Logan could smell his hair singing,knew his exposed skin was blistering,and was certain his clothes would start burning,but he hoped that little girl didn't think becoming the human torch was enough to stop him now.

Even as the wet floor began to burn,Logan charged her with a roar of anger,running full force at her even as he felt some of his skin start to burn,and he saw the smug look on her face turn to shock,her eyes wide with sudden fear.She had expected a retreat,not some fucking some nut willing to chance the fire.

Fists out,aware some of the dribbling water was sizzling on his own claws,he retracted them the second before he collided with her,burning the flesh inside his hands even as his naked fists slammed into her chest,just a millimeter or two beneath her collarbone so he didn't shatter it into dust.

The impact was hard,and nothing she was prepared for:she flew backwards,literally knocked off her feet,and collided with the wall of the connecting corridor hard enough to leave a serious dent in the metal.She didn't slide to the floor more than plummet,so unconscious he bet she'd be out until the next election (lucky her).

The warm water spewing from the melted and mangled sprinklers had put him out for the most part,save for a few smoldering bits,but even more of his jeans had been burnt away,and he now knew what Bob had gone through:most of the back of his shirt was gone (and most of the skin underneath),and the left side was all but burnt away,which made a certain amount of sense since he was closest to that side of the hall.But now he had some bizarro half shirt deal going on,where it only covered the right half of his torso (and only in the front),and he wondered why he left his leather jacket in Bob's car.He might not have been burned at all;well,on the chest and back at any rate.

His skin itched like mad as it grew back over the burned spots,and he could feel that deep,hot tingle on the back of his neck,climbing up his scalp,making him wonder how much of his hair actually got burned off.No matter;it'd be back soon enough.It always was.

The sprinklers finally died,to mangled to be helpful anymore,but the flames had all but burnt themselves out,as there wasn't a lot of flammable material to begin with,and their 'master' was down for the count anyways.

He stepped over her as he walked down the flame free hallway,tempted to stop and search her for some i.d. to figure out who she really was,but that didn't matter.All that mattered was following the scent he had caught earlier,and in spite of it all,he caught it again."Got anything else,genius?"He snapped,assuming he was being watched.

Until he got some answers,not even burning him alive was enough to stop him.

**

"He's not human,"Haido said,feeling almost faint.He was so sure Emma could toast that freak,but she had been arrogant and misjudged him completely.It was now time to leave,and execute plan B.

"Yeah,he's mutant,but so fucking what?So's Hellion.And yeah,she can burn like that,but she doesn't get hurt.He's not a fire guy,so what's his deal?"

"That's a question I've pondered for many years,"he admitted,getting up from his chair.He could see Logan,half his clothes burned away but his skin seemingly flowing over red patches where the dermal layer had been stripped away by heat and flames,and it had not slowed him down.He could see the mongrel gene trash coming for him at seven different angles on the monitor screens.

"Could you be mistaken?Could he be a demon?"

Haido almost laughed,but couldn't quite manage.Logan had haunted too many of his nightmares for years,and that was before he knew for certain that the bastard was still alive.He hated the irony of a powerful man such as himself even being slightly scared of mutant cur such as him."I think he's the father of all demons,"he said,meaning it figuratively if not exactly literally.

The one thing he knew was that everything that had a pulse,mutant or not,could die.Something could kill Logan permanently.He just had to narrow it down to what in a very short period of time.

Tokyo,Japan-1981

He dropped to his knees on the hard cement,hardly even noticing it,shifting her in his arms so he could see her face, and would be more comfortable-

(-more comfortable?She was dying a centimeter at a time,her internal organs beginning to rupture as he could do nothing but watch-)

-and as she looked up at him,he could already see the glaze of pain in her deep brown eyes."I never even saw him," she gasped,a thin line of blood starting to trickle from both nostrils.

He cradled her head in his arm and gently kissed her forehead,trying to swallow back sobs that were fighting to get out,desperately trying to blink back tears that stung his eyes worse than the poison ever had.He was suddenly ice cold, and felt like he was going into shock even though he knew his body would never allow that to happen.But that was just physical shock;he didn't know if emotional shock counted.

