Horrified, Kitty Pryde calls out her father’s name. She followed him halfway around the world to Tokyo, because she thought he was in trouble and wanted to help. Instead, she learns that he is a crook. Startled himself, he cries out “Kitty.”
Who is this gaijin child? Shigematsu-san demands. How did she have access to this building, much less this office? She’s his daughter, Carmen Pryde states apologetically. He dislikes skulkers and spies, Shigematsu states displeased. Hardly an auspicious beginning for their relationship. He wants to learn what she knows and has heard. He orders his men to seize her.
Three men get ready to grab Kitty over Carmen’s protest. Despite the flu, Kitty is still a match for them. She tosses an office chair at them to keep them off-balance, then jumps over it and into Shigematsu which gives her a clear run for the door. She runs past her father without a word or even a look.
The one man who kept out of the fight and watched it with interest, Ogun, helps Shigematsu up. In Japanese, the old man angrily demands why Ogun didn’t stop her. Ogun coolly reminds him he isn’t his bodyguard and Shigematsu should not make the mistake of addressing him as such. Shigematsu apologizes, even deferentially calls him Ogun-Sama, but the girl must be found, he continues. Ogun promises to deal with her. In fact he may consider her life full payment for all services Ogun has rendered him.
Kitty Pryde, that is all? Shigematsu asks surprised. By all means, take her with his blessing! Ogun bows his head a fraction, thanking the oyabun.
While not understanding the conversation, Pryde heard Kitty’s name. He tries to attack Ogun, demanding to learn what they said. Ogun easily sidesteps him, then twists his arm. Coolly, he tells him that his child is as one dead. She is Ogun’s now and lost to Pryde forever. Seek her out, interfere in any way, by accident or design and his destruction will be as terrible as it is certain. Do they understand each other? Yes, Pryde whimpers.
Kitty, in the meantime, makes tracks by phasing down the skyscraper as fast as she can, not bothering to hide herself. She bets there will be some crazy stories told over dinner tonight. She wishes she was in a mood to enjoy them herself. She wishes she’d never come to this city.
She finds the lobby crawling with guards and phases down again into the sewers. She decides the only place to hide she has is with Lady Mariko. Now she only has to reach her. But with her fever, she has a hard time just staying on her feet.
She stifles a sneeze which makes here feel like she’s just been punched in the throat. Try as she might, she can’t catch a decent breath. Unsure what to do, she hesitates. The next moment, a man wearing a demon mask drops down in front of her and blows powder in her face. Kitty goes out like a light and drops to the ground.
JFK international airport, New York, Logan walks through the airport’s metal gate. He explains that he has metal implants in his bones which the sensors are reacting to. Medical certification is in his passport. The custom officer agrees. Is he traveling to Tokyo for business or pleasure? Business, he replies curtly.
Kitty finds herself standing in darkness. Anybody home? she asks. A light switches on, only illuminating her. Thanks, she states. She finds she can’t move a muscle from the neck down. So long as she’s paralyzed, she doesn’t dare phase. She’d drop straight down into the floor and be stuck there till she suffocates. Where is she?
She hears a whizzing nose from the darkness. She wants to be brave but screams anyway. Suddenly, a ninja wearing the demon mask jumps in front of her, wielding a katana. He slashes both sleeves of her skating dress, then vanishes back into the darkness. Hey! she protests. This is her favorite outfit. Leave it alone! Leave her alone! she thinks.
What is he gonna do next? she thinks nervously. Maybe he doesn’t speak English. She tries Japanese, asking who he is and why she’s here. She cries no, as he appears again in front of her, his blade going for her throat. But it stops even as it touches her skin. She finds she can no longer speak, or utter any sound. Somehow the ninja’s blade struck her numb.
Her mind’s racing as she looks behind her where he’s disappeared to. Steel touches her legs as light as a feather and she drops to her knees.
Awful as this is, her imagination makes it worse, all the horrible things she’s seen and read and heard rear up in her head, and she expects them to happen to her, so that in a crazy sort of way when he actually makes his move, cutting off her long hair, and this doesn’t turn out to be as bad as she feared, she finds herself almost grateful.
He’s taking her apart piece by piece. She can’t hear or feel or move or speak. He slashes apart the back of her dress. He’s reduced her to eyes that have nothing to see but darkness and a mind convinced of its own destruction.
She bites her lip helplessly as she thinks of her parents. None of them will ever know how she died. She tells herself to stay strong through all the fear, wondering if it will hurt, silently crying for Professor Xavier to save her. The Ninja raises his sword and brings it down. It stops a hair’s breadth from Kitty’s head.
