After explaining to Gin for a while, she finally realized that the civilians back in Japan now actually looked like that.
Even though there were quite a lot of Japanese-descended folks in Hawaii who had the gall to go back, their bloodline clearly wasn't pure anymore, nothing like how Su Ming had described.
But even so, she still firmly refused to turn herself into something that ugly, so in the end, even after turning into an Asian, she was still a beauty.
Su Ming sighed. He'd wanted to move low‑key, but clearly that was out the window. Done up like a movie star, she'd get stared at wherever she went.
Forget it, then. At worst, it was just a bit more troublesome.
Su Ming had Strangulation change his appearance as well. Since Gin insisted on looking good, he'd go the other way and make himself ugly, so he turned into an old, ugly Little Devil with a Ronson mustache.
He also shortened the length of his X Metal Skeleton, which meant he'd become a Dwarf.
What? You say only a handsome guy deserves a beauty? Ever heard of "gold‑digging"?
Gin was way too pretty right now; after taking on Asian features, she had this delicate, frail kind of beauty that was downright criminally tempting.
Walking down the street in the middle of the night like this, who knew how much trouble she'd attract. Su Ming wasn't afraid of trouble or melodrama, but there was absolutely no need for him to help Japan take out the trash.
So he might as well go for a look that clearly didn't match the beauty at all, something that forced people to think about his family background and status instead.
The nasolabial folds had to be deep, like they were carved into his face, making him look like he'd suffered a lifetime of bitter hatred—that kind of face had presence.
"Hahahahaha..." Gin pointed at him, laughing so hard she couldn't straighten up, even reaching out to tug his little mustache like she'd just discovered some funny new toy.
Su Ming slapped her hand away irritably. They could've both just gone with ordinary faces, couldn't they? He'd compromised for her and sacrificed himself, and she was still laughing her head off?
"Knock it off, we've got business to do."
Gin pulled back her small hand and rested her arm on top of his head to compare their heights. "That's because you turned yourself into this Joker‑looking thing to make me laugh. It's all your fault."
"...Let's go. We'll ask around on the streets near the prison." Su Ming couldn't be bothered to argue with her. He took her hand and headed toward the nearby town. "After the War, that Navy Prison should've been abandoned. From the looks of it now, it's been converted into a fishing port, and this little town grew up around the harbor."
"They dare eat fish after Radiation? Anyway, if it's a port town, then the residents are either fishermen or laborers, maybe a few small‑time merchants at most. Can they really know anything about something as secret as World War II prisoners?"
Gin finally managed to hold in her laughter, forcing herself to focus on the mission.
Su Ming led her through a stretch of woods by the shore and out onto the road. It was still a dirt road, frozen hard as stone in the winter.
"We don't need to ask about any hidden secrets, because Natasha set out before us. She's working off the same intel we are, so she'll definitely come near the Nagasaki Naval Base to look for leads." Su Ming glanced around; there wasn't a soul on the road. "In a place like this, who wouldn't notice a red‑haired foreign woman?"
"Let's hope she's already dug up something, then. But if there's no big problem, maybe we can go have some fun somewhere else? Tokyo, Capital?"
Gin shrugged. She'd come with a vacation mindset anyway.
Nagasaki City was where the Nuclear Bomb had hit. This wasn't ground zero, but it had suffered plenty of Radiation. Honestly, there wasn't much to look at; they might as well head to Northern Europe.
"She's a professional Special Agent; she has her own methods. We just need to follow behind and make sure things don't spin too far out of expectations." Su Ming looked at the snow beneath his feet. It was obvious there weren't many pedestrians here; the snow lay in a loose, messy layer. "As for going out to have fun, Japan really doesn't have much to offer right now. After the War, every industry is withering; about the only entertainment left is drinking."
"Drinking sounds great. This time we're going to drink every kind of booze in Japan." Gin cheered happily. She wrapped herself around Su Ming's arm and, unable to wait, pulled him across the road toward the town.
