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

Chapter 55: Yukie: Family Moments

At the hospital, Slade's hand closed on Yukie's elbow before she could go to her brother's room. "There are some things you need to know before you go in there," he said to her, and to Tanaka, the police officer, "If you could give us a moment."

"Of course," Tanaka replied.

Slade drew her off to a visitor's lounge, where he said, "I spoke to Ra's. He confirmed he made a pact with an ancestor of yours to bring back the Shinobi, but said he had nothing to do with your abduction; he did not call in the debt. His daughter Talia did."

"But why? I saw her only once in my life and we barely exchanged two words," Yukie recalled.

"Because first of all, he had a breeding program of his own going within your ancestor's, to come up with a naturally long-lived woman. He wants one, or maybe several, who won't get old and die on him in a handful of decades. I unintentionally spiked his guns by seeing you first." He smiled smugly.

"He wants-oh, no," It was revolting. "There is something I have not yet told you. What Victor Fries gave me for twelve years of employment, above and beyond money, was twenty embryos. Twenty healthy female embryos, gene-cleaned and ready for implantation, although cryogenically frozen. I wanted daughters, but genetically speaking, they are closer to being my clones than my daughters. That was what I asked for, back when we first made our agreement. Before I left on this trip, I put them in a fertility clinic, and...because I did not know if I would be coming back, or when, I put them up for implantation by whoever would want them. Ra's swooped in and claimed the entire twenty."

"Twenty? Twenty potential yuki-onna?" Slade asked. "Twenty potential wives or concubines for Ra's..."

"Yes. While I would never tell my daughters who they could or couldn't marry, I draw the line at having them born and raised to stock his harem! Do you suppose he knows I am, and they are, yuki-onna?"

"No. If he did, he would have boasted of it-the man can't resist trumpeting everything he does-and for another, if he knew you were a potential Elemental, he would never have stood aside and let us get together. He would have been courting you aggressively, after his fashion," Slade said.

"I am certain I never want to know what that means. Must I become his grandson's nanny after all, or is there something else he wants?"

"Yes. It's the reason Talia wants you dead. He doesn't want a nanny for his grandson. He wants to take her son away from her entirely, and for us to raise him. What do you say to adopting a four year old boy with an exceptional potential future as an assassin?" He sounded almost...jaunty?

"That is...Is that something you would want?" She gazed into his single eye.

"I'd rather start with one than twenty," he said. "He's four. At that age, you'll be doing more of the day-to-day with him than I will, so the decision should be yours. I'm willing if you are. If you're in it, I have confidence this family will turn out all right."

"I never meant to have them all at once! I-can't say for certain until we meet the boy, and perhaps a trial period-until he would have to go to kindergarten in the autumn. In truth, I never imagined raising a son," Yukie admitted. "That is why you asked the yokai if they were good with small children. I did wonder."

What he had said about having her in the family warmed her heart. However, there were other things to think of at that moment. She pulled out her phone and called Ra's al Ghul.

Several minutes later, Yukie paused on the threshold of her brother's hospital room, and closed her eyes for a moment.

Then she looked in the safety glass window. Ichiro was sitting up in bed; it was dinner time, and he was trying to feed himself, with their mother watching him, looking anxious. Haruko was over by the window, looking out, her phone to her ear. Their father was sitting in a chair by the bathroom, slumped in an attitude of exhaustion and despair, and the prefectural police officer kept vigil by the bed. Various instruments inside the room bleeped and blooped every so often, but no one spoke.