He knew he should say something,anything,but he didn't know what.No,that wasn't completely true.He buried his face in her neck,smelling both her Opium perfume (she loved the irony) and now her blood,feeling as well as hearing her pulse in her throat growing erratic as the poison relentlessly coursed through her bloodstream,burning everything it touched."Oh god Mariko,I'm so sorry,"he whispered,a strangled sob making his voice break right down the middle.

He felt her hand on the back of his neck,her skin far too warm (oh god she was burning from the inside out),and she said,clearly struggling for every word,"I love you,Logan."

He wanted to scream,but it came out as a shuddering sob,the pain inside him now ten thousand times worse,and he suddenly wished he could take her place.Could he?Maybe if he had died and stayed dead she wouldn't have to die...it didn't make any sense,but nothing made sense right now.There was no sense in Mariko dying a hideous death,and him being helpless to do anything about it.There had to be something he could do.The one goddamn thing he could offer her was a solution,an escape...so why couldn't he do it now?

He had failed her.He had failed her and now he was going to watch the woman he loved die.

"I love you,"he said,trying desperately not to cry.He felt like he was dying too,or at least would have been better off dead.Better dead than to live to see this.

He felt her body stiffen,seize in pain,and the urge to scream came back again.This couldn't be happening.This was somewhere beyond his worst nightmares,somewhere south of hell,and he found himself trying to mentally bargain with a deity he never believed in.He would believe in anything,he would do anything if only this was not happening. If only she could be saved.

"Logan,"she gasped,and he could hear the blood bubbling in her throat.

He looked down at her face,unable to stop the tears,and she was so pale,blood gushing from her nose,trickling now from the corner of her flushed,crimson lips,the whites of her eyes showing the first red pinpricks of burst blood vessels around the wide rims of her dark irises."Logan,my love,"she said,struggling hard for every word."Do this for me."

She grabbed his hand,closed it into a fist,and put it to her chest,around the area of her heart.It took him a moment to understand what she meant,and when he did his own heart seemed to stop.

"No,"he cried,anguished,tears streaming down his face and narrowly missing falling onto her.But even as he said it he knew it might be the last escape he could offer her,the only way out of this hellish,torturish death.

"Please,"she said,almost gagging on a fresh gout of blood that ran out the corners of her mouth.

Oh god.She was in so much pain,he couldn't watch her suffer,and yet...he couldn't,not her...

He held her tight,feeling her skin radiating heat like the sun,too damn warm,and he could feel the spasms deep inside her body as organs and muscles ruptured,ticced,failed.He couldn't stop the sobs,which felt like they were being ripped out of the very pit of his soul,if freaks like him had a soul.He didn't know,and he didn't care.If he loved her, he would do this.

He kissed her lips,tasting her tainted blood,smelling the poison on her breath,and a single tear trickled from the corner of her eye,a diffused pink due to blood.That did it."I'll always love you,Mariko,"he told her,trying not to sob, as he placed his fist over her left breast and popped his claws.

They severed the aorta and main ventricle on impact,killing her instantly.She was dead before the tips of his claws punched through her back.

Only then did Logan scream,a howl that felt purgatorial,like it was emanating from the very pit of the soul he didn't quite have,anguish and rage so intertwined as to be indistinguishable.

It seemed to echo off the glass and steel of the buildings around him,and for a moment he could almost believe the entire city was screaming right along with him.

He had no idea when he actually stopped;his throat was raw and bloody,although not for long.It was never for long with him,was it?Nothing was ever long;freaks like him just didn't stay dead,even when the world was better off without them.

He held her tightly in his arms,believing for a moment she was still alive...she was,she was,she was just asleep,that's all...but he couldn't ignore the smell of her poisoned blood (he could still taste it) or the all too familiar stench of death.She was so warm,and now she seemed so cold...

Something in Logan just died.He didn't know what,or even when,but he felt empty,and he realized there was
nothing left in him at all.He was a hollow man,devoid of all substance and reason and meaning.

And that was all that was necessary for the beast to come out.

It was Logan who gently laid Mariko down on the ground,but it was Wolverine who got up and started the hunt.

