David says to listen. A security guard Chengdu falls asleep at his post, an airline stewardess waves aboard a visiting rockstar no questions asked and a customs official at Haneda nods at an invisible passport. Getting into Japan was the simple part.
Inside his mindscape, David remains hidden as the various other personalities riot. He says that he has captured the first errant personality and his is the power of telepathy. David is holding the small, green, squid-like Tyrannix in a tight grip. David is still wearing the special gloves used to extract the powers from his personalities and he has the injection needles on it embedded into Tyrannix’s head. He muses how easy it is to lead people astray with the power. He then wonders if this is how his dad felt the whole time.
(Kabuchikō District, Shinkjuku Ward, Tokyo)
In the real world, David makes his way through a crowded street, barging people out of the way as he goes. He realizes that staying alive might be a more complicated affair. He stops and looks around at the various people in the crowd. He asks if any of them can hear wings but they just look at him confused. He moves on, pushing people out of the way as he runs. He muses on how he got to this point. Four days ago, he learned of two imprisoned mutant kids somewhere near where he is now. He found this out by reading the mind of a sentient pair of eyeballs. He decided that rescuing the kids would be something that his dad would have done. He did a psi-scan the moment he arrived, reaching out for their minds. They were faint, too faint for the spandex brigade with their cerebra, but he found them.
Just then, he dives on the ground as something swoops down at him. He looks up as feathers float down from his attacker. He runs away from the crowd and into a secluded alleyway. He says he felt the kids with his mind but the creepy thing was that they felt him too. As if they were ready and waiting for him. Like Admiral Ackbar’s infamous one liner…“It’s a trap.”
Suddenly, the alleyway is lit up with a bright light and David shields himself as a giant raven flies towards him. The raven is black and white and, instead of eyeballs, it has a red and black yin/yang symbol. Trash cans are thrown about as the raven, crackling with energy, lunges towards David. David realizes that it’s an aetheric projection shaped like a monochromatic psychic raven… but not even Star Wars characters say stuff like that out loud. The psychic raven flies straight through David, stunning him.
A bucket of cold water is thrown in David’s face and he comes to. He sees two men covered in tattoos and wearing masks similar to Ogun’s standing before him. Around the room are other men, wearing military-style uniforms and brandishing guns. All of them wear the red mask that their leader wears. Amongst the soldiers are two children… a boy and a girl. The boy has black hair with a white streak and the girl has white hair with a black streak. David is tied to a chair in a Japanese-style room.
One of the tattooed men addresses David. In broken, English he tells David to behold the mighty tiger-pounce leaders of the Yamaguchi-Kai Clan. He says they sell drugs, guns and also woman-sleazytimes for hire. He calls David gaijin and tells him to tremble before Karasu-Tengo and Sojobo-Tengo, heirs to the radiant master’s king-butt-placement-seat. The girl, Karasu, says that they received an anonymous phone call. Her brother Sojobo adds that it said a mutant psychic was coming to destroy them. The other tattooed man demands that David tells them who sent him so that he can be spared a lingering death. A confused David says that he thought it was the youngsters who were meant to be tied up. He’s pretty sure that’s how it was in the eyaball’s brain.
As David dwells in the confusion, Sojobo tells his master that the foreigner appears to be insane. His sister asks if they must really torture him. David can see the children’s eyeballs and they look identical to the pattern within the raven’s that attacked him earlier. The man angrily tells them to be silent, as they dishonor the star-lovely radiant master by doubting clan choosing.
With his hands still tied, David asks if he can rhetorically raise his hands. He then poses a question to the excitable sod with flawless English. He simply asks “Master?” The first tattooed man goes over to a red mask perched on a pedestal. Behind the mask on the wall is a mural depicting a fight between Wolverine and Ogun, the owner of the mask. The man tells David that his master if the sword-dueling, big swagger angel Ogun. He was Shinobi Oyabun, leader of the gun and sleazytime Yakuza criminal empire but he was betrayed by the foul-smelling Logan and he is now the eternal prince in clan memory. The kids and all the clan members bow down towards the mask of Ogun. David asks a follow up question; he asks if they are all serving a dead guy’s mask.
