I had always followed the word of the one person that raised me. My mother. For as long as I could remember, it was my kaasan and oba-sans raising me. Not a male figure in sight except for my oba -san's husband. But I didn't know him well enough. My kaasan raised me in California, always teaching me to obey a woman's word. I, never knowing any better, listened to my mother and never would I dare to break any promise I made to her, or disobey her in anyway. As I got older, I begin to ask about the fact that I had no father. All she told me was that he was a horrible man that caused her to run away from him in Japan. She never said anything else, except if I got in trouble. She would scold me and say I was just like my father. That would hurt when I was young because she caused me to believe he was a bad man that hurt her and I was no better. As I got older however, it just made me wonder what my father had done that was so horrible. In my early teen's I questioned my mother on it, asking, begging her to tell me what my father had done that was so awful. Did he beat her? Did he cheat on her? Did he break her heart? I didn't know. She told me he had lied to her, that he was a yakuza in Japan and that he was just set out to make her another concubine in his harem. When she was pregnant with me and she told him, he didn't care and told her to get rid of it, so she ran away, saving my life. I felt awful that my own father didn't want me and mistreated my mother in such a way. From then, my mother wanted me to make something of myself, to be something unlike my father.

My logic was, if my father broke the law, then I would enforce it. And to please my mother, I started to train to become a police officer. My mother was so proud, she and my aunts spoke of this often, praising me everyday as I would go to school, maintain my grade point average and then go to a program that would allow me to train young so when I was the right age, I could start actually training to get into the academy. The older I got however, the more I got curious about my father. Behind my mother's back and without her knowledge, I started looking through her things, trying to find anything I could about my father. I found some old letters she had saved from Japan, and it was there I found out my father's name was Akio. Ryuunen Akio. My mother had kept his last name and I didn't know why. I looked for anything that could tell me something about him, why he did what he did and why he was so cruel to my mother. I could only find old love letters and a single yellowing picture of him. I saw he and I looked nothing alike. I took more after my mother.

When I was twenty, I was recruited into the academy since my test scores in both the physical and mental tests were excellent. I graduated top of my class. I was only in California for another year when I heard someone I worked with talk about the crime rate in Japan. His wife was Japanese so she always spoke to him about her family there and how yakuza were running over Tokyo, taking down government officials even the head detective there. I included myself in the conversation and they asked me why I didn't know any of this since I was of Japanese decent. I shrugged, saying I never followed Japan's news. Everyday, I started learning more and more about the crime that was like a slow undertow in the dark side of Japan. Though their crime rate was relatively low, the mob there was escalating. I knew this was my chance to go there and find out anything I could about a part of me that was never made clear before. My mother begged me not to go. She and my aunties told me there was nothing in Japan for me, that it was a horrible city and it was dangerous. It would be the first time I ever ignored my mother's words and advice. At twenty-one, I packed up my things and went to Japan.

In Tokyo, I had to settle in first thing. My Japanese was rusty from lack of practice and I didn't know my way around too well. A few weeks after I had done everything I had, I applied for a position in the police department in Tokyo. They almost turned me down, saying I was too young. But I had record and scores to show them, to prove that my age didn't matter. And they accepted me. For two years I started in the shadows learning how everything worked, and watched as the yakuza took over everything. Any chance I got, I sought information out about Ryuunen Akio, hoping someone could tell me something new about him. I learned little about him and I never saw him. It was one of my guilty wishes, that I wished I could see him, even if it was just once. After the second year mark and almost three heads had fallen, my record propelled me to be hired next though it was highly unheard of. But no one wanted the job, everyone who worked as a cop was afraid of being the new head, since the head was often chopped. One of the bodies of the Oakaden brothers had been riddled with bullets. The oldest brother killed first, murdered in his hospital bed as his life support was cut off, and his younger brother was found in an empty parking lot his body full of holes. Johnson, the woman that had successfully brought down the 36 Moons for four years was found in her apartment, her skin cut and mutilated, her mouth sewn shut and raped repeated. Everyone was afraid...but not me. I wanted the job, though taking on the yakuza was a job everyone was afraid of.

I took control and as I did, the government official Shikiaden Hyoku was assassinated. I feared my job, but refused to back down. Once in my position, I learned more about my father. There were so many different rumors, one of them being that my mother was murdered and I was sent to the states to be raised by my grandparents and I never knew about my father until much later and I was ashamed of him. How could I be ashamed of someone I didn't know? Another rumor was that I was only eighteen. But I used that to my advantage. Through the course of being the new head, I learned information about Ryuunen Akio. How he was a yakuza working originally for the 36 Moons as a law type figure but he was hard to trust because he never said much about himself and it was felt that he was often holding back information. Eventually I learned he had died sometime ago of natural causes being liver failure. I continued to play upon my ashamed card, drawing information about him from any yakuza I arrested. But it wasn't until I met Jia Li, oyabun of the 36 Moons that I learned enough to change my life. He knew of my father when I arrested him the first night. And he said my name sounded familiar. I told him I was ashamed of my father and left it at that. But he seemed to know so much more.

