Work Text:
He had followed their trails as far as he could.
He had gone to Mexico City, where he had heard about Transigen and what they were doing. That was fun. He remembered watching what was left of those ‘scientists,’ torturers and murderers more like, as he carved through them. There weren’t any signs of those children he’d heard of in sight, no, but he’d found evidence of an unmarked mass grave that made him sick to his stomach. He had to shrug it off. He had to keep going. This wasn’t the time to get angry, to get sad, as best he could anyway, to mourn what could’ve been the future of his race.
He had gone to El Paso, where there were claims of a mutant “rising from the ashes of mutantkind.” They thought it was the wolverine, they were right. He found the compound, desolated and sad on the other side of the border. Is this where the great wolverine was living? There was no substantial evidence to prove that other than his own intuition, any smells that would’ve been telltale had long been muddled and faded. He had gone there in the night, shrouded in the darkness as he explored the grounds, the buildings themselves. He found an overturned water tower, torn up and turned into a makeshift living space. He found the inside of the compound itself, blood stained and ugly. It still smelled like misery and pain and anger, he did not like being there.
He had gone up route 62 until he’d reached the outskirts Oklahoma City, took 35 North, switched in Wichita to the I-135, took it until it turned into route 83, and that all the way to the border. The roads were long, dull, and boring as he rode them. He stopped often, just for the hell of it. He found signs of the wolverine’s trip as he went. A house drowned in blood, a casino subject to investigation after a mysterious casino-wide meltdown, a small town doctors office reporting a mysterious patient, and a case of a stolen car. He didn’t stay anywhere long, renting hotel rooms for a night at most so he could sleep every few days. He knew he didn’t need to, not really, but there was something about endless hours of bland farmland and scattered towns that all looked exactly the same that created the need for him to sit in a hotel room and sleep for a few hours.
He ended up on that same winding mountain road in North Dakota. He had pulled to a stop under the cliff face just like the wolverine had. Now, though, he could sense something. He could smell the traces of people. Children, but mixed with people he had met before, long ago. There was an underlying scent of strangers, machine gun oil, diesel, agony, blood. He took a moment to decompress, he stared up at the small safe house from his position at the hood of his car almost a thousand feet below. He could almost pick up exactly how to get up to that safe house the way the people before him did. He took a deep breath and pushed himself off the car. Eden, huh? He thought for a moment, finally deciding the route he would take up to the shack at the top of the cliff.
It didn’t take him long to scale the rocks, regardless of how close to vertical they were. He was skilled enough, strong enough, willful enough to keep himself from falling. Not that it’d kill him, anyway. Everything seemed more intense on top of the cliff, the little safe house had been lived in for a few days at the very least. He could see well into Canada, the border wasn’t at all distinguishable among the trees here, but he knew Eden was right on the edge. He wondered if he’d catch up with any of them, figured it wasn’t very likely. He shook his head and explored the shack, finding nothing of value, nothing at all, really. There were little things that could’ve been someone’s belongings, stuff that might have been left up here over the years, tools long since rusted and unusable. Part of him wondered if there was any point to this, if he would find anything, the wolverine, those kids, Charles Xavier.
He ignored his doubt, he had no choice, he didn’t make his way through almost all of North America just to turn tail and quit because he didn’t find anyone at the Canadian border. He spotted an old pay-to-use telescope, but it’d been broken so that it always worked. That must’ve been essential up here, on a cliff, so whoever stayed would be able to check their surroundings. He decided there would be no point in being cautious, he wouldn’t die and it’s not like anyone was looking for him anyway.
Making his way back into the shack, he noticed a shattered glass on the floor next to one of the beds. It didn’t look dusted over, it hadn’t been there long. He crouched to inspect it, the glass had a sort of weird film on it, like something had dried on it but whatever it was wasn’t water. He sniffed at it and only got the scent of pure adrenaline, of power. Part of him craved it, craved to feel it, the rest of him recoiled. He wasn't here for that. Not today. He dropped the glass again, that smell stuck in his nose. He shook his head again and made his way back outside, figuring he might as well start up going North again.
There was a forest beyond the shack, where the desert looking atmosphere of the badlands giving way quickly to an abundance of nature that seemed to eat up everything in its path, not like there was much there anyway. The ground beneath him started to decline as he began his trek into the woods. It smelled here, too. Not as strong as the safe house, no, but the smell of guns, bullets, blood, pain, distress, death. That was all stronger here. These woods have seen more than they should have, and he could feel it. He found wide tire tracks and followed them deeper into the woods, he found spatterings of blood, he found trees carved and ripped through from claws and bullets, he found more tracks, he found signs of destruction.
He reached a clearing, he saw a tree felled over and stained red near its base, he saw broken branches, he saw more bullets, he saw the culmination of anger and rage and fear before him, and the sight wasn’t pretty. Beyond the clearing, beyond the remnants of death, he saw a river, or was it a creek? The banks of the river, or whatever it was, were composed of rocks, and he figured they’d have to have followed the river anyway, it would hide their tracks if they crossed it. He moved closer. He saw a pair of sticks bound together, stuck over a pile of rocks sitting higher than its surroundings. He frowned and went to inspect it, crouching on the side of the burial respectfully.
It was him. This was who he was looking for, except he was too late. The man he was looking for was dead, and there was no mistaking the raw scent of him mingled with death and decay. It didn’t seem to go any farther than this. A wave of sadness lapped at his consciousness and he let himself sink to sit beside the makeshift grave. He thought for a moment.
He thought of meeting him for the first time, he’d been so hellbent on killing him for what he’d done to his mother, but he had no idea. He had no idea how much he’d loved his mother, he had no idea how much he’d loved him. He didn’t even know him. He never got the chance to. He thought about how they’d never get to reconcile, and he knew he’d wanted to. He stared at the grave again. It was the only one he’d seen, there weren’t any bodies around, not any that were real anyway. Not any that had lived.
He got to his feet again, shoving down his sadness and anger and all those stray thoughts about how he’d missed this, how he’d lost his chance to kill him. Those kids had to still be out there, the next generation of mutants hadn’t died yet. He gave one last look to his father’s makeshift grave, he gave one last look to the legacy of the wolverine. He looked away.
Daken Akihiro walked on, following what tracks he could catch twenty kids that escaped from Mexico City and were now hiding out in the Canadian wilderness.