The man seems a little stunned at the question but the other tattooed man angrily yells at David. He tells him he does not understand and has no respect. He made a mistake coming there. He then yells for his minions to bring the vile pigdog scum forth. Another man is brought into the room. He is naked except for a loin cloth and he is covered in ornate tattoos from head to foot. The tattooed man tells David that the man is Kokushi-Gumi, a rival to the Clan. The first tattooed man tells David his crime was to tell a joke in a café about how Ogun only wore the mask to cover his crooked yellow teeth. He then demands that the children show the “not-normal-hair man” what the fate is for insulting the memory of the radiant master. Karasu addresses the soldier as Futatsu-San and her brother says they don’t want to hurt the man.
Futatsu becomes angry and tells the kids to think of the great Oyabun-Ogun, who took them in. He saved the twins from poverty and death to raise them in the Yakuza Clan like his own son and daughter. The twins relent and bow their heads down. A psychic raven emerges from each of their heads. A white one comes from Karasu and a black one comes from Sojobo. The ravens merge together to create a larger spirit raven.
Inside David’s mind, he still has control over Tyrannix and his mental powers. It’s these powers that allow him to see a little deeper as to what is going on in the room. The two children stand over the man channeling the raven. It attacks the man but it doesn’t do physical damage, instead it attacks him mentally. It rips and tears his astral form as the flesh and bone body of the man spasms on the floor. David can only watch on as he realizes the children he came there to save are tearing apart the soul of the man. As the ordeal ends, the man lies lifeless on the floor. The children wipe tears away from their eyes and mutter that they are sorry.
(Not so far away)
In a phone booth, a disguised man makes a call. He tells the other person that he won’t give a name but the paintbrush-haired guy is trying to take the children. He says he’ll hurt them and he’s &*%*# mad. The man says that they can find him at the Iris House, Meiji Gardens in Tokyo. He hangs up and turns around. As he relishes in his acting abilities, his eyes glow red beneath the shadows covering his face.
Elsewhere, Wolverine and his team of X-Men have discovered the Chinese soldiers that died chasing David. As they stand in the snowy mountains inspecting the bodies, Wolverine hangs up a communication device. He stops Chamber from throwing a snowball at him and then tells the team he has a lead.
Back at the Iris House, the clan members have left and only the twins remain with David. They have been given orders to get into his brain to find out who sent him. And once they are done, they are to kill him. David muses that nobody has bothered to just ask him. He decides that it’s going to be the hard way from now on. Stuttering, he asks the children if they enjoy this life… this job. They had just begun to activate their power to get into David’s head but they stop and look at each other. As psychic ravens swirl around his head, he hopes to himself that he can just keep them distracted.
Inside his mind, he is stood on a ledge overlooking some of his wayward personalities. Telepathy is pretty useless for escapes, especially when it’s busy deflecting astral avifauna. David watches the crowd, waiting for the right personality to come along. With Tyrannix still tied to his back, he jumps down on another personality. He lands on the back of the Origamist, a huge sumo-wrestler-looking personality. David knows he is one of the top dogs in his head because he is a reality changer. They don’t come much bigger, fatter, dumber or stronger than this guy. With that, the Origamist throws David off and begins chasing after him. David says that’s the trouble with hunting a mental menagerie... you only get one shot. As he flees, he reiterates that, if he beats them, then their power becomes his, but if they beat him then his body is up for grabs, and the universe goes under the axe.
In the real world, David is sweating from the strain put on his mind. The kids answer his earlier question and say they don’t enjoy what they do. It’s revolting; it makes them feel bad. He asks why they do it but Sojobo tells him he is a gaijin, he wouldn’t understand. Karasu tells him that they have heard about his ways. He does what he wishes and he has no respect for what has gone before. Sojobo chips in and says he has no obligation to history or debt to his forebears. Karasu tells him he wouldn’t understand. David weakly retorts that he might.
Back inside his mind, David realizes that tackling the Origamist on his first attempt was a little over-ambitious. So he decides to go after the crotchety old Max Kelvin. He jumps out and grabs the old man and twists his arm around, causing the personality to bend over. But once again David is overpowered. Max starts yelling and radiating powerful orange energy. David lets go and runs away as more and more personalities become aware to his presence.