**

All Hachiro knew was he needed Natsume,once he'd gotten over his own bruised balls,to help him to the elevator and otherwise walk him to the car parked around back.Yamura was gone to wherever the hell,trying to be some sneaky,pretentious 'Ninja' sort,but he hit his target-or so he said.Since he had a thing about lying,he was inclined to believe him.

He really wanted to stick around and watch the bitch die,but Natsume had clued him in on the conversation her pussy whipped assistant had had with Mitsuo-he was so paranoid he was probably on his way with his bodyguards and his son-in-law on the police force.Mitsuo only trusted himself,therefore he could be trusted by no one else.

He was Yamura's next project.

Hachiro settled in the back of his sedan,imported and probably one of the biggest cars on the road in all of Japan,but worth it:just one look and people knew how powerful and wealthy he had to be.He was just settling in,grateful for the car's wide back seat so he could prop his aching leg up-shit,he was going to need a doctor-when he heard the scream.

Even Natsume stopped and looked around.It was loud and painfully enraged-and close-and barely sounded human.It was an eerie banshee wail that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.Was it human?Well,it had to be,because there were no animals that sounded like that,inside Tokyo or out.

Konichi,his driver,sat up straighter,as if someone had just shoved a cattle prod right up his ass."What the fuck was that?"He asked,sounding genuinely frightened.

Natsume got in on the passenger side,next to Konichi."Logan's dead,right?"

"Of course he is,"he snapped,trying to position his leg in a way to make it hurt less.That turned out to be impossible: it throbbed like a misplaced phantom heartbeat.

"Then it can't be Yamura getting his,"he opined,not apparently offended by Hachiro's angry tone."Did anyone give a fuck about Mariko?"

Hachiro barely had to think about it."Not that I know of."

Natsume grunted noncommittally,petering out,having no further guesses to make.It had not been hard to make him switch sides;he had never liked Logan,but when he was told he was a mutant he couldn't wait to see him dead.Some mutant had killed his brother or something like that.

"Maybe it's an angry ghost,"Konichi said,half joking and half serious.

"Yeah,comin' to eviscerate you,"Natsume teased,giving him a hard slap on the shoulder."Just start the fuckin' car."

Konichi did as he was told,and Hachiro thought he saw movement somewhere beyond the black tinted windows,but since it was night and not very well lit until Konichi turned on the headlights,he couldn't be sure.

Until it was too late.

The driver's side window exploded,and before Konichi could utter more than a startled yelp,a hand grabbed him and yanked him violently through the newly shattered bulletproof glass.If he made any other noises at all,they were lost in a loud crack of bone.

Natsume had pulled his gun and started shooting,nearly deafening them both,and as the stench of cordite filled the car,the entire front windshield was shattered as Konichi's body slammed through it at hurricane force,sending glass flying throughout the vehicle.Shatterproof glass.

"Holy fuck!"Natsume exclaimed,as he struggled to get the body of Konichi out of the way of his gun.Then they both saw a figure standing between the beams of the headlights of the car.

Logan.

"No,"Hachiro gasped,unable to believe his own eyes."You're dead.You're dead!"

Dried blood caked the lower half of his face,clotted in his beard,and the streaks of bloody tears lined his face like war paint.But his nose was no longer broken,and his eyes were no longer bloody...oh god,his eyes.If they were almost glowing with rage,Hachiro could have understood that,but that wasn't the case at all.Logan's eyes weren't just full of hate,but cold and dead;the lights were on,but no one was home.Well,nothing human anyways.

He thought Logan looked like an animal before,but he was wrong.He looked like a animal now,and it was all he could do not to lose control of his bladder."Drive!"Hachiro shouted to Natsume."Damn it man,do it!"

But before Natsume could even begin to slide over to the driver's side,Logan jumped up on the car with more speed and animal grace than he ever would have credited the man with and punched Natsume in the face...and blood seemed to explode out the back of Natsume's skull with a sort of a wet,hollow thunk,like a clever cutting through a melon.Hachiro felt his warm blood splatter on his face as he groped in blind panic for the door handle.

It felt like his mind was shutting down in pure shock:Logan was dead.This didn't make sense,he watched Logan die-and yet somehow he just punched Natsume so hard he put his fist through his entire face.

