Origins: Part I

Takamaru Akira had been born on January 31, 1868 on the eve of the Meiji period. Akira had been born from a dead woman, and he was taken away by a mysterious man when his umbilical cord was freshly cut. No one knew where he came from. No one knew who his parents had been. The newborn baby boy was found on the doorstep of Takamaru Yuusuke, a former samurai, and his wife, Hanako. For many years the married couple had tried to have a child but to no avail. When a small newborn child with an unknown origin appeared wrapped in a bloodstained blanket on their doorstep, they took him as a sign of their prayers and raised him as his own.

Yuusuke and Hanako named the baby Akira. The child who would become the mutant Daken grew into the prosperous family. His father had once been a feared and respected samurai, who was now a sensei who taught children like himself to defend themselves. He taught them kendo, the way of the sword. From the age of two, Akira remembered watching his father in fascination as he trained his students. He watched as the students grew stronger and faster with each passing lesson. Someday, the small boy had vowed, he would become strong as them. At the age of four his training with the kendo began, and his father did not lesson his iron grip because Akira was his son. For the next six years, Akira woke to find agonizing blisters on his hands. His feet and legs also were in pain from the mock battles he and his father's students had participated in. However, when a new blister came and bled, with the boy sore and aching each night, Akira smiled. He would become strong.

Hanako treated Akira with gentle kindness. It was she who treated the young boy's wounds, just as she had when he husband had been a samurai more than a decade ago. Hanako and Yuusuke had agreed to not tell young Akira about his origins. Stryker had told Akira that they did know his origins, but how would they tell a boy who knew nothing but comfort and love that he had been born to a dead woman? His father had certainly abandoned him, and hadn't searched for his son since that day eight years ago. However, Akira encountered cruel discrimination despite their efforts. The servants of the Takamaru estate had called the child Daken, which meant dog scoundrel, from his obvious foreign heritage. Although the boy did not have blue eyes, his eyes were larger and more rounded than theirs, and his hair was more dark brown than black. Akira also had long eyelashes, and as he grew older, became taller than any native Japanese should have been. The servants knew that Akira had been abandoned when his umbilical cord had been freshly cut. "Only a foreigner would abandon his newborn child," they had hissed at Akira as he passed by. "Your father was a hakujin; your mother was a whore." Akira never told Yuusuke or Hanako what the servants had whispered to him when the masters weren't around. It hurt too much to put into words. And so he kept the pain inside.

It happened in late November of 1878. Akira was ten years old at the time, and he was training by himself. He wacked at the tree with his kendo continuously, his mind only focused on the perspiration coating his forehead and the blood and pain seeping through his fingers. Moments later, he heard the sounds of screams and hoarse voices that had been deaf to his ears until now. Akira ran toward his parents' estate, where the screams were coming from. As he opened the doors to barren rooms, he began to become afraid. Decapitated bodies of the servants were scattered, lying in their own pool of blood.

The screams were becoming more agonized and desperate. His hairs stood on end, and Akira pushed his legs to the limit until he reached his parents' bedchamber. The boy suddenly hesitated. His father had ordered him to not enter their chamber under any circumstances necessary. Akira's heart pounded in his ears. Sweat pooled down from his face, and this time it wasn't from training. He could actually smell the blood. It clogged his nostrils, and he almost chocked on the intense smell. "If you show your fear, it is over, Akira." Yuusuke's soothing balm reached his ears. "You are defended without your enemy making a move."

Akira swallowed his fear deep inside him and opened the doorway. His father and mother were crouched down with their knees bent to a figure dressed in black. Cold eyes stared back at Akira when he entered the room. He shuddered inside and avoided his gaze, looking at his father instead. Yuusuke had been a proud man. He had fought in the Bakumatsu with the Shinsengumi. Unlike many other disgraced samurai who attained high government positions, or who secretly plotted against the government, he had trained the next generation with the art of kendo, just as he had been taught during the Tokugawa period. His young wife, who he had next seen for ten years, was waiting for him. Now the former samurai had his wrists bound, blood dripping where his right hand had been. Yuusuke held the pain inside, determined to not plead for mercy any longer. He watched in horror as the door to his bedchamber opened to reveal Akira, his foster son. Hanako was silent beside him, bleeding from a head wound. She became visebly paler at the sight of Akira.