Outside, David is trying hard to resist the twins who are still using their psychic ravens to get inside his mind. Struggling to speak, he tells the kids that someone else is working against him. He’s no threat to them or their clan; he came here to help. His father is dead now but he used to look after people like them, like all of them. David bends over in pain as the kids power starts to overwhelm him. Karasu tells him they are getting close to breaking in and they can taste all the contradictions. Sojobo asks in what way his father looked after him.
David remembers a time when he was strapped into an MRI scanner at Muir Island. His father is next to him but he tells Moira MacTaggart that he is late for the U.N. so she should anesthetize David until he gets back. It’s for the best. David can only look on as he lies on the scanner.
Back inside his mind, David tries his third attempt at capturing a useful personality. This time it’s the Chronodon, a creature that looks like a T-Rex with a clock-face for a head. The Chronodon stumbles into a pit David has created but it immediately gets out and starts chasing him. As he runs, he can feel wings beating on the walls of the prison.
Outside, David tells the kids they are too young to be muddled up in all this retribution, crime and violence. Whatever debt they owe to Ogun, this is no life for children. The kids continue their task and say that, since David is so eager in following in his father’s footsteps, they can’t help but wonder what alternative he would have offered.
David imagines a scene of the New Mutants training in the Danger Room when they were still very young. Wolfsbane sits on the floor, bleeding from her arm. In the control room above, Xavier simply says it’s called the Danger Room for a reason and tells her to get up.
Inside his mind, David tries a fourth attempt. He is getting desperate and is beginning to feel freaked out and confused. He grabs the flying dog-like Pukatus Jr., as he represents the easiest of the easy options. But the creature gets away from him and chases after him with his acidic vomit.
In the real world, David tells the kids the point is that, just because their father figure got one or two things right, doesn’t mean you have to believe he is infallible. It doesn’t mean you have to do exactly the same. Inside his mind, the David Haller personality hears this as he hides from the personalities hunting him. David tells the kids that what he is saying is he wasn’t the best father, Ogun he means. He didn’t get everything right and it’s okay to be different. It’s okay to try and be better. David starts to have an epiphany and his mental defenses start to get stronger, much to the alarm of the children. He grows strong enough to banish the spirit ravens away from his mind and back into the kids’.
Inside his mind, he has grown stronger and he lunges through a wall and grabs Max Kelvin, hoping to get lucky a second time. He uses the needles on his glove and stabs Max with them, taking his power. His is the power of exploding plasma.
On the outside, David says it’s amazing what a little bit of self-belief can achieve. He erupts in flames, destroying the ties that hold him and igniting the area around him. The twins cower back. Karasu wants to call the guards but Sojobo says they will be angry so they must recapture him themselves. With flames all around him, David says he won’t fight them and if they ask him they should never have to fight again. He crouches down to them and says they aren’t so dissimilar. They are all basking in dead shadows, screwed up an all kinds of exciting ways but love and resentment. As he helps them to their feet, he says that they have helped him see that you don’t get to be perfect because you are dead. He picks up Ogun’s mask off the pedestal and uses his powers to melt it away.
The soldiers of the clan suddenly rush in but David uses his powers to create a shield as he continues to talk to the twins. He tells them he just wants to help his people and the world. He wants to help the both of them if they’ll let him. They make their way out of the room and down some stairs. David continues and says that he isn’t doing this because of his dad or his dream but because they have had a crappy deal out of life and someone should fix that. He admits that he doesn’t have all the answers; he doesn’t know if he hates or worships his father. He says there is wisdom in admitting you’re ignorant as it makes the stuff you do know mean a hell of a lot more. By now, they have moved to an indoor courtyard area and he uses his powers to knock away any clan members who get in their way.
What he does know is that children should have childhoods, people should have choices and genes shouldn’t matter. Nobody should be forced to fight if they don’t want to. He powers down and says that maybe he should start his own school, maybe he should disappear… he doesn’t know. But whatever happens it will be easier learning it together. He asks the kids what they think and they bow down to him. Sojobo says they agree and he has an old brain, and Karasu adds he has a young ghost. They wish to go with him. David seems pleased at their choice, but it’s short-lived as he is suddenly distracted by a crashing sound and a bright light.
Wolverine and his squad of X-Men come crashing in through a large skylight above them. Addressing David as Legion, he tells them that it’s gone on long enough and to step away from the kids.
