(A/N In 1983 there was a made for tv movie called The Last Ninja starring Michael Beck. They had plans to make it into a series but it never came to be. I recently rewatched it and figured the Sakuras would be a good source of information and aid for the Caines. I like to give credit where it is due as they are not characters of my creation. They don't belong to me I'm just borrowing them for a little while.)

May 15

Peter ran. It was how he spent his mornings, how he cleared his mind. Today was different though. Today he was proving that he was ready, that he had learned what he had come to the temple to learn. Others did the same, only they were trying to prove that they were the ones worthy of becoming a Shaolin priest. Peter was not interested in becoming a priest. He knew who and what he was.

He was a cop. He didn't have the luxury of a nonviolent life, it could get him killed. He knew that the principle of non-violence was not the same as being a pacifist. He also knew how violent his life had been since the fire at his childhood temple that had separated him from his father. He had been fighting everyone and everything since that moment. Including himself. Maybe especially himself. If nothing else came from these past months it was that he had learned to stop fighting himself.

He moved from one obstacle to the next, always ahead of the pack, until he reached the temple doors where his father and Master Hsiao stood waiting on either side. Peter bowed to each man. He could see the pride in his father's eyes and wondered if he was truly worthy of it.

"Where is Lo Si?" He asked. He had expected to find the Ancient waiting there as well.

"He had a lead to follow up on," Caine said. "Something that should help in destroying the serpent's receptacle."

Peter nodded "Okay. I hope it works out." As much as he wanted it all to be over and done and to finally have his life back, he dreaded it too. There was a knot in the pit of his stomach when he thought of standing face-to-face with Miranda Gray now that he knew her for what she was. He would do it. Didn't mean he had to look forward to it.

Master Hsiao studied Peter a moment before speaking. "Are you certain you do not wish to become a priest?"

"Not at this time," Peter said. He couldn't bring himself to say yes or no to that question. "I haven't come to that bend in the stream yet."

Master Hsiao nodded. "When you do, you will be welcome here."

"Thank you," Peter said and bowed respectfully, then stepped out of the way as more students began to return to the temple.

He walked toward the garden with his father.

"Have there been any more visions?" Caine asked.

Peter shook his head. "No." He sighed slowly "I don't think I have a big window of opportunity anymore. I need to be the one to… receive nag if my plan is going to work."

"You cannot return until you have the means to destroy the artifact. To do so would be a pointless sacrifice."

"I know." He said. "Doesn't make it any easier to wait. Especially knowing what someone else is going through because I was lucky enough to be rescued."

"Their fate was not of your choosing, my son," Caine said.

"It wasn't his choice either," Peter said. "I'm not feeling guilty exactly. Just that I need to finish this before it's too late." He saw a brightness in the periphery and turned toward it. Lo Si stepped from the light into the garden. "Please tell me you found something."

"I found a clue but nothing concrete." He said. "There is an incantation that is reputed to be able to neutralize an artifact. There was a scroll at one time. It was under the protection of the Koka clan."

"Ninja…" Caine said thoughtfully.

"Ninja are real?" Peter asked, "I thought they were made up by Hollywood and Japanese parents trying to scare their kids into sleeping at night."

"They are historically real," Caine said. "Spies and assassins. Masters of guerrilla warfare. That is the myth that Hollywood overdoes. As for modern shinobi, they are rare, and rarer still are they from the old ninja families."

"Is there anything you don't know about?" Peter asked shaking his head.

Caine chuckled quietly and smiled "Many things." He said "But I do know someone who might be able to help us. He is an art dealer and an expert on things Japanese. We will need to go to Los Angeles."

"Okay." Peter said "But this time we're riding in the passenger section of the train."

Kelly Blaine picked at her food. "I hear what you're saying. I do." She told her sister, "But it's not that simple. Peter and I didn't break up. He died." She was still as sure of that as she had ever been. Peter was too resourceful for an abduction to have lasted for weeks. He would have come home and pretended nothing was wrong. He was dead and no one had been able to convince her otherwise.

"You're still alone." Her sister said. "You don't deal well with being alone." She stopped talking as the waiter came to refill their glasses of iced tea.

"I don't think going out with some guy while I'm still hung up on my dead boyfriend is going to be fair to me or this hypothetical guy. You know, I found an engagement ring in his stuff. He was going to propose, Rachel."

"Would you have said yes? I mean, you used to call me to complain about this guy and now he's Peter the saint."

"Yeah well, I wasn't Kelly the saint when we were together either. We both have… had… strong personalities. We'd bump into each other's issues. That's all. So yeah, I would have said yes." She laughed a little sadly "And then we'd have broken up and I'd have to say yes a second time, maybe even a third before we finally made it down the aisle."

"At the end of the day, that doesn't matter. He's still gone, and you're still alone and miserable."

