For those of you with pets, I have Go Fund Me page. Just add /tsukis-vet-visit to find it. It'll also link you straight to my facebook profile and I do accept friend requests!
Also, this is just a gen!X-Men/KHR cross.
The first time Tsubaki met her grandfather (on her mother's side), was when she was three. Her father had gone away again, leaving just the girls at home.
The man was tall, grumpy, and there was a distinct air about him that reminded her of a big bear. But when he looked at her, there was a sense of 'safety' and 'protection'.
She knew without hesitation that he would never harm her in any way, which was more than could be said about her father.
"That lout gone again?" he asked her mother. The words were strange, and she didn't understand them.
"Iemitsu said he would visit often. He left last month and he sends enough money to pay for bills and groceries."
"Sending money isn't the same as being there," said her grandfather gruffly, as if he wasn't pleased with something.
He gently picked up Tsubaki and put her in his lap. She promptly curled up against him, and fell asleep. He had come right before her nap time, after all.
Nana looked at how quickly her daughter took to her grandfather. The man wasn't exactly the most civil of people, but his sense of honor more than made up for any faults. The fact Tsubaki curled up in his lap like a little kitten said volumes of the level of trust she was showing him. She saw past his gruff exterior.
Nana sometimes wondered how her husband would have reacted if he knew exactly who he was marrying. Her father had never approved of her husband, but had kept his silence so long as she was happy.
Logan looked down at the little one in his lap, before looking at his daughter. He took a piece of paper and wrote down a set of numbers.
The first was his, the second was a mansion in New York, and the third was for emergencies only.
"If anything, and I mean anything comes up, I want you to call the first two numbers. If you're in life-threatening danger and the first two aren't available, call the third," he said bluntly.
Nana nodded, and tapped the note on the bottom of the phone.
"What about Tsu-chan?"
"If it manifests I can train her during the summers. Though if it's dangerous I'll take her with me until she can learn to control it."
The visit was short, but at the end of it Tsubaki knew one thing for certain.
She adored her grumpy grandfather.
Tsubaki, age five...
Nana was frowning at the report she got from the teachers. Ever since Iemitsu last came with those strange men, Tsubaki had been acting off. At the first hint of it she had taken her daughter in for a full physical, suspecting something was wrong.
Tsubaki hadn't wet the bed since she was four, and suddenly it had started up again without warning after the visit. Her behavior had gone from cheerful and outgoing to skittish and afraid. Her grades had dropped and she seemed to flinch at raised voices.
When the physical came up with nothing, Nana made a decision that would change her daughter's childhood.
She called her father.
"Hello?"
"Papa, it's Nana. I have a problem with Tsubaki and I have no idea how to fix it."
"What happened?" the voice became territorial and concerned.
"Iemitsu came two months ago with strange men, and after they left Tsubaki's behavior changed completely. I had her taken to the doctors, but they said nothing was physically wrong with her and I know she was starting to display certain signs of awakening some of your gifts. She has your advanced regeneration at the very least."
"...I'll be in Japan with a friend by next week."
Nana felt only relief. If anyone could figure out what was going on with her daughter, she knew her father or his 'friends' could.
And when she saw him and the man in the wheelchair with kind tired eyes, she relaxed. She knew who the man was, and that he was trustworthy.
"Where's the little tiger?" asked Logan.
Nana had just picked her up, and Tsubaki was sleeping. There had been an increase of bruises and scrapes after the visit, which was one of the reasons why she was so worried.
She feared Tsubaki was being actively bullied by the other children.
"This is a friend of mine named Xavier. He's a telepath," said Logan gruffly.
"Come in, please. Tsu-chan is asleep... I'm afraid she had another rough day at school," said Nana.
With the help of Logan, Professor Xavier was able to get inside the house.
Logan also picked up Tsubaki and brought her downstairs. He frowned at the number of bruises she had, some healed.
