"I will find this man and bring him before you. Then I'll take you to where you need to go. I swear it on my parents' names." Madame Viper's promise was solemn and absolute.
Daisy tested the frequency around her. The woman was highly trained — iron-willed, mind like a locked vault. The frequency scan came back murky, nothing useful. Not worth killing, either. For now, she'd file Madame Viper under "convenient asset."
She snapped four iron chains in succession and lowered Madame Viper to the ground.
Madame Viper wanted to be strong about it. She wasn't. Her legs gave out the moment her feet touched the floor, and she hit the ground face-first — nothing she could do about it. Her legs had the structural integrity of wet noodles.
"Come find me when you have news. You know where I am." Daisy scooped up her jacket and headed for the door. "See you around, gorgeous."
By the time Madame Viper braced herself against the doorframe and stumbled outside, Daisy was already gone — not a shadow left. She looked around for something to kick, found her legs too unsteady to manage even that, and settled for a vicious curse. Then she oriented herself and set off toward her private safehouse. That woman had put her through hell and now she was coming down with a cold. She needed medicine. She needed water.
Daisy found a deserted alley, opened a portal, and stepped directly into the Yashida estate.
She'd barely lain down when a chorus of wailing erupted outside.
She went to ask around and learned that the old man — Lord Yashida — was dead.
Real death or faked? In the original timeline, it was faked. But with Madame Viper tied up and tormented all night, things had shifted. Maybe without her help, the old man had lacked some critical element of the plan and just... keeled over on his own.
Daisy scratched her head. The plot had well and truly come apart at the seams. She needed to think carefully about every step going forward.
The next morning, funeral rites were held for Lord Yashida. As S.H.I.E.L.D. — or rather, the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division's senior-ranking agent in the region, Daisy was expected to attend.
She changed into a black suit with a white shirt. Given the odds of combat today, she tucked a pistol into the small of her back.
The old lord had wielded enormous influence in Japan. The Prime Minister's Office, cabinet ministries, and a host of major business interests all sent heavyweight representatives. Security was airtight — armed guards with murder in their eyes, every one of them radiating the conviction that they would shoot first and ask no questions later.
Daisy didn't know that Madame Viper was currently bundled in blankets at her safehouse, nursing her cold. She swept the venue and found no sign of the woman. A small pang of disappointment — she'd rather have been hoping to mess up the plot a little more.
Her relationship with Shingen Yashida was made public today. He introduced her to several senior government officials, all of whom were more or less aware of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s existence. They exchanged knowing looks with each other, noting with great interest that Shingen had secured S.H.I.E.L.D.'s backing.
Using the S.H.I.E.L.D. name as cover, Shingen sent a clear message to the wolves circling his family.
"Miss Johnson? You're still in Tokyo?" Mariko was wearing a black kimono today, a white mourning flower tied at the obi. Traditional down to the last detail. Her expression was suffused with grief.
So much had shifted in the past few days, but in Mariko's memory Daisy was still the woman who'd accompanied her on a casual outing — she couldn't quite place what Daisy actually was.
Scheming or not, they'd parted on decent terms. Daisy lowered her voice. "Miss Mariko, your position matters today. If things go sideways, get to me. I'll keep you safe."
To put her at ease, she produced her FBI credentials — see, not a threat.
Mariko gave a small nod. Understood.
Daisy moved on to find the other main player of the day: Wolverine.
"Mr. Logan. Good to see you."
Wolverine was a spectacular academic failure. For all the centuries he'd lived, he'd accumulated a life skill set that topped out at things like laying bricks, felling trees, and repairing roads.
Modern subjects like physics and chemistry? Completely alien. Languages? He had English, with a Canadian accent, and that was the end of the list.
He fixed Daisy with a guarded, measuring stare and said nothing.
Daisy looked past him to Yukio. The red-haired, wide-eyed mutant was watching her with equal tension.
"You're the one who notified Professor X, aren't you? You have precognitive abilities?" Daisy decided there was no point being coy. In too many films the heroes kept shuffling allegiances and concealing their intentions until the final act, and she'd always found that deeply stupid. "I'm here to help."
Wolverine shot a sharp glance at Yukio. The wide-eyed girl glared daggers at Daisy.
Daisy had absolutely no sense that she was spoiling anything. She was here to help — might as well say so plainly. What was the point of hiding it?
Having stated her position, she drifted to the far side of the courtyard alone and waited for the show to begin.
A light rain had started to fall. It paired with the solemn atmosphere, blending with the sporadic weeping from the crowd into something that felt like the heavens themselves were in mourning — Daisy was fairly certain it was artificial rain.
Sutras mixed with the hollow clacking of wooden fish mallets. Family members filed in. The old lord's portrait sat at the center of the space. Daisy glanced at it once and looked elsewhere.
The Yashida clan had a seven-hundred-year lineage. Their family wasn't the skeleton crew shown in the film — relatives had been flying in overnight from every corner of the world.
Without exception, they wore traditional kimono and white mourning flowers.
Among a sea of black kimono, Shingen's Western suit stood out like a sore thumb. He ignored the relatives' pointed stares and instead met the boldest of them with a hard, challenging look until they dropped their eyes.
As head of the family, Shingen and his wife bowed first before the portrait. Then it was the turn of the sole heir of his line — Mariko.
That was when things went wrong.
A group of gangsters shed their disguises. Tattoos covered every inch of visible skin; they were armed with automatic weapons and wore expressions of pure menace. They moved to seize Mariko.
"Yamaguchi-gumi!" Shingen's fury was immediate. He shouted orders for his men to engage.
Several government officials looked like they were about to faint. They scrambled for corners like startled quail.
The Yamaguchi-gumi had planned this carefully. They'd come in force. Within Daisy's line of sight alone, there were over a hundred heavily tattooed men with compact submachine guns. The shouts and clash of combat from outside the temple walls made it clear there were even more beyond.
The Yashida family guards and the officials' security details were caught completely off-guard — half of them went down in the first moments.
"Miss Mariko, over here — we're going to Logan." Daisy dropped three gangsters with three shots.
Without Madame Viper's interference, Wolverine's powers were fully intact and he was a force of nature. Adamantium claws shot from his knuckles and he cut through the enemy like a scythe through wheat — seven, eight men down in rapid succession.
The Yamaguchi-gumi fighters had apparently decided to fight him bare-chested in close quarters, which was one of the stranger tactical choices Daisy had ever seen. The results were genuinely horrific. Adamantium through human flesh is like a blade through tofu — losing a limb was the good outcome. The unlucky ones who took a claw to the head didn't get back up.
For all her training, watching a human skull get split horizontally into three pieces made Daisy's stomach lurch.
Scheming or not, Mariko took one look at the carnage and her legs simply gave out beneath her.