Hachiro got the door open and tried to step out,but his leg collapsed beneath his weight and he ended up on his hands and knees,instantly vomiting up bile and the half digested remains of his dinner.He didn't know if it was from the pain in his leg,the fear,or the grotesquerie of what he had just seen Logan do to Natsume.

He could not move fast enough,and besides,Logan was beyond inhuman if he somehow came back to life.So he was disappointed but not surprised that Logan's cold,bloody hand grabbed him by the collar of his coat and threw him back so hard into the car the his head shattered the rear passenger window on impact.

His consciousness faded out to a pleasant blackness even as he was dimly aware of blood running down his neck from his shredded scalp,but suddenly he felt himself hauled up to his feet again,and he was hit hard enough across the face to jostle him back to consciousness,and he knew he was going to suffer a long and unpleasant death.

So he did the only thing he could think to do-talk."Kyoshi wanted you both dead,"he rasped,the sour taste of vomit still clogging his throat.He hated to open his eyes,although it was dark and his vision was blurry,because he didn't want to even look at the nightmare that had him in its clutches.But he did,and found himself looking into eyes so cold and wild and full of hate that he knew that whatever he had done to Logan,he had driven him mad.All the sanity in him,whatever he had,had died instead of his body,but he still remembered the man who had tried to kill him,and now he was going to return the favor."It was him,I was just taking care of things for him-"

"Who did it?"Logan growled,and his voice seemed gravelly and inhuman,his voice scraped raw.Only then did he realize that the scream they had heard was him,and that even when he wasn't speaking,he was growling low in his throat like a dog.He was even more of a savage,of an animal,than he had ever imagined in his wildest nightmares.

"K-Kyoshi,"he stammered,smelling a strong urine scent and figuring he had pissed himself,but he was surprised his bladder held out this long."I told-"

Logan slammed him back against the body of the car,shaking him as if he was nothing more than a rag doll.Hachiro had heard Logan was a strong man,but he had no idea he was this strong.He heard some of his bones snap,but he was in such a state of shock he didn't quite feel the pain,not yet.

"Who killed her?Who did you hire?"He snarled,his words reverting back to animalistic growls at the end,his upper lip curling and revealing a canine tooth just a little bit sharper than human norm.It was stained with blood,and Hachiro idly wondered if it was Logan's blood,or if Logan had ripped out Konichi's throat with his teeth.He never did see how he killed him.Logan was panting like a marathon sprinter after a race,and all Hachiro could smell was blood.

"Kill me and you'll never find out,"Hachiro said,taking a stab in the dark.

It looked like Logan was going to punch him in the shoulder,and he did,but he felt a sharp pain on impact,heard a strange noise,and suddenly his arm felt so light,a dull ache at the shoulder socket the only pain.Hachiro looked down at a strange wet noise,and saw an arm laying on the ground beside him.

It took him a long,surreal moment to realize it was his arm.He recognized the watch still on his wrist.

It was then he realized dazedly that there was something sticking out of Logan's fist-it looked like a knife blade,three knife blades,made of ivory instead of metal,and he thought it was some sort of spiked brass knuckles,only since when were they made of ivory?And why did it look as if the knives were sticking straight out of his fist,through his skin?
So that's how he drove his fist through Natsume's face.

"Wrong answer,"Logan growled,blood dripping from the knives in his fist.

Maybe it was massive blood loss,but he wasn't terribly surprised by any of this,nor was he scared anymore.Logan was going to slice him up like a pizza until he got what he wanted,and keep him alive as long as possible.Worse than sudden death was a long,drawn out death,which was what he tried to give both Logan and Mariko.He never liked irony.

"Yamura,a self styled ninja,"he said faintly,no longer caring about much of anything at all."He looked forward to beating you."

"He didn't,"Logan snarled,bringing the knives very close to his face.

Yes,that was pretty obvious.Hachiro wondered,almost idly,exactly how he was going to die.He had a feeling it wasn't going to be very pleasant at all.

**

He didn't really know where he was,although on some level far removed from himself he did.He was simply following the scents of the damned:even the urban landscape of Tokyo and all its people couldn't cover them.There was no hiding for his enemy,no safety,no escape.If it took him years he would run his prey to ground.But he knew there was very little chance that any of them would survive the night.

