby's voice broke his thoughts. The mutant was now able to look him in the eye. "Rouge said your name was Akira, right? Daken must be your codename, but do you have a last name?"

"A long time ago in Japan, only royalty and families of samurai could have a last name. They called them family names, while the rest of the poor resented the fact. The peasants, fishermen, and merchants simply called them second names. My mother," Daken shrugged, "didn't have a second name, and I don't remember the name she took after the war, and I didn't know her. So by taking a name from a woman that I didn't know, I would be denying my heritage, denying who I am."

"You're from Japan?" Rouge asked. Daken nodded. "So you're just known as Akira then?"

"Or Daken." Daken was uncomfortable with people calling him by his given name. People haven't called him Akira since they did, and Daken was very careful to not think about them. They were dead, anyway.

"So you have your memory," Bobby presumed boldly. Daken snarled and the other mutant shrank back again.

"What is that supposed to mean?" He hissed.

"L –Logan lost his memory fifteen years ago." Bobby stammered. "He has no memory before that. No one knows why, not even the Professor."

Daken's stomach sank. He felt the anger come upon him again, and gritted his teeth until they hurt. He turned away from the startled faces of Rouge and Bobby. Daken opened the door and slammed it shut. He has no idea. Daken fumed. That monster has no idea of what he did. God damnit.

Then he has no idea who he is.