The Lady Tiger

Hanzo sat behind his brand new, five hundred year old vintage Tudor desk made from polished Walnut and various resins. His old office was still under reconstruction. His old desk was demolished, four hundred and twenty five thousand Nuyen gone in an instant. Hanzo was not a vain man, in fact he was incredibly pragmatic about most things and the clothes he wore could be purchase in the southeast asian section of your average stuffer shack. But his desk was his pride, his conceit. This new one would do, though european, it would do. Sometimes a change of scenery is good for the spirit, even if forced by the amateurish tactics of his enemies. His mind wandered to the Tao momentarily as his door opened and in walked the stunning Miko Ishikawa.

He put down the tablet he had been scanning, turned off his head phone, and smiled as she sat down in front of him. Miko always made him feel better about the future. She had accomplished so much in her short life, her ambition already carrying her well beyond what any woman had ever accomplished in the history of south east asian organized crime. At 33 years old and third in command of Hanzo's organization she was the second youngest female as high up in any syndicate ... ever. Out-done only by the O'Malley's own Rowena who came a breath away from being a 31 year old Dona of a major city. Regardless the Italians had a long history of powerful women who would run the organizations behind the scenes and it was only tradition that kept their men in power. Miko had fought much more than tradition, she had fought through repression, through cultural bias.

Hanzo's pride spilled from his eyes and he quickly sought to reign it in. While there were spiraling rumors about their relationship with each other, not even Miko knew the man sitting in front of her now was her natural father. No one but Hanzo and her now long dead mother knew why Hanzo had taken in the girl when she was only eight. While the honor debt was clear cut and obvious most Oyabun would have only honored the word of the debt and would have put the girl through private school and summarily forgotten about her, the entire relationship handled through the Oyabun's accountant. But hanzo had taken her in and embraced her ... and in that environment Miko had thrived.

"I like the new desk. I heard the other one was unrecoverable. I also like the new office, it's a nice change, less 1800's and more 2060." Her eyes smiled in a calculated fashion with the small talk.

Hanzo frowned. "Do not disparage our heritage, Miko. While I too appreciate the ... conveniences ... of modern times, we must not forget our heritage."

Miko's smiling eyes flattened out as her instincts took over. "Heritage has not brought me to where I am today. Heritage has stood in my way every step of the way. I have no use for heritage."

Hanzo smiled, that warm paternal smile that always seemed to confuse her. It was also the smile that told her "You never let them know your weakness". Upset that she let her anger slip, even in the presence of this man who would excuse her for nearly any mistake, she averted eyes in a faux-glance around the room. "I've found the team that had been working with Rowena to undermine our downtown operations. I've put them to work taking her shadow operations apart."

"A clever approach. Shiro would have had them floating in the bay."

Miko rolled her eyes at Shiro's name, Hanzo's second. She knew to hold her tongue though, Hanzo wouldn't tolerate even her slandering the man who had covered his back through it all. Suddenly it occurred to her that Hanzo was paying her a compliment. She pulled herself out of the 'if it weren't for heritage I'd be running this place soon' hole and continued with her report "They've already proven quite effective and if best case they will get pretty far with this. Otherwise they'll just wind up floating in the sound as Shiro would prefer. Either way we've already got more from them than if we had simply put them under the second we found them."

"I agree, but don't get too attached to your pet team Miko. There are many people here who will want their blood regardless of how much they repay."

She dismissed the comment and Hanzo smiled as she moved on to the real discussion. She was successful enough not to need approval or compliments whenever she had a clever idea. She was 33 years old and in control of a vast percentage of the city of Seattle, all of her ideas had to be pretty fraggin clever. "This team, they have an Oni. The 'traditional' kind."

"Hiro" The name came from Hanzo's tight lips. He was not angry, mostly just annoyed with the man's continual interference.

"Yes. I've already contacted Mr. Protagonist about his implication in all of this. He has assured me that his involvement has been strictly ancillary and he was simply trying to infiltrate Rowena's operation."

"You believe that?"

Miko's smile this time was genuine and she had to suppress a giggle. "No. But Hiro also promptly produced a large amount of information about some kind of top secret project that his Oni's team is somehow mixed up in. He implicated a triple A and their black ops division. The project has something to do with immortality and dead children. Hiro isn't stupid, he knows how valuable this is to us. Right now the information is pretty limited but if the team can make further progress we will have more than enough to force some hands."

Hanzo looked off into the corner for a moment. His thoughts raced back to the dead eyes of the dragon as he tore the ninja to pieces. His consultant scientist had said something about the dragon having a calculated life expectancy of twenty or so millenium as long he got his serum. That had bothered Hanzo in a way he wasn't prepared to deal with right now. And now, dead children living forever?

He sighed openly, Miko had seen his eyes and heart wander off, had seen the sentimentality creeping up into an old mind and body that not a decade ago had been praised for it's brutal effectiveness. Finally he found Miko's eyes with a smile. "So it looks like you'll get to keep your pet team for a while now, even after they're done with Rowena."

Miko silently nodded, suddenly worried about what exactly HAD happened only three days ago. She had heard stories about the incident, at this point surely exaggerated several fold, but it had moved Hanzo in a way she wasn't used to. She just nodded and got up. The old man seemed content to sit there staring blankly at the fringe of his brand new, antique desk. And as she walked out of the room, for the first time ever, Miko considered what exactly would happen when Hanzo finally died.