If he had any self awareness,he would probably judge himself insane,and that was undeniably true,but this Logan had none.This Logan had nothing but an ache and a drive caused by anger he had no desire to control,even if he could contain it somehow.There was something to be said for losing your mind.

He was no longer in the urban sprawl of the city,with its miasma of people and carbon dioxide,food smells and decay.He crossed through a small wood,a copse rich with the scent of pine,and even though he stalked quietly across the loamy floor,night birds fell silent as he passed,many flying away in a panic as if they were his quarry.But he had no interest in any of them.He was hunting the most vicious of all animals-humans.

After passing a small stream,he saw the doors ahead,the odor leading right through him.They were glass double doors, locked ,and he could have easily broken them,but a single kick shattered the lock and threw the doors wide open,the gauzy white curtains billowing in the wind.

His prey started in his hospital bed and looked at him with his one good eye,the other socket shriveled and empty,a black hole in the ruin of his face.All Logan knew was he was the enemy,although far back,in a distant place in his mind,he knew this was Kyoshi Yashida.

"Your brother murdered your daughter,"he growled at him,aware that the man's one eye was bulging in its socket,the stench of  fear smothering the scent of medicines and disinfectants."Why don't you congratulate him?"

With that,he tossed the severed head of Hachiro Yashida right into the withered old man's lap.

As Logan turned to go-a sick,bed ridden old man was no decent concept of prey-he heard the machine's hooked up to the man stutter,and then there was the incessant loud drone of flatline as the man's fragile heart finally gave out,but Logan never looked back.

The flatline drone followed him back through the woods,and blended in to the white noise hum inside his own head.

***

Santa Monica-Present Day

The hallway was very cramped,as it literally was a passageway between walls;it did not exist on any blueprint or schematic.It was lit only by several pale yellow sensor lights,evenly spaced to reflect off the slender metal walls,and he often wondered if this was what a submarine corridor was like.

The 'back door' was concealed,hidden by a facade beside a dumpster out back.If his life in the business had taught him nothing,it was always have an extra escape route,a way out for when things went completely bugfuck.Things hadn't gone apeshit for years and he'd almost gotten complacent,but then he'd seen those news reports about mutants fighting it out on Liberty Island,attempting to sabotage a U.N. meeting of some sort,and one of them was reported as 'clawed'...

It made him wonder.It made him hire a private investigator in New York to find out.And he could still remember the fateful day when he opened the envelope and saw the print out of stills taken from a surveillance camera inside the Statue of Liberty itself,and saw...him.

The angle was horrible,the lighting bad,and he couldn't quite make out his facial features,but it was him;he knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt.The only thing he knew was he had himself augmented since their last encounter;his claws were now encased in steel.To make him more lethal,he supposed.He had thought that Logan alone was lethal enough.But he had to push himself,become an even greater killer;the freak was a complete psychopath.He'd stop him if it took all of his resources to do it.The human race probably depended on it.

He entered his security code into the door panel,and it hummed open quietly before the facade panel slid aside, revealing the dark,garbage strewn alley.Even though it would do no good if Logan burst through the wall,he kept his hand firmly on the gun in the pocket of his coat just in case.

He had just cleared the dumpster and was headed towards the mouth of the alley when he heard someone say behind him:"So that's where you are.Very cute."

Although his heart skipped a beat,the voice couldn't have belonged to Logan:for one thing,he didn't have an Australian accent.He gripped the gun tightly,then spun around quickly,ready to fire (in this game,no surprises were ever good),but the instant he intended to fire,he seemed to freeze.

He found,waiting for him at the back of the alley,the pretty boy telepath Logan had come into the casino with,soaking wet and dripping all over the place,flanked by his sopping green freak of a girlfriend (although the wet t-shirt honestly did wonders for her),and a sodden Lau,who made absolutely no move at all to protect the man who signed his paycheck.

"Now,that's not very sportin' mate,"the pretty boy went on,crossing his arms over his chest.The wet t-shirt was actually an acceptable look on him too."Shootin' us on sight.Didn't you read that book about makin' friends and influencing people?"