Like all Asgardians, Gin had a special fondness for alcohol. Maybe the reason she'd deliberately let herself be "picked up" by Su Ming on the street in the first place was because she heard someone was opening a distillery?
Well, that's fate for you. Who can really say?
"Then we can start with Yamanashi Prefecture; the booze there is pretty good."
Su Ming agreed with a smile, letting the beauty who was a head taller than him drag him along.
Right now, the only ones keeping the closest eye on Wolverine were the Hand Union and Romulus. They posed no real threat to him; he only needed to keep an eye on Stryker's people.
The town itself looked just as decayed. Wisps of cooking smoke rose from the timber‑and‑earth houses, most of it the smell of burning grass and wood. No one had any Big Fish or meat on the table.
These days, anyone who could afford a rice ball was considered well‑off. Ordinary folks were stuck with rice‑soup, the kind where you could count every grain.
"Walking through a town of losers like this, it really is a strange feeling. Do they have no sense of honor at all? Why didn't they die on the battlefield instead of living on like this?"
Gin had spotted a few broken, empty‑eyed disabled men in yellowish uniforms, wobbling away into the dark.
She simply couldn't understand what was going through their heads.
They were always going on about the Samurai spirit, but they didn't act like Samurai at all. What was the point of dragging on like Walking Corpses?
Su Ming chuckled and gestured for her to keep her voice down. If she didn't speak the language, she shouldn't be so loud. "The Little Devils are a very contradictory people. They're not afraid of death, but they're terrified of dying in a way that isn't gorgeous and grand. Their bushido and Asgard's warrior ethos are two completely different things."
"She even has to die beautifully?" Gin pulled a tangled expression, somewhere between crying and laughing.
As a Valkyrie, she'd been leading Heroic Spirits to Valhalla on battlefields for a thousand years; if you were talking tragic deaths, she'd seen more than plenty.
But… a beautiful death? Sorry, she really couldn't picture it.
Su Ming patted the back of her hand. He knew that a Northern European-style woman still had a hard time understanding Eastern culture, let alone Bushido, that oddball among Eastern philosophies.
Most likely, even after all these years in Japan, Wolverine still had no idea what "Fleeting Beauty" meant, never mind taking it a step further to "Chrysanthemum and the Sword."
But thinking about it, Wolverine did have a special thing for Japanese women; a lot of his wives and girlfriends were Japanese.
Too bad that anyone with an animal codename was usually born under a jinxed star—having wives and girlfriends die on them was basically par for the course.
Bat… Spider… even that filthy-rich Black Panther ended up divorced in the end.
"Stop overthinking it. When we need to, I'll give you a live demo on how to make an enemy die in style. That place those disabled guys came out of looks like a little tavern; let's go fish for some info."
Why do people like to go to taverns to dig up information? Because that's always where the drunks are most concentrated, and you can pry some hidden old stories out of the bartender. As for news, asking the half-conscious patrons in a tavern is just as solid a choice.
"Excuse us." Following Japanese custom, you're supposed to offer a polite phrase after sliding the door open, to show you're sorry for disturbing other people's drinking.
Since they were in disguise, the act had to be played all the way through. Su Ming behaved just like a true local.
"Ola, welcome." The proprietress was kneeling by the door, bowing with her head to the floor in greeting. She was that sort of woman just past her prime, still with lingering charm.
She wore a coarse-cloth kimono, a very ordinary getup, and the lights inside the shop were dim, the décor very old and worn; it looked like life wasn't going particularly well.
This was a Japanese-style tavern, completely different from a United States bar.
No bar counter, no bartender. Just inside the entrance was the little table the proprietress used to keep people from dining and dashing; past that was a big tatami platform running around the perimeter of the room.
Everyone was sitting cross-legged up there eating and drinking, which looked rather unsanitary.
At the back of the hall there was a kitchen where they cooked, and from time to time some errand boy would come out carrying trays of