He'd picked a good spot to land it, to be fair - an old processing plant that had been closed down, the buildings and near by warehouses arranged in a ring beside the waterfront, leaving a wide courtyard that would hide anything from open view (although, if you looked through the buildings..). Still, it could all be explained away as some American military thing, as much as they were generally viewed with suspicion.

Logan stood and the shadows and waited, amazed he was back in Japan and had yet to fall apart. He was still having heart palpitations, but he figured that would pass in time.

Scott came down the ramp by himself, and he was surprised that Xavier sent him by himself. But maybe 'Clops said he could take care if it by himself. "Wondered when you get here," Logan said, venturing out of the shadows.

Scott jumped, obviously startled. He hadn't seen him or expected. "Logan?W-what at are you doing here?I thought you told the Professor you wouldn't do this."

He shrugged, glancing at the gulls overhead. Scared off by the jet, they were no returning en masse; screeching flying rats. "I was in the area, so I figured what the hell."

Scott looked as dubious as possible with his eyes hidden behind the visor. "How did you get...weird friends?"

Logan simply nodded, and Scott accepted that with a nod of his own.

"You live to sneak up on me, don't you?" Scott accused, swinging his black canvas jacket off his shoulders and shrugging it on. It was only partially overcast, but, unlike Sydney, unseasonably cold.

"I couldn't get any joy out of somethin' so easy," he replied dryly.

Scott frowned at him, wrinkling his nose like he smelled something bad.  "Very funny. Do you have any idea where we're going?"

"No. Xavier didn't get that far."

"Well then, I guess you'll just have to follow me." He gave him a triumphant smile, flashing his perfect white teeth.

"Uh, if you intend to smile around others, don't show the teeth. The Japanese find that offensive."

Scott's J. Crew smile and smugness seemed to falter. "Really?You're making that up."

He shook his head. "Nope. Don't believe me, try it. But I ain't helpin' you out in the subsequent fight."

Scott cocked his head to the side, studying him, and his hair barely shifted. How much product did he use exactly? "Why do they find it offensive?"

Logan shrugged. "Got me. Maybe it's related to their general distaste of effusive emotional displays."

Scott seemed to consider that a moment, as  the damn seagulls got braver. "How long did you live in Japan?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know?Look, it's like the thing with the jet. I don't know how I know, I just do."

Scott suddenly grinned, and pretended to scratch his face to hide a laugh. "What?" Logan snapped.

"Like "Rainman"?" Scott asked, chuckling.

Logan shook his head and started walking away. "Fuck you, Summers. Go get your own translator."

"Oh, don't be that way. Come on, I was only joking. What happened to your Asian philosophy of no emotional displays?"

Logan spun on his heels to glare at him, making Scott stop short. "I never said anything about adopting a philosophy, dumb ass. I just said watch it."

Scott threw up his hands like he was being the difficult one, and said, "Fine. Is there anything else I should know before I spark an international incident?"

"They ain't fond of physical contact and they like their space, and too much eye contact is bad, but obviously not a problem in your case since a visor doesn't count.  And don't point. But don't worry about it; you're gaijin and they'll expect you to be a rude, oafish animal."

"Hey! Who's the one who calls himself after an animal here?"

"No, I don't. Someone gave me that nickname, 'Clops." Scott frowned at that, but Logan knew suddenly he made a mistake. He should have known Scott would come alone. "Look, who the fuck are we after?"

He earned another scowl for using a dirty word, but Scott pulled a print out from his coat pocket, and unfolded it so carefully Logan wondered if he was afraid of paper cuts. "The Professor was able to discern this mutant event was tied to a sixteen year old girl named Nariko Hatae. We found an address, but he was unable to get the nature of the event, except it was huge."

Nariko - for a moment he thought he said Mariko. "Huge in energy expenditure or huge in violent?"

Scott grimaced. "Both."

He wondered if she vaporized herself or someone else, but didn't say it. "Got an address?"

"Yeah. I'm actually glad you're here, because maybe you can interpret it."

He handed him the print out, and as he took it, he warned him, "I don't know. I can't remember ever being in Japan."
But as soon as Logan glanced at the paper, it was amazing the information he suddenly knew. "Dori means street or avenue, so Meiji Dori is her street. Shit, that's near the Shinjuku Imperial Gardens, isn't it?"

"I hope you're not asking me." Scott admitted.