"I'm trying to put a life together here. I don't have time to date and I doubt this guy at your accounting firm is going to be all that interested in a woman who carries a gun every day. It's why I only date cops. No one else gets it."

Adam Cross watched the two women from across the restaurant dining room. He couldn't hear them but he could read lips well enough to tell what Kelly was saying.

Miranda Gray had told him not to go after Paul Blaisdell's wife, even though a mother figure would have more impact on Peter than an on and off again girlfriend, but she had said no so he had tracked Kelly Blaine down through her sister. The fact that there had been an engagement ring purchased made him think the woman might not be useless after all.

He watched a few minutes longer before tossing the money for his meal onto the table and walking outside to the parking lot. He could see the restaurant window where the women were seated. When they both rose from the table he started his car, with the headlights off, and waited for them to get into their car and pull out of the stall before he turned his lights on and followed at a discrete distance. Kelly was taken back to the precinct where she worked, but it was Rachel that he was following currently.

When she pulled into the driveway of a modest home he drove past the house and parked two blocks down. He walked back toward Rachel's home at a casual pace not wanting to draw attention to himself. Not yet anyway.

Jordan sighed "Richard, we've been over this." She let her fork drop onto her lunch plate. "I'm not backing down. I'm going to see this through to the end. No matter what happens between us, I'm not going to let this go."

He leaned back in his seat and shook his head in frustration. "So, tonight is just the next layer of illusion. You won't actually be 'in' exactly."

"Another test?" She asked.

He nodded. "And your last chance to back out." He raised his hands in surrender, reading her expression accurately. "I know, I heard you. You're not backing down, you're going to see it through to the end."

"So, should we keep our relationship secret until I'm actually in?" She asked. It was one of those things he had explained to her, that it was frowned upon in the extreme to become involved with someone who wasn't in the cult. It was frowned upon even more than sleeping with your partner.

"No. I wouldn't worry about it. We're not going to announce it like an engagement or anything but we're not going to hide it either."

"Okay. So how do I pass this test." She asked.

"Go through the motions, take it seriously. It's laughable like every other secret society initiation ceremony. People only take them seriously when they belong, or want to belong."

"When will the real thing take place?"

"At the next major event. Between now and then you'll be introduced to other members, some you'll be told what they are, but others you won't. They'll want to get a feel for who you are."

"They're the ones who are going to make the decision aren't they."

"Yes." He said. "So far you've got an advantage. Michael Gray likes you. As long as his sister is Nagaina his opinion carries weight."

"That is a lifelong post, isn't it?"

"Funny thing about life. It's fragile and she's making enemies."

Peter put his pack into the overhead compartment of his seat and did the same with his father's before sitting down. "So who are we going to see in Los Angeles?"

"Kenjiro and Noriko Sakura." He said, "They are art dealers and friends."

"So when in your fifteen years of wandering did you meet them?"

Caine thought for a moment. "Five years ago." He said.

"How was it you wound up making friends with Japanese art dealers?"

Caine shrugged "I am a friendly guy." He laughed nearly silently at the look he received from his son. "They helped me to help someone else." Some things were not his secret to share, not even with his only son. "They have several artifacts and scrolls from the same era as the scroll we seek. If they do not have it, I am certain that Ken will be able to help us find it."

"It's as good a place as any to start looking. Probably the right place. If everything that happens happens for a reason then I have to wonder about all the places you went and people you met while we were separated." Peter said. "I'm still trying to sort out what I needed to learn or do to prepare for whatever is coming but I'm starting to think that your travels are having a huge bearing on my current situation."

"I believe that you were meant to become Blaisdell's son as well as mine." He said. "I believe that it was both of our teachings that made you the man that could withstand your captivity with mind and body both intact. I also believe that while Lo Si separated us to keep us safe from Tan, ultimately it made you harder to find by the Harbingers as well. If they had found you as a boy…"

"I'd be an evil basket case." Peter finished. "And more than likely I'd have happily signed up to play host to Nag for the rest of my life."

"I have to ask. Are you sure that Nag can be trusted? He has been trapped by the cult for hundreds if not thousands of years."

"If I can pull this off, yes," Peter said. "He doesn't like being trapped but has had no way out. The nature of being trapped after all. If I fail… I think it will be that last straw and there won't be another chance, not for me, not for anyone else."

"Then we must make certain you do not fail," Caine said.

"This ritual… if I can memorize it… will be the best way. I guarantee you that if I let them catch me again, which would have to be the case or she'll be suspicious, they won't let me take a weapon or tool into the chamber with the giant snake. I'll be lucky if I've got pants and shoes."

"You have to be able to get out again. They will not like their idol being made useless."

