Chapter 28
I spent the first five years spending days on end training (either with O-Sensei himself or with one of his senior students), and nights stubbornly meditating.
One might ask why? Because the effect of the telepath's "devoured mind" began to fade away even by the beginning of '51. It completely disappeared by the beginning of '52. And keeping my rage in check was becoming very, very difficult.
In the very first year of my apprenticeship, I asked Morihei for advice on what to do. When I pair up with him in class, the rage subsides on its own. It subsides so much that my thoughts become clear and calm, and it becomes possible to enjoy learning new things and the precise work of the body. But that's when paired with him. None of his students had such an effect anymore. Only he managed to pacify my Beast with a single touch, and sometimes even without it. Actually, this was a super-visual illustration for me of his ideas, that very philosophy which he put into his technique and passed on to us.
But I'm not paired with him all the time!
Morihei advised me to practice Misogi—a certain local type of purification-meditation. It consisted of meditating, standing or sitting, in a stance or in motion, under the streams of a waterfall.
And, paradoxically, it helped. Apparently, my Beast doesn't like water.
This is what I did at night, going into the mountains. About three hours of meditation under the waterfall (never less, but sometimes much more), then my own training, which I never forgot at all, because without practice any sword rusts, and at the end under the waterfall again to rinse off, and then I could curl up on the bank, in a favored little cave, to sleep... And in the morning, long before light, I would already be running back to the dojo, for the start of classes.
In '56, I allowed myself to "jump" to Erik's place for a week, to Massachusetts, to visit my "little brother."
Things were going well for him: he finished his bachelor's degree, got into a master's program, works in the team of those very scientists who caught his attention, researches magnetism. Surprisingly, S.H.I.E.L.D. still hadn't approached him. Maybe Nicole wasn't lying to me that time in France? Or they are just saving their trump card for the right time...
By the end of the week, I was back in Japan, continuing to carefully collect grains of knowledge in my piggy bank. It's probably funny to talk about grains when O-Sensei poured them out unstintingly, as if shaking out bags of rice onto our foolish heads. But I tried to catch every dropped "grain of rice." I succeeded in some things...
In '58, unexpected and, frankly speaking, uninvited guests came to me. Moreover, "to me" means exactly to me. Straight to that waterfall under the icy waters of which I stood in purifying meditation.
These guests were Nicole Fury, Steve Rogers, and Peggy Carter. They arrived towards the beginning of Misogi. That was a mistake. I didn't interrupt my practice for their sake, and they had to wait for me for almost four hours. For the first twenty minutes they tried to shout to me: zero attention in their direction (good thing they figured out not to throw stones or poke with a stick, because under a hot hand, and a not fully pacified Beast...). Then they stopped, sat down to wait.
Only after finishing the meditation properly did I climb out from under the icy streams and approach them.
"Hello, VictOr," Nicole smiled at me. Rogers offered his hand, Carter nodded restrainedly.
"Hello to you too," I replied, accepting Steve's handshake. "What's going on? Why am I needed so urgently?"
"Don't frown so sternly, VictOr," Nicole raised her hands in a defensive gesture. "But we really have a very serious matter: James is missing."
"James?" I didn't immediately understand who they were talking about.
"Howlett. Corporal James Howlett," Steve clarified.
"Logan, you mean?" I asked again. He nodded.
"Several mutants known to us have gone missing all across America over the past few months. James went missing last, a week ago," Nicole briefly brought me up to speed.
Logan, mutants... The first thing that comes to mind is Stryker, "Weapon X." And judging by the date, this is a correct assumption. Adamantium... And again the Hamlet question: to be or not to be?
While all these thoughts were turning over in my head, the people started getting nervous under my gloomy and unwelcoming gaze (and it's like that by default, until I apply certain conscious efforts to change it).
"Er... VictOr... Will you help?... James is Steve's close friend, we can't just abandon him..."
"Like Bucky?" without thinking, I blurted out. Rogers flinched as if struck at the sound of this name and darkened. His jaws clenched, the muscles on his cheeks played.
"Do you know something about Bucky?" Nicole immediately caught onto the slip of the tongue.
"Only that right now he is possibly called the Winter Soldier in the Union's laboratories," I didn't hide it. Maybe it's true, maybe not, but Steve will have at least some hope. Zen knows, maybe he'll really find him? This information is of no value to me, so why not share it?
"I'll remember that," Steve nodded seriously and gratefully. "Thank you, Victor, I am in your debt."
"And regarding James?" Nicole decided to strike while the iron is hot.
"Someone named Stryker. The name of the program is 'Weapon X'—that's all I know."
"I won't even ask from where," Nicole sighed. "I think this information will be enough for S.H.I.E.L.D. to find them."
"If you go to storm the Island, call me with you. Logan is not a stranger to me either," I added.
"The Island?"
"The 'Weapon X' base is on a large river island in North America. Or in a large dam... I'm not sure. I can't say more precisely," I explained.
"I think this will speed up the search," Nicole nodded. I nodded in return and moved towards my usual training area—the nightly workout was waiting for me!
* * *
"How long have you known he was alive?" Rogers asked Fury gloomily when they had moved about eight kilometers away from the meeting place with the "informant." True, before leaving, all three lingered a bit to take a look at the training of the supposedly dead Creed. And they were not disappointed by what they saw. On the contrary, they were so impressed that they walked away in silence and with wide eyes. What they witnessed defied verbal description.
"I never considered him dead," Fury shrugged.
"Then Max too?" Rogers frowned even more.
"I can't say. He claims he survived alone. Knows nothing about Max's fate," she dodged the answer.
"And the Red Skull?" Rogers decided to postpone the tricky question about the fate of Magnet-43. "His work?"
"His," Nicole didn't deny it.
"How much can we trust the information received from him?" Carter interjected into the conversation.
"Do we have any other leads?" Fury answered a question with a question. She didn't like Carter, but Nicole acknowledged her usefulness as an agent. Especially considering her superpowers, gifted to her, by the way, once upon a time specifically by Creed.
"No," Carter was forced to admit.
"That means we will work exactly this trail," Fury decided.
"Nick," for the first time that day, at least a faint smile appeared on Rogers's face. "He is still incredible, isn't he?"
"True," Fury nodded gloomily. "And just as incredibly knows how to disappear. If it weren't for the photographs with him and Ueshiba in a newspaper seven years ago, we would have never found him, even considering that he is here under his real name."
"Director Fury," Carter addressed her. "Are you planning his recruitment for S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Nicole looked at her like she was an idiot.
"Remember what Colonel Phillips said about him?"
"That cadres decide everything..."
"And also, that America does not need such an enemy!"
"But why an enemy..."
"Because to recruit him is to make him an enemy! And I don't want to walk among his enemies, and I won't let anyone make me one! Remember this, Carter! Remember it well!"