"I actually think I can find this," he said, feeling stunned. "Hey, this isn't too far from Kabukicho."

"What's that?"

" 'Sin city'. The seediest part of Tokyo, full of brothels - they call 'em 'soaplands' here - bars where you can buy anything from the black market and 'love hotels', these special places for people seeking quickies only. Fun place."

"It figures you'd know that," Scott said disparagingly.

"It may not be a coincidence," he pointed out, giving Scott a dirty look for that comment. How did he know that, though? Just the name of the place seemed familiar somehow...

Scott seemed to take him seriously for once. "I don't know what you mean."

"What if she knows what she can do? What if she did it on purpose?"

"Are you suggesting she's some kind of mutant for hire? At sixteen?"

"You think there's an age limit for exploitation?"

Scott winced. The Boy Scout really needed to wake up to the darker side of the world.  "Shit," he cursed under his breath.

"C'mon, we'll check out her house first. Did Xavier know exactly where this thing occurred?"

Scott shook his head. "He caught the tail end of it. He felt lucky to catch what he did."

"She dropped off the radar that fast?" Scott confirmed that with a nod. "Could she be dead?"

"He doesn't think so. He thinks she may have a natural ability to shield her own mind."

"So she's a psychic mutant?"

Scott shrugged, and Logan figured twenty questions was done. They'd just have to find the girl or someone who knew her and find out for themselves.

And hope they weren't too late.

What was Nariko's mother going to say when two extremely strange looking gaijins showed up at her door, asking about her teenage daughter?

They were probably just lucky the Japanese were knee jerk polite (for the most part), otherwise the woman probably would have threatened them with a shotgun.

Logan got little out of her, except the woman was extremely upset, and not just because of the weird white guys on her door step. Nariko had been missing for days, apparently, but he also got the idea that wasn't unwelcome; what was unwelcome were all these people bothering her about her wayward daughter. So it could be a runaway situation. Or Nariko was actually kidnapped, but her mother didn't know it (and possibly didn't much care).

That made Kabukicho the natural place to check out next - in spite of Scott's protestations (what, did he think he could catch crabs just by walking down the street?) - because teenagers needing money (or a fix) always drifted down to places like this, like rocks tumbling down to the bottom of a hill.

Logan had hoped he'd recognize something, that the Kabukicho would be familiar somehow, but of course it wasn't. It was only familiar in that way that all the seedier sides of big cities were roughly the same: decaying buildings dressed up with gaudy cosmetic splashes of neon that had the same effect of putting layers of cake make up on rotting corpse - it accentuated the problem it was trying to hide.

The difference was most of the shady characters loitering in the shadows of these buildings were simply drug dealers; most of the hookers did their work inside the soaplands, with a few desperate independents hanging around the loud pink doorways of the love hotels. The entire area reeked of sadness and desperation, which was familiar only in the sense that it smelled like every downtown area he'd ever been in.

Scott seemed tense enough to jump out of his visor, but Logan ignored him. Part of the big bad world was places like this, and he may as well get used to it.

Logan started looking around for what may have been a good information nexus. There were the bars, of course, but a teenage girl might not go in there. He needed to find a more neutral area, one where all might gather for black market deals.

There were very few gaijins around, but when he saw them he instantly avoided the places. They were most likely businessmen after some cheap sex, as most black marketeering gaijin would probably not risk showing their face in daylight.

He found what looked like a good place, between a strip club and a love hotel, a sushi bar that had no advertisement whatsoever; it was just a lowly wooden framed building, squatting toad like in the neon shadows, like an architectural afterthought.

Scott was looking around and yet trying not to do it overtly, and yet it was driving Logan crazy. He had to suppress the urge to hit him - he always had to suppress the urge to hit him - but it was really difficult.

The moment they walked in the sushi place, all the customers in there openly stared at them, and he took that as a good sign, at least as far as the food was concerned.

It was as anonymous inside as it was outside, all dark wood and bamboo, and he took a seat at the bar, Scott reluctantly following along. "What are we doing here?" He wondered, looking around at the half dozen diners who continued to stare at them.

"I'm hungry," he admitted. "Want anything?" Of course that was only part of the reason, but why spoil the fun now?

A young girl - probably the restaurant owner's daughter - appeared to take their orders, her look openly astonished. Obviously they didn't get a lot of gaijins in here. "Don't worry, I speak the language," he told her in Japanese. Her delicate eyebrows raised in surprise, but she seemed relieved.

