Origins: Part II

Akira ran. He ran until his lungs were screaming for breath. Faint warmth from the sun was on his back, and he stumbled on fallen leaves. A breath caught in his throat as one of his sandals slipped underneath the colorful leaves. The young mutant fell. For a second, Akira remained immobile. His ragged breathing echoed in his ears as he stared at his hands. His hands were now coated in dried blood, especially where the claws came out. Akira stood on his knees, neglecting the leaves that scratched his kimono. His kimono was stained with blood too, he could see. His dark eyes darted his soiled kimono and his hands. He tried to make the claws come out again, but to no avail. He sighed. Akira tried to not remember Yuusuke's last words. "Watashi…wa…anata no ōtosan…de wa arimasen…"I am not your father. A scream clogged in his throat. Who was he then? If he remembered correctly, the hakujin didn't appear to be surprised at his claws at all. In fact, the hakujin had smiled at Akira's rage. The ten year old shuddered, suddenly wondering where he was. Akira was in a forest, surrounded by trees. The leaves were falling gently to the ground. A couple tickled his face and one lied in his small hand. He heard the birds again with his sensitive hearing and smelled the distant sharp and dank odor of the tree. For a moment Akira was comforted. Then he remembered his foster family and the hakujin. They had been murdered in front of his eyes. If his father was not his father, then his mother was not his mother, he thought. Akira didn't understand what he was, with his claws and sensitive senses. But he knew one thing. He wasn't human, nor was he Takamaru Akira.

He was Daken.

Daken had lived in the mountains of Japan for fourteen years. He lived isolated, away from the citizens of Kyoto. They left him alone, which suited him fine. For fourteen years he lived alone, hunted alone, and slept alone. Daken had to be in the countryside, surrounded by nature and other animals; otherwise he would become the monster who killed Yuusuke again. Daken stayed away from the humans, as his blood would suddenly boil and bloodlust would overwhelm him. He stared in the faint moonlight at his claws. He sharpened his claws on tree bark, because in his mind, the claws were much like a sword. "Your sword becomes weak if you do not hone it, as does your mind. Your body becomes weak as well." Despite suppressing his memories, Yuusuke entered his mind. It was as if he was no longer Daken, but Takamaru Akira, a boy of ten years. He wondered who his father really was, and why he abandoned him. Sometimes, Daken used his claws when he hunted, and he couldn't suppress the thrill of sinking his claws into another's flesh. He could run as fast as any animal. He wondered if his unknown father had claws as well.

As the years went by, Daken realized that he had another ability. He did not age. He was twenty-four years old in the thirty-second year of Meiji – 1890 – when he looked at his reflection in the stream. His hair was more dark brown than black now, and his face was thin. The plumpness had gone from it, replacing the soft pale skin with a sun-drenched tan. Muscles rippled through his chest, legs, and arms. Daken's eyes were different as well. Unlike fourteen years ago, where the eyes spoke of pain and betrayal, his eyes were empty. Emptiness clouded his eyes. Ten years later his face and body remained the same, as what happened in the next two decades. It was known that humans would live to forty-five years in the early twentieth century, but Daken's body remained twenty-four years old. His mind, however, was fifty years old. A new decade, period, and Emperor reined. Japan was determined to be the strongest empire in the world, and to gain powers as the foreigners showed them.

Daken hated foreigners. He remembered how the hakujin from a distant land had forced him to kill Yuusuke. His cold blue eyes and barbaric language often haunted Daken in his dreams. He recalled when Yuusuke told him about the patriots in the Bakumatsu; of how they were not samurai but swordsman. They had wanted to restore the Emperor to his ancient seat of power, and detested foreigners. The patriots had wanted to remain an isolated nation. If Japan had remained an isolated nation, then the hakujin would not have killed his foster family. However, maybe Daken wouldn't have been born. He still recalled the whispers the servants had told him, and he was taller than any Japanese man hoped to be now. His hair was more dark brown than black, and he also was as muscular as the foreigners Yuusuke described to him long ago. Daken made no effort to join the wars to build the Japanese empire – he had no interest. He made no effort to learn other languages either, especially English. He was certain now that the hakujin spoke that language. Even as bombs and food shortages ravaged his country in World War II, Daken remained where he was, alone. He remained a ghost even as the war ended.