She should be dead. Perhaps in a sense she is. She doesn’t know how long she lies there. Time loses any meaning. All she can see, all she is aware of is the light. She can’t close her eyes or look away. It becomes the core of her universe, the focus of her existence, until he takes its place to cast her down.
And suddenly, impossibly her world is brand new again. Kitty is only an infant. Ogun orders her to match his martial art moves. The child is clumsy but following his orders tries again and again.
He begins teaching her using weapons such as shuriken, but again she is not good enough, though she slowly gets better, then the bo staff and the sai.
Becoming a little older, Kitty discovers her phasing power and tries to sneak up on Ogun. He senses her approach and swings his blade around. She phases under him and makes faces at him. As she tries to grab him though, actually he grabs her with his feet and tosses her down.
Time passes and Kitty, now a young woman, has mastered the fighting art. She now can battle Ogun with a katana and when his size and advantage and experience enable him to get past her guard she is ready, phasing through a killing strike. Calling her musume-san – daughter – Ogun tells her he is proud of her.
He orders her one last time to match his movements, this time with the sword. Both their movements match precisely as they act in perfect sync. Each movement brings them closer, form, thoughts, realities flowing together, until at last, in reality there is only Kitty. Wearing a ninja outfit, she gets up, sheathes the word, picks up the demon mask and dons it.
Tokyo, Shigematsu’s skyscraper. Everything is dark, the lights don’t work. His bodyguards draw their guns. Seeing movement at the desk they point their guns there. Evenin’ gents, comes a voice from the desk and somebody lights a smoke there. Shigematsu orders his men to remove the intruder and they fire. They hit an empty chair.
Claws unsheathed and speedily, Wolverine takes care of the guards, leaving only Shigematsu and the women at his side. Not the most hospitable of welcomes, he observes, but then their boss knows as much about common courtesy as he does about honor. He tells the women to leave. Shigematsu-san and he got private business to discuss.
Instead, one woman jumps at him while the other uses her hairpins as throwing weapons. They too are bodyguards. Wolverine quickly takes them out.
Who is he? Shigematsu asks nervously. The wrong person to have as your enemy, comes the reply. And Shigematsu finally recognizes him. What does he want? he asks. Kitty Pryde, comes the reply. Who? he asks. Wolverine orders him not to blow smoke at him. The youngster is considered family by him and Lady Yashida. He understands what that means? Harm her, he’ll answer to them.
He does not have her, Shigematsu admits. Get her! Logan orders. That may prove difficult… Wolverine holds his claws under Shigematsu’s chin. He will do his best, he promises, and sits down to make a phone call. Fine, as long as he succeeds, Logan states.
In a traditional home, Ogun receives the call. He notices Shigematsu sounds strained. He is told there are… complications regarding their arrangement. Wolverine? How… unfortunate. He tells Shigematsu he must attend to some pressing duties. This will not take long.
He muses on Logan and how he thought, hoped, their paths would never again cross. Yet now their meeting seems inevitable almost ordained from the start. The wheel turns. All are bound to it.
He shoves aside a door. A small figure dressed in dark clothing and a demon mask kneels on the ground, katana and short sword beside her on the ground. Is she ready? he asks her. She agrees. He gives the order to kill her. On that order, ninjas with different weapons enter the room from different directions. The small figure rakes out all of them without even having to unsheathe the sword.
When the last Ninja manages to use his weapon to hold down the sword and attacks her directly she phases through the attack of the scythe. She solidifies to kick him, then draws the blade, intent on killing him. Ogun stops the lethal strike with his own sword. He tells her the exercise is ended and tells his ninja Matsuo to be grateful for his life.
Kitty takes off the mask. She did well? she asks, He calls her a true daughter of the demon. Better in fact than he was at her age. He orders her to make herself presentable, then join him in his study.
Ogun returns to the phone, thanking Shigematsu for waiting. He tells him to arrange a meeting for tomorrow evening. The girl will be there.
Ogun thinks that he would prefer to wait before confronting Kitty with her past. But perhaps this is for the best. Wolverine is her teammate and friend. He will prove the ultimate test of his conditioning. It should hold. He should mean nothing to her.
He looks at a picture, showing himself and Logan as friends, sharing a traditional Japanese meal. How strange, he muses, are the ways of fate. Kitty’s is what he originally had in mind for Logan.
Kitty joins him. Ogun explains he has an enemy, a gaijin. If not stopped he will seek his life. He wishes her to deal with him. With a self-assured smile, Kitty tells him not trouble himself over the foreign devil. He is as good as dead!