"Uh, aren't we supposed to be looking for the girl, not having lunch?" Scott said.

"Well, we could go to the strip club next door," he suggested. As expected, he got a dirty scowl for that.

He ordered some sushi and sake, with a cup of 'Americanized' (meaning really sweet) green tea for Scott, and as soon as the girl left, Logan told him, in English, "I think this might be the place where the more subtler black marketers hang out. Sometimes loitering around a bar is just askin' for it, especially if there's a territorial war goin' on."

"I'm glad you're around to keep me updated on the seedier side of things." Scott noted sarcastically.

"Your welcome," he replied.

It didn't take long for the girl to come back. The one good thing about sushi was there was no cooking required. She was a rather plain looking girl, with her long black hair held back by black lacquered chopsticks, but there was a sort of worldliness in her hazel eyes that made him think that, despite her age, she was no innocent.

After she put the small porcelain cup of green tea in front of Scott, he looked down at it like it was a poisonous snake about to strike. "What did you order for me?"

"Green tea. It's good for ya. Just drink it."

Scott grimaced, either not trusting him or the place (or both).  He ignored him, though, as he was honestly hungry. Maybe he was only gone several hours in this dimension, but it felt like a day to his stomach.

To his surprise, he had absolutely no trouble using the chopsticks, he liked sushi, and the warm sake wasn't bad either. Of all of it, the sake was the most familiar (figures - alcohol).

Scott, who hadn't dared to touch his tea, said, "You know what the weirdest thing about all of this is?You seem almost comfortable here."

He looked at him askance as he reached for his sake. "What do you mean?"

"You act uncomfortable everywhere, Logan. Like you've just stumbled into wherever you are, and as soon as you spy the exit you're outta there. Even at the mansion, still, which is frankly starting to get on my nerves. But right now you seem sort of relaxed...well, for you."

He couldn't decide if that was a compliment, an insult, or just an observation. Probably all at once. "I used to live here."

"Do you remember any of it? Besides the language." He almost sounded interested.

Logan could only shake his head. "No."

"But you seemed to remember the streets," Scott pointed out. It sounded like the Boy Scout was trying to be encouraging, which was weird. What the fuck did he care?

"I didn't. I knew which way we were supposed to head when we got to certain points...but there was no context. It was like remembering parts of a road map I studied a long time ago, somewhere else. I can logically take you point to to point - from here to the Ginza, from there to  the airport, from there to the Imperial Palace - but it means absolutely nothing to me."

And maybe that was the worst part of this. Logan felt he had finally learned something he had never wanted to learn.
He had learned that loss and grief had a shape, had their own special topography, and part of coming to terms with it was learning to navigate in the new surroundings. And when whoever - Lethe, the Organization, who knows how many telepaths and/or demons - took his memory, they took a big chunk of that, most of it, but not all. So he was left with the shapeless, nameless grief, an open wound he didn't know  the nature of and couldn't begin to heal.

He knew some of the facts now, but in abstract: what basically happened, the name of the person he lost, her grave, her photograph, a list of personal statics that were the dry and bloodless way of describing a person as they looked or seemed, but not as they were. So the wound could be classified by type, the topography could shade itself in with ghostly outlines, but the ghost still remained faceless, and the wound still seemed gaping and fresh.

Now he had remembered her face on his own, or maybe with a lot of help from Bob, he didn't know and didn't suppose it mattered much either way. If this thing was ever going to start to close he was going to have to remember more - how could you even begin to recover from a great loss when you weren't completely sure what it was you lost?And it wasn't only Mariko, although she was the one who blasted the hole in his soul that hadn't closed, and probably never would: when they took his memory, they left another shapeless, mysterious wound. But there was a loss he'd probably never be able to quantify, one he'd never be able to  sort into a category and slap with a comforting label. How did you categorize and measure the loss of an entire life?

Mariko had been a part of that. But her loss bit so deep that even taking away the memories didn't rid of him of her ghost, or the pain left behind, even if he never had a name to put to it until now.

He felt like telling Scott: "I'm comfortable because I died here. And only a part of me ever got back up again." But he didn't, because he'd never say that to him, or to anyone.

"None of this seems familiar at all?" Scott said, and he sounded disappointed.