"So you're saying her personality shifted after your husband came home for a visit?"
"It was so sudden. She was fine when I went to get groceries for some Italian dishes, then the next morning her personality took a complete turn," said Nana. "Iemitsu told me she exhausted herself playing, so I didn't think anything of it when I came home and she was asleep, but I knew something had to be wrong when her grades started slipping and she became far too skittish," said Nana. "After two weeks is when I suspect the rest of her class decided to start bullying her...that's around the time I noticed the bruising, though they fade by morning."
Logan gently put Tsubaki on the couch, close enough to the Professor.
He put one hand on her forehead and skimmed her most recent memories going back three months.
What he found had him very unhappy with one Iemitsu Sawada and the men he brought.
"Your husband had her gifts sealed, rather than trained. Considering she might be a low-level telepath or psychic, it means she is instinctively fighting against whatever they put on her. And since she knows something is wrong or missing, she is afraid because she can't access it to defend herself," said Xavier.
"Can it be fixed?"
"With some training it could be, but there is no way to tell. Whatever this seal is, it's forcibly keeping her powers from manifesting outside of the advanced regeneration you noticed," said Xavier frowning.
"Which means she'll be spending her summers with her grandfather and any further visits from Iemitsu," said Nana flatly. She looked furious. "I will not let that fool near my daughter alone twice."
"About time you saw some sense," said Logan gruffly.
Tsubaki woke up around dinnertime and she lit up when she saw her grandfather.
"Grandpa! You're back!"
"Unlike some people, I don't mind little tigers," said Logan, allowing her to scramble up onto his lap. Xavier hid a smile. It was clear that the older mutant was very fond of the child.
"Tsu-chan, how would you like to spend summer with your grandpa and his friends?"
Tsubaki lit up at the idea.
"Can I, mama?"
She loved spending time with her grandfather.
"How about we make a family vacation of it soon?" suggested Nana, sharing a look with Logan. While she didn't have an active mutation, she was still the daughter of a mutant.
Tsubaki spent the next few hours playing with her grandfather, while her Mama and the strange old man in the wheelchair hammered out details.
Until whatever was keeping her powers held back was removed, or at least loosened up enough that she could defend herself, the two would be spending some time in America.
Harmony loved her new home, for however temporary it was. The Professor had said her mutant ability, or whatever it was that was forcibly taken from her, wasn't an active threat to normal humans so long as she was in a safe environment.
However, because she felt the loss so strongly there was simply no way she could function normally with a normal class of students. Her skittish behavior alone was a big red flag for bullies to target her.
Which was why the Institute was perfect for her. Any difficulty she had with the homework would automatically be attributed to the fact she had lived in Japan until now, and wasn't used to reading in English.
Not that her lessons in how to read Kanji and the rest was allowed to fall by the wayside. Logan took her step-by-step in how to read her native tongue. She found languages easier to understand than math.
Even her Mama was enjoying herself, though she was acting as the on-sight cooking teacher, since she didn't have a degree. She taught the children how to cook and other daily tasks that they would need to survive as an adult. Her open and caring nature (despite not having an active mutation) made her an instant hit with the students.
For some she was like the mother they never had, or a replacement for the families who abandoned them.
"Hey Harmony... you ready for lessons?" asked an older student. She was about sixteen but she had really good control over her powers.
Her name was Jean.
Harmony nodded. She liked Jean and the others, because they were able to explain things for her in a way she could understand clearly. And they didn't laugh at her when she fumbled during her gymnastics and martial arts lessons.
Harmony dutifully followed Jean into one of the rooms designated for training. This one had a lot of soft things to throw around and was generally the go-to place for telepaths to practice their powers safely. There wasn't anything sharp or hard to hurt others with, and it meant they could have a rather unusual pillow fight with their powers.
Harmony sat down on the floor next to one of the other psychics. They all knew what they were supposed to do, depending on what their powers were.