"That's where I'm going to have to depend on you and Paul the most. I'll have an easier time contacting you this time around. Nothing says welcome home like a police raid backed up by Shaolin Priests." He said with a grin. "But you have to wait until I've got Nag out of the idol. I'm hoping that he'll be able to do it without me having to do something I'll regret later."

"Killing those sent to fight you."

Peter nodded. "Yeah. I didn't want to do that before and I sure as hell don't want to do it now."

"I know," Caine said. "We will find a way."

"I hope so. Because if it comes to it and I have no choice… no matter what I want to do or not to do … I can't let the cult win. They won't stop until they've destroyed the Shaolin. Without that balance point, they'd destroy the world and remake it in their image."

"Buddha taught that we should harm no living thing. However, we are human, and it is natural to fight in defense of ourselves and the defense of others. We do this not because it is right but because it is necessary. Doing harm is always wrong, and allowing harm to come to others is also always wrong. It is not easy to be a human being on a path of enlightenment."

"Imagine being a cop too," Peter said with a quiet, self-conscious laugh.

"Is that why you resisted becoming a priest today?" Caine asked. "Because you cannot reconcile the part of you that is a cop with the part of you that is Shaolin?"

"That's just it, Pop. I'm not part one and part the other. I'm both, completely. At least I am now. I just… I guess I figure that if I become a priest that has to change. I can't be a priest and a cop because they are both full-time jobs and as a cop, I won't always have the luxury of talking the gun out of the bad guy's hand rather than shooting him. I could get people killed that way. Innocent people. Besides… as petty as it sounds, I feel like everything I was has been taken away from me by Miranda and her goon squad. I lost my home, my girl, and my job, I almost lost my family. I need to take back who I was and maybe then I can decide to give it up again on my own terms."

Caine nodded his understanding. "Then that is what we will do."

The train pulled into Los Angeles at 5:38 pm, and they exited through the nearest door.

"So how do we get in touch with these friends of yours?"

"We go to their gallery." He said. "If they are not there I know where Kenjiro lives. Or at least where he lived 5 years ago."

"Lead on," Peter said. "Although I could just about eat a horse right now."

"The horse would object," Caine said.

"It would be dead when this happened," Peter said.

"That would not make the horse any happier."

Peter laughed.

They boarded a city bus and took it toward Little Tokyo where it bordered the art district. Caine led the way toward a high-end gallery, unsurprisingly named 'Sakura's'. He opened the door and entered, ignoring the looks from the extremely well-dressed clientèle.

Peter however bristled. "Hey, how ya' doin'," he said to each and everyone that gave that… look… his father's direction. He smirked a little as they pointedly looked away from them.

"Kwai Chang?" It was a woman's voice, with only the faintest of a Japanese accent.

Peter looked away from his petty fun, toward that voice. The woman was beautiful, and he'd estimate that she was about the same age as Mary Margaret. He raised an eyebrow as she hugged his father affectionately. Okay, maybe age and beauty weren't the only things she had in common with Mary- Margaret. He approached them slowly, looking down at his feet, waiting patiently for an introduction.

"Did I hear you say, Kwai Chang?" A man asked as he approached them, with a broad smile. He was tallish, with light brown hair and dark eyes. "What are you doing here, man? Not that I'm not glad to see you, I am."

The woman eased back, and let the man in to hug their old friend.

"My son and I need your help," Caine said. "Peter, this is Noriko and Kenjiro Sakura."

"Your son?" Nori asked. "I thought he was dead."

"As did I."

Peter offered his hand to Kenjiro. "You look about as Japanese as I do Chinese." He said with a grin.

"I was adopted." Ken grinned boyishly "What's your excuse?"

"My mother looked like Rhonda Flemming." Peter shrugged.

"That would do it," Ken said, laughing. "Come on back into the office and we'll talk about what you need."

"Thank you," Caine said.

"I'll order dinner," Nori said. "Do you have a hotel room?"

"No." Caine said, "We just arrived on the train."

"Then you're staying with us. No arguments." Ken said as he opened the door to his office. Once they were all inside, he closed the door and locked it behind him. His desk was backed to the wall with floor-to-ceiling windows. On the other side of the room was comfortable seating around a coffee table. This was where the Sakuras led their guests.

"Thanks," Peter said as he took a seat.

"So what is it we can do for you," Ken asked.

"You were in possession of many of the Kora scrolls, yes?"

"Yes."

"The one we seek is an incantation for neutralizing artifacts," Caine said.

Ken frowned, concern evident in his brown eyes. "What's this all about?"

"That's a long story," Peter said "And to be honest it sounds more than a little crazy."

"We've got all the time in the world, and I'm used to crazy." He said. "I don't have possession of that particular scroll but I might know who does. So why don't you start from the beginning and we'll see where it takes us."

"Fair enough," Peter said and began to tell his story from the beginning.