Logan just shook his head, and wondered, "Hoping I'll move here?"

Scott sighed and shook his head. But after a minute, he admitted, "Wouldn't bother me."

He grunted in amusement. At least he admitted it.

Warily, he attempted to taste the green tea, but after a sip he made a noise of disgust and put it down. Scott glanced around at all the people still staring at them (Logan could feel their eyes, that annoying continual itch between his shoulder blades, but all the hostility was veiled : no one here was about to act on it), and as he turned back to look over the bar, he asked, "Does anyone here speak English?"

"I doubt it."

He paused briefly, then asked, in a quiet voice:"Have you slept with Jean?"

Logan almost choked on his sashimi. He forced the food down the right pipe with a cough and a slap on his chest, and then looked at One Eye incredulously. "If I had, do you think she'd still be with you?"

Scott sat back on his stool, his responding smile forced and edged with hostility. "Aren't we full of ourselves?"

"We've never had any complaints."

"That you remember."

"Ha." He supposed he should have been angry, but he wasn't. He actually felt kind of bad for the kid, which he instantly hated. "What, you don't trust her now?"

"Her I trust. But not you."

A flippant answer, and a convenient one, but Logan didn't care what was behind it.

But, damn it, Scott just kept on talking. "Does she ever talk to you?"

"Jeanie? About school shit, nothing else." He refused to ask why.

But Scott wasn't taking subtle hints of disinterest, or was ignoring them. "There's something wrong lately, and I don't know what it is."

"So instantly you blame me."

"Well, everything was fine before you showed up."

Logan had to bite back a "Well, if she was happy with you, there never would've been any problem", not because he wanted to spare his feelings or because it was needlessly bitchy, but because he really didn't care. He really didn't want to hear about the domestic life of Saint Jean and Scott the Wonder Pony.  "Ain't that convenient?" Logan finally decided to say. "You only blame me 'cause you hate me." 'And she doesn't,' he thought, but didn't say.

"Hate is a strong word," Scott countered. "More like dislike."

"Kill me with semantics."

"Would that do it?" He replied with sarcastic cheerfulness. Logan didn't even bother to respond to that.

The silence was thick, even thicker than the scent of alcohol soaked sweat and the smell of freshly killed fish in this tiny little sushi shack, so finally Logan said, "Look, if you think somethin's wrong, talk to her, not me."

"But that's part of the problem," he replied. "I've never had to talk to her about anything. She just knew."

"She's a telepath, not Bob. You're probably gonna have to flap your jaws every now and then."

"Man, you are poetic."

Logan flashed him his middle finger as he used his chopsticks to chase a last bit of red tuna around his small black tray. Scott just shook his head and looked away, continuing to pointlessly scan the shack for any hostiles, or perhaps a mutant teenage girl with a big unicorn horn sprouting from her forehead. Finally, he said, "Maybe the dreams have freaked her out."

He wasn't going to ask. He didn't care.

Scott continued anyways. "Ever since I got back from...those people," - had to mean the Organization - " I've been dreaming about when my powers first manifested themselves. I mean, I shared the story with Jean, but never the exact thought."

Logan wondered if he could bang his head on the bar without breaking it in two. No, probably not, and he didn't have the cash on him to pay for it.

He hoped Scott would take his silence for what it was - sheer disinterest - but he was no good at taking hints. No wonder Jean's patience was wearing thin. "Maybe it was the being strapped down part. Maybe that reminds me of my capture."

Okay, now he had to ask. "Strapped down?" Anything that ended up with the Boy Scout being strapped down - -preferably to a bed of red hot nails - had to be worth it.

Only now did Scott get reticent, look down into his cup of green tea as if searching for drowning sailors. "It just ...happened. I had normal eyes, and then...then suddenly I brought a whole building down. Nobody knew what happened, except for me. I remembered this energy coming out of my eyes, my vision going completely red, and then I started regaining consciousness as the EMT's loaded me in the back of an ambulance. I panicked - I didn't know what had happened exactly, but I knew I was dangerous, so when one tried to open my eyelid to look at my pupil I fought her. I tried to tell them I couldn't open my eyes and they couldn't either,  but maybe I got a little... animated. One of them stuck me with a sedative, and I have a vague memory of collapsing by the time we were at the hospital. I still kept screaming at them not to open my eyes, but a couple of burly guys wrestled me down to a gurney, and they strapped my arms and legs down. I remember somebody shouting for a psych consult - they thought I was crazy. I knew I was hysterical, so I tried to plead with the doctor, begged him just to do a CT or whatever, just don't make my open my eyes. But he did. He pried one of my eyelids open. And the e.r. got a new sunroof. While he..."