Haido found himself rooted to spot,unable to move even a finger on the trigger.He didn't know what the man had done to him,but he found it almost physically impossible to look away from his peculiarly bright blue eyes.If he didn't know better,he'd think they almost glowed."H-how did you-"he began,mainly because he wasn't sure what else to say.He didn't have to use the trap door a lot,but when he did it was a foolproof and evidence free form of execution.People trapped behind the grate drowned,and after an hour or so the grate was raised and their bodies were flushed out into the sea.They were just hapless and stupid drowning victims;there was nothing sinister about it...well,as far as the coroner was concerned.And it was perfectly escape proof;once in the trap there was no way out. It was the human equivalent of a roach motel.

"Oh,sorry,we busted your little drowning pool,"the pretty boy said,obviously being facetious."That's no way to treat a guest,by the way.I'm surprised a rude bastard like you has any repeat customers at all."

He opened his mouth to speak,and this time nothing came out.It was like creeping paralysis.Hachiro began to wonder if Russell Crowe's cuter brother was in fact something far worse than a telepath.

The green bitch came forward and tilted her head,looking at his face."That looks like a Logan calling card,all right. But wasn't this before that Organization fucked with him?"

The Aussie got a surprisingly thoughtful look on his face,brushing aside a rather large hank of wet,dark hair that was clinging to his forehead and dripping water straight down into his eyes."Yeah,it was.Huh.Hel,why don't you go get Logan and tell him we have the guy he's looking for."

The woman (what kind of a name was Hel?) shrugged and went over to the facade beside the dumpster,which he had just come out of,and managed to pry it open with brute strength.But the sealed door was proving harder."I need Mongo's help here,Bob."

"Help her open the door,big guy,"the man said,and Lau obeyed without comment.

Bob?Pretty boy's name was Bob?That didn't seem right at all.
"He'll kill me,"he managed to croak,not without some difficulty.
Bob gave him a look that he was at a loss to interpret,but it wasn't the friendliest glance in the world."No,he won't, not with me around.But you may wish he did."
Haido suddenly wondered if maybe he should have stayed inside and took his chances with Logan.

**

A security tech bolted up from his seat,aiming a handgun at him."Look,I don't want to hurt you-"he began,clearly scared by scent alone.

"You can't,"Logan pointed out,entering the room.It was dark,lit almost exclusively by the glow of the security monitors,a huge bank of which made up the right side wall.Of the twenty screens,several showed the damage and carnage of where he had recently been,which was no surprise since he had known he was being watched all along.

"Umm,I know,"the guy admitted,reluctantly lowering his weapon,but still keeping it ready to fire."Look,I have no problem with you,okay?So don't hurt me."

Logan snarled at him,and the guy tried to back up and nearly fell over his own chair.Pathetic."Where'd Scarface go?"

"He left.He didn't want to run into you again."

"Again?"He had sort of suspected they had a past history,Bloody Friday and all,but it was still shocking to hear. "Where'd we hook up before,Tokyo?What'd he say about it?"

The man,who looked like your ubiquitous California surfer dude five years later and ten pounds heavier,made a sort of shrugging gesture with his hands."Not a lot.He just said you gave him the scars."

"What scars?On his face?How?"

The guy shrugged again,this time with his shoulders,and shook his head,messing up his neatly coifed blonde hair.

It was then Logan got a solid whiff of seawater,and he turned in time to see a soaking wet Helga appear in the open doorway."You can let the small fry go,"she said,barely even sparing the man a glance.She was hardly even dismissive of the man;clearly he rated on her personal threat meter somewhere between housefly and doorknob."We got the big fish."

He nodded,turning away from the tech,who was relieved to be spared the scrutiny.After looking her up and down -she was completely sopping,her green hair plastered down onto her scalp like a clump of seaweed;even her tail looked a bit limp-he asked,"Are you okay?"

She quirked a slim green eyebrow at him."The half naked burned guy asks me that."

"I'm not half naked,"he argued,looking down at himself.Okay,it looked like he lost most of his left pantleg too.But his skin had healed,pretty much;he wasn't burned anymore."It just got a little hot in there."

She nodded,smirking slightly."And we got a might damp.Between us,there might have been a solution."

He shrugged.There was never such a thing as a happy medium when you actually needed it.