"Everyone remember the lesson from last week? Okay, I want you to try and levitate the pillows above your head and hold it for five minutes. Harmony, we're going to continue what we were doing before," said Jean.
Jean and Harmony sat across from each other, and tried to find the block that was keeping her mutant powers closed off. The physical abilities like her advanced regeneration hadn't been affected, but the mental ones like her ability to understand simple homework and possibly a low-level degree of telepathy and empathy were.
There was also a brief memory of fire, and from what Xavier could tell that was genetic and entirely because of her father. Which meant she might be pyrokinetic.
From what Xavier managed to pull out of that particular memory, Iemitsu wasn't surprised she could use the fire, but that it had awakened so early and because of the color. He didn't understand the significance of orange flames, but the fact that the old man (which Harmony had been made to call "grandpa" for the entirety of his visit) had a similar fire on his hands when he sealed her said that this wasn't an uncommon occurrence for Iemitsu or his side of the family.
The fact Iemitsu chose to seal her powers, rather than stay and train her properly said volumes of his character. He would have to do a lot of explaining before Nana allowed him anywhere near her daughter ever again. The fact that the old man had known how to forcibly seal the flames to begin with said that they knew perfectly well how to train them.
Harmony was frustrated. She could feel the wall in front of her, but she couldn't get past it to reach Jean.
So she gathered up the pretty orange fire around her and threw it at the barrier between them. After a while, she began to notice tiny cracks in the wall.
Harmony smiled, and gathered up the fire in her hands and started punching at the biggest crack in front of her. She did her best not to deviate from that one spot.
The crack started to widen, until a tiny pin-prick could be seen. Once the hole went clean through, she could hear Jean's voice loud and clear.
That was when she woke up, and she felt exhausted.
"I think that's enough for today," said Jean. She sounded fuzzy and far away. Harmony passed out before she could ask anything.
She woke up in her mother's lap, and she felt a little warmer.
"How are you feeling, little tiger?" asked Logan.
"Not so cold," she replied, she yawned and curled closer into her mother.
Logan chuckled.
"Once you're up to it we're going to keep working on what you did with Jean earlier. You managed to make some progress against that seal today, so just get some sleep."
Harmony nodded and let her eyes drift closed.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that her grandfather was going to step up her fighting skills. Ever since she came to the Institute he had been drilling her in how to fight and how to take a hit. He didn't pull punches (much), but her advanced healing always had a major work out after one of his lessons.
What she didn't know was that it was because of her advanced regeneration that she was still alive. The seal was much stronger than she was at the moment, and it was thanks to the fact she healed so fast she didn't have a brain aneurysm from the strain of fighting against it.
With any luck the 'hole' she made in the seal would become much bigger.
One week later...
The Professor watched as Harmony used her hard-won fighting skills and her instinctual knowledge to widen the 'hole' she had made in the seal. He could see cracks forming from the other side, but there was no way he could help her break through. He had noticed her ability to comprehend her schoolwork and her movements had gone up since the hole was made.
Whatever this seal was it hindered her brain's ability to function properly. Her motor skills were almost completely shot when it came to simple things like running.
Seeing her tiring, and the hole almost as big as a dime, the professor called off the exercise. Harmony immediately passed out from exhaustion.
Within a month, that hole was the size of a quarter. Within two, it was big enough for her to fit a hand through...and coincidentally was too weak to fully contain whatever it was that they didn't want to train.
It was still there, but at least her skittish behavior had dropped completely and she wasn't such a mess when it came to physical activity.
By the time Harmony was eight (and Nana got a letter from Iemitsu saying he'd be visiting the house for a bit), the girls were reluctantly getting ready to go home. Some of the older, 'graduated' mutants were going to move to the area to help Harmony keep up her training.
Logan had been disgusted when he found out there wasn't even a single guard around the neighborhood, considering he had long found out what Iemitsu did for a living. And there hadn't been any questions on where the girls had vanished to for three years.