"Akira, hashitte!" Akira, run!

Akira heard his mother shouting to him to run, but he couldn't move. He stared at his father's stump and his mother's pale bloodless face. The man in the black was looking at him carefully. He wasn't carrying any weapons, not that Akira could see. Anger suddenly stirred within him, and he felt his rage grow with each passing minute.

"Nande?" Why? Akira demanded. The man in the black didn't understand him, but Akira's distress was obvious. He laughed, sending chills through the boy. Akira then heard him speak. He didn't understand yet of course, what the language was. It was a rough language mixed with growls and grunts. It was then that Akira understood who this man was. He was a hakujin, a gaijin, a white man and a foreigner.

"Who am I?" Victor Creed laughed. "I'm your true family. You were taken from your father when someone wrenched you out of your mother's womb because of who he was. That man murdered your mother too." Suddenly Victor growled. "Jimmy is still very sad. He doesn't understand that his only son is alive. He can't do anything about it, but I will!" Akira stood still as he saw the hakujin raised his arms as his fingernails grew into small knives. "I will free you from this prison." With a sharp motion that only Akira could see, Victor slashed Takamaru Hanako's neck. Blood dripped into the fabric of her kimono. Her neck was in ribbons, and she vainly tried to breathe through the hole in her neck. Akira wasn't aware of his strong father whimpering as his mother bled out her life's blood. "I don't understand why Jimmy fell in love with these people," Victor spat as he crunched Hanako's neck. She had now ceased to breathe, and her eyes now had a film over them. "I'm still astonished that he married one."

"Iie…" No… Akira's father murmured. "Iie…"

Akira wavered his gaze from his grieving father to the hakujin before him. Although Akira could not understand his dialogue, the hakujin had undisguised contempt and hatred for his family. Why else had he murdered the innocent servants and his mother, whose body was now growing cold and hard?

"You're going to die too," Victor purred to Yuusuke. Somehow his father didn't respond. His eyes were dull, as if life were fleeting them. Akira watched, paralyzed, as Victor whispered something into his father's ear. He grasped the former samurai's shoulders with his long claws, causing more blood to seep onto the tatami mat. Something stirred inside Akira that wasn't rage. He felt his bones crackle from his hand and saw them vividly manifest. Victor Creed didn't notice. He remained focused on the defenseless man Japanese man before him. Akira felt his flesh rip open, but this time, he didn't feel pain.

Victor Creed stopped at looked at his half-nephew. Claws had appeared out of the boy's hands and forearms. Two claws escaped from his knuckles on either hand, and one single claw emerged from his forearm. They were made out of bone. Victor looked into his eyes. Akira's eyes were smothered with rage. He does take after Jimmy after all, he smirked. Akira was running toward him now and rapidly gathering speed. "Come now, boy."

Akira heard sounds that he hadn't heard before. He heard the sound of his light feet on the tatami mats, and heard the birds outside. His heartbeat was in his ears, and he could see the smile on the face of the hakujin. His claws were screaming for blood. The hakujin was calm and still, compared to Akira's rampage. He aimed his claws at the vital points that his father had taught him years ago. He closed his eyes. Akira could feel him. He felt his claws tear through tender flesh…only to hear a scream. Akira opened his eyes. The hakujin was gone. Akira felt a familiar hand pull on his wrist. He looked at the face of his father, with blood trailing from his mouth. Akira couldn't speak. He only watched numbly as his father gagged on his own breath. Blood coated his silk kimono. Blood flew onto Akira's face as his father coughed blood.

"Watashi…wa…anata no ōtosan…de wa arimasen…"I am not your father. That was his last words. Akira slowly felt his claws retract, and his father – no, Yuusuke, collapsed. He was dead.

Akira saw blood coating his hands even though the claws hid it. He saw blood coating the tatami mats, forever staining them. He stared numbly at the man who he had considered to be his father. Yuusuke had told him that he was not his father. What was he? Akira thought suddenly. He didn't understand. If he was not Takamaru Akira, son of the sensei Yuusuke, who was he? What was he? Then he knew. He was nothing. He had no name, no family, and no home.

"Boku wa naninonai da." I am nothing. Akira ran from the bedchamber, ran from the bodies, and away from the estate, leaving the memories, secrets, and horror behind him.