Cold-Blooded: A DC Universe Fanfiction (#Wattys2015)

Chapter 49: Slade: An Interesting Proposition

When Victor Fries learned Yukie was missing in the mountains during a blizzard, he immediately offered any help he could give. "Ms. Kuwano has been more than merely an employee to me. She has been a friend, a better friend than I even knew until quite recently. I will save my congratulations until she is safe, but I understand that you and she are now engaged. When I learned you were the 'someone' in her life, I was astonished, to say the least, but I respect her choices and I...want her to be happy."

"Thank you," Slade replied. "I know she regards you highly as well."

"How soon can you get to Tokyo, or shall I come get you?" was the scientist's next statement.

"It would be faster and more efficient if you came to me," Slade decided. Geographically he was closer to Mount Hakkoda, even though at the moment it would be easier for him to get to Tokyo, thanks to the storm.

"Very well," Fries said, and that was that.

Since it would be a few hours before the cryogenicist would reach him, Slade's next move was to contact Ra's, or rather, to set the wheels in motion since the head of the League of Assassins would answer if and when it pleased him to do so. Apparently it pleased him to do so in only a little over an hour.

"Which aspect of you do I have the honor of addressing, Deathstroke or Slade Wilson?" the ancient Assassin drawled.

"You're addressing the man whose fiancée was abducted by her family at your demand." Slade replied, reining in the snarl in his voice. "Something to do with resurrecting the Shinobi and an old debt to a 'Shutan Doji'. The abduction was botched by her idiot brother."

"Ms. Kuwano abducted? I gave no order to that effect," Ra's replied, and he sounded genuinely astonished. "I did not call in the debt. I wrote the Shinobi revival off as a bad investment over a hundred years ago, in all truth."

"Did you ever tell them that?" Slade shot back.

"No," Ra's replied, quite casually, "for I had another use for a controlled breeding program in Japan, and Ms. Kuwano is the result of it, as it so happens. You know about her grandmother, I assume?"

"Yes. She was a natural long-lifer."

"Indeed. She lived to be well over two hundred, as it happened. I hoped to breed another and I specifically wanted a woman. I did not know the program had born fruit until the night Ms. Kuwano appeared at the Jian Wu competition. She looks remarkably like her grandmother. Then I had to watch as the two of you met, courted, and made your vows to each other. In blood, no less. Most people spread that out over more than one day, let alone one Jian Wu duel. I was quite put out," The Assassin certainly sounded peeved.

"Wha-you mean you wanted-" Slade could hardly believe the inference he was drawing.

"I have had scores of wives and concubines over the last four hundred and thirty odd years," he said, matter-of-factly. "Almost without exception, I lose them just as they are becoming interesting as people. If you think people under forty are childish and empty-headed now, wait until you have two centuries behind you. It is no matter that this particular woman chose you over me. I am patient. I have to be. Besides, who is to say she will not tire of you in a decade or two?"

"If that was what you wanted, why didn't you court her grandmother?" Slade asked.

"Her grandmother was a courtesan. Ordinarily that would not bother me, provided she was in good health, but she was not merely a courtesan, she was an oiran. The term translates as 'castle-toppler'. It means she was one of a very few who were expensive enough to bankrupt a kingdom. In other words, she was a walking case of insatiable greed, as much so at a hundred and fifty as she was at fifty. Not a character trait I find endearing, and certainly one I would find repellant over time, no matter how charming she was otherwise," Ra's replied.