When Scott didn't seem forthcoming, he guessed, "You killed him?"

Scott shook his head. "Might as well have. Fractured his skull,and he broke his spine when he hit the wall.
He lived, but I think he's little more than a vegetable."

Logan shrugged. Maybe the Boy Scout did have a moment or two of uncleanliness in his life.  "Not your fault. You warned them."

"Easy for you to say."

"Did you hit him on purpose?"

"No."

"Then it ain't your fault. Accidents happen."

Scott seemed to brood at that, looking down at his cooling, clouding tea. "That's what Xavier told me when he showed up at the hospital. The staff didn't know what to do with me - it wasn't like they knew what my problem was - but they were happy to stick me in a room far from all the other patients, with my eyes taped down so I couldn't open them."

"They taped down your eyes?"

"I asked them to."

"What'd your parents think of this?"

He shrugged, looking around again, as if there was something utterly fascinating in the direction of the men's room. "They were dead. I was a ward of the state at the time. Foster homes, you know; no living relatives willing to take me."

No, he didn't know. And Logan was surprised, because usually former foster kids were less uptight and more freewheeling than Mister 'Elephant sized stick up his ass'. Weird. "I bet the state didn't want to know you then."

Scott actually chuckled faintly. "A kid with uncontrollable death rays coming from his eyes? No, not really. That's why when Xavier showed up, they were more than happy to play ball with him, as long as he'd get me off their hands."

And that probably explained Scott's unwavering devotion to the old guy - saved his bacon. Good enough reason as any. "I told Jean about most of it," he continued, sounding anguished. "But...some of the details I...skimmed over. Maybe she thinks I lied to her."

Logan figured he'd have to admit what happened to the doctor - Scott was far too guilt ridden to leave that out - but maybe he omitted having such a big ass psychotic freak out the staff thought he was on angel dust. Not that he could blame him exactly, but it was funny, in a really pathetic sort of way. "Oh, come on. Everybody lies. We have to. If people were always honest with each other, there'd be a hell of a lot more murders, and a lot less fucking."

Scott stared at him (well, from what he could tell) for a long moment. "Wow. That is the most cynical thing I've ever heard in my life."

"Hold on to your visor, I've got more."

"Thanks, but that'll do for the day."

Logan shook his head. "Wuss." He'd been looking around for  the girl - hoping for a little small talk while getting a refill on the sake to break the ice - and he saw her in the far corner. She was being quietly cussed out by a ferret-y looking Japanese man, who was holding her wrist with a vise like grip. He was speaking rapid fire Japanese, but Logan was able to discern he was angry about the quality of the 'package'. She kept telling him to take it up with her father, but he was content to threaten and hurt her.

He got up from his stool and sauntered over to where this little tableau was happening, much to the learned obliviousness of the other patrons. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to hurt a girl?" Logan asked, in Japanese. "Or did you just crawl out of the sewer fully formed?"

The man glared at him, and spat back, in Japanese, "This is none of your business, white boy. Leave us alone."

"Leave the girl alone." Logan  replied coolly, glaring at the man. He was hoping the guy would want to take it outside, as he could use the fun, and nothing would endear him to the girl more than turning this bully into steak tartar.

He felt Scott looming beyond his shoulder, probably interested in intervening only due to the fact that the guy was manhandling a woman. Scott was hardly intimidating, but the guy got the idea it was now two against one, and he didn't like the odds.

He let her go, and snarled, "You'll be sorry, foreigner."

"If I see you again, you won't have time to regret being born, asshole." Logan snapped back. Not the best as threats went, but it only had to impress the girl. Not that he wouldn't gladly kick this man's ass, he just didn't think it would be much of a challenge, even if his hands were tied behind his back and he was blindfolded. (He'd smell that man's bad aftershave a half mile away.)

The man glared daggers at them as he left the sushi shack, and Scott asked, "What was that about?"

"Thank you," the girl (the man called her Kyoko) said, rubbing her sore wrist.

"What the hell was that bastard's problem?" He asked, wondering if she'd tell him.