When Kusanagi reemerged from the dead, he struck out a war with the so called 36 Moons. It was rumored that the 36 Moons had started up again since some of the former members were now released from jail. So many rumors had started that the press demand I find out. Under pressure, I sought out to question the former members now released from jail. Each had legit jobs, checked in with parole regularly, kept a steady pay and none had so much as a parking ticket since then. It was not until I called in for Arashashimia Toki that I met Jia better. Of course I didn't know his name was Jia Li at the time. He went by Xui Li and the employer of Toki's steady job. It was obvious those two were involved with something. And that one of them was in a high rank or one of them was the oyabun himself. They said nothing, I said nothing. And I let them go without a struggle.

One night, I was working, the city was quiet, as it had been for three days. I was wondering what any syndicate was up to. It wasn't until I heard of a massacre that happened in a club that I was put into a real dangerous situation. A couple of my men, along with back up headed to the club that was near downtown. As we surrounded the area, Kusanagi came out armed and rather then die then go to jail, he fired. Every officer that night was careful, trying to block bullets and run from them. I snuck around, trying to get Kusanagi to talk, to put his weapon down because his life was not worth loosing over a robbery. He saw me thought I was trying to kill him and shot me. I collapsed on the rain slicked asphalt. I don't remember much from there only that much later on I woke up in a hospital room, aching in pain. I was awake for a few hours and after it broke to the media I was still alive, a few hours later, Jia appeared in my room. We spoke and he revealed to me that it was Kusanagi that shot me. Then he revealed his name to me. I saw he must have had some form of trust in me to tell me. When he explained that he would loose everything if he told me what he did, I told him if I wanted to arrest him, I could have done so the moment I arrested him the first night. He told me the 36 Moons was still around and I told him as far as Tokyo knew, the 36 Moons was gone. He and I became allies.

With his help I was able to arrest Kusanagi later and send him to jail. And all was going well between the police officer and the yakuza. He and I became friends. We saw each other in each other's reflections, which is strange. We connected and understood each other, how he became a yakuza against his mother's wishes and how I became a cop under my mother's wishes but how we both really wanted to just please ourselves. He had, I had yet to do so. And I wouldn't. Not so long as my mother lived in breathed. But that time drew closer then I thought. During Jia's trips through Japan to prove himself to other oyabun, I got word from my aunties that my mother had fallen ill. And it was terminal. She was on her death bed and wanted me close by before she died. Without a moment's hesitation, I packed and gave word I was leaving for a temporary amount of time. I went back to California to stay by my mother's side. I watched her for weeks as she suffered, coughing blood and barely able to speak. The cancer she had in her throat was eating her inside out. She didn't have much time. She whispered softly to me before she died that she was proud of me. That she was happy I had listened to her and that she loved me and I was a good son. In the early dawn hours, my mother passed away, and I was holding her hand. I didn't tell anyone until much later that morning, all the while, I still held her hand. Once she died, I was left with nothing. I called Jia back in Tokyo and told him. I also told him I would be returning to Japan after the funeral.

I was glad I was able to make my mother so proud of me in her lifetime. And I kept my word to her. But she was no longer here, and I was able to fulfill another promise I made to Jia, that when my mother died, I would become a yakuza and finally please myself. I had always been Ryuunen Teru, the good son, the perfect student, the model officer, the head detective at a young age that brought down a strong oyabun and was able to hold back crime. But I had enough. I did not want to be that anymore. So with Jia's help, I changed myself slightly, but when I saw myself in the mirror I saw the same baby face that always reflected back the momma's boy I had always been. I didn't want that. I arranged false documents about myself with Jun's help and with the last cents I had to my name I traveled to Kobe where I had plastic surgery, completely changing myself. I had my entire face reconstructed, to look completely different then I once had been. After spending almost two months in Kobe healing, I went back to Tokyo to face Jia.

He wouldn't believe I was Ryuunen Teru, and he was right, I wasn't. I then changed my name legally from Teru, to Akio, like my father. And I became just like him, working in the 36 Moons, carrying his name doing what I wanted for the first time in my life. I had never felt so different from the person I use to be. I no longer had any expectations to fill, nothing to measure up to...I was free. And I adapted quickly to my lifestyle, and got my first tattoo of my given syndicate name, Phoenix. I had risen from the ashes of Ryuunen Teru to become Akio. It was then that I finally pieced together the mystery of my father and my mother. It turned out that my mother was my father's concubine, fully knowing he was a yakuza. When she realized he would never give up his lifestyle, she left him, carrying his child, unknowing to him. My father never even knew I existed. And he died never knowing of me. And my mother had died, lying to me the whole time. I wasn't angry at her for lying to me, I was just angry she felt that she had to lie for some reason. I would never understand that for as long as I live. But it didn't matter. I found out who I was, finally, the very shadow of my father. I had died and was born once more, a Phoenix rising with the moon.