At age one-hundred eleven in the fifty-fourth year of the Shōwa period – 1979 – Daken was taken by Stryker. It was on a mild winter day, his birthday, January 31, in fact. Snow was melting in his hair and surveyed the scene around him. The tree branches were covered in snow, and it was still pelting the ground, he saw. Daken didn't witness many serene scenes, but this was one of them. He was watching the snow falling when he smelled a foreign scent. He squinted his eyes, but could not see beyond the snow. The scent was stronger now, he thought as his claws retracted from his hands, and somehow vaguely familiar. Daken snarled in surprise at the speed of the figure before him, and jumped away from it before it could wound him. The figure before him was on all fours, with sharpened nails more than six inches long. Cold blue eyes stared back at him, and Daken felt his heartbeat quicken. He looked at his enemy before him. The enemy was a hakujin, complete with Western clothes and dark brown hair. A jolt startled Daken.

"You," he growled. Daken didn't think that he would fight the hakujin who had taken away his foster family after more than a hundred years. Like him, the hakujin hadn't aged. The same cold blue eyes stared back at him. A sudden bloodlust overwhelmed the younger mutant, and he ran with his arms outstretched to Victor Creed. Daken managed to only swipe open air. The older mutant was laughing at him, he could see. He stood on two feet now, showing Daken his deadly fingernails, sharp as thorns. Daken aimed his claws at him again, hearing his heartbeat in his ears. Somehow the hakujin made no movement as Daken raced toward him. It was as if he didn't know that Daken was aiming to kill him.

Daken's claws made contact with flesh. It had been many years since he had used his claws against a human, but the excitement was thrilling as ever. Blood coated his claws, red as the sunset, and he heard bones crunch beneath the flesh. The hakujin didn't scream; he didn't even flinch. Instead he inserted a needle deep inside Daken's neck, causing the mutant to become paralyzed. Daken felt the hakujin remove his claws from his body. Daken watched, fascinated, as the wound healed itself. His claws retracted. He's just like me, was Daken's last thought before he was lost in unconsciousness.

He awoke in a cell. Dank smells greeted him, and he blinked water out of his eyes. Daken was lying on the cold floor in a windowless cell. Where was he? Even with his hypersensitive hearing, he couldn't hear the birds outside. He couldn't feel the sun on his face. He could only hear the rough tones of the language English. The door opened, and instinctively, his claws retracted. A man in a uniform stood before him. He was a hakujin, as was the mutant before. He had green eyes. The human was silent for a moment before he spoke.

He asked, "Do you know what you are?" Daken didn't understand what he was saying. Even though he knew what language was being spoken, he couldn't comprehend it. Daken saw the human sigh. "You are a mutant. Victor tells me that you have retraceable claws made of bone; an incredible healing factor, animal-like senses and agility, and that you have lived for over a century. But I see that you do not understand me." He turned away from Daken and opened the door before saying this. "Very well, son of Logan."

Stryker forced Daken to understand English. It was a tedious process, a language Daken had to learn in a week. Somehow Daken was able to understand simple commands and knew his captor's name: Stryker. It was then that Stryker experimented on Daken, determined to know how far his healing factor would go. He burned Daken with fire, fascinated as Daken's organs and skin healed before his eyes. A shot to the head rendered Daken unconscious for an hour before his wound was gone and he was conscious. Even starvation didn't sway Daken. His body still lived, although deprived, and Stryker watched fascinated. Multiple stab wounds and bullet wounds healed in seconds, and Stryker whispered, "He's like his father,"

It was then that Daken asked who his father was. "He is a mutant, with powers eerily similar to yours, Daken. His name is Logan, and he killed your mother. Logan arrived in Japan in 1866, a year after the Civil War. He wanted to live in a nation not at war, his brother told me. He fell in love with your mother, and was newly married when his bloodlust overwhelmed him, and he withdrew you from your mother's womb. You survived, but your mother didn't. Logan has no remorse for what he did to you or your mother. Now your father is hunting me down, merciless that he is." He stroked the mutant's face, and Daken had to force himself to not flinch. "He doesn't even know that he has a son."

Daken became imprisoned in Stryker's experiment lab for fifteen years. He was now one hundred fifty-two years old. The years seemed to blur together, and he dreamed of the day that he would kill his father. Stryker had told him that he was coming soon, and would be allowed to kill him as soon as he killed off the other mutants. Pain and agony exploded in his head as soundless scream echoed in his ears, and it didn't even last a minute. He fainted from the pain, and didn't know where he was when he woke up. Was it 1994? 2020? He didn't know. He only remembered his father's face as he stood with the mutant in the wheelchair. I will kill you, he thought. But he didn't kill him.

And now he was running away.