Rain poured down in torrents, dark clouds blotting out the sky.
Lightning like silver serpents ripped across the heavens, followed by muffled thunder. Logan strode out of the bathroom, his hair and beard bristling, glaring with a furrowed brow like an enraged wolf. Twenty minutes earlier, he had just endured the worst bath of his life.
Three kimono-clad old women had scrubbed Logan's body with long brushes that painfully scraped his skin, chattering away in incomprehensible Japanese until his head spun. Wolverine, who never retreated before an enemy, had nearly wanted to extend his Adamantium claws.
Granted, he had spent some time in the wilderness, where sanitation had been poor, and before coming to Tokyo he had looked like a homeless drifter. But that bathing experience had left Logan with the unsettling feeling that he had been violated.
Yashida Mansion stood on Tokyo Bay, sprawling across a vast area. Looking out from afar, one could see rivers rushing outside and skyscrapers rising like a forest. It was an excellent place to admire the scenery.
Logan followed Yukio, the red-haired woman now dressed in a kimono, down a long corridor steeped in old-fashioned elegance. On the right stood classical folding screens painted with famous Warring States-era artworks. Through the open shoji on the left, he could see suited bodyguards beneath the eaves at regular intervals, standing watch and patrolling with wary expressions. The entire estate was under tight security.
In truth, Logan still felt as though being in this ancient Tokyo residence was unreal, almost dreamlike. Ten hours earlier, he had been living alone like a savage in the mountains near some Canadian town.
After Stryker's death, the lone wolf who had wandered without a home left Mutant Academy, which had seemed like a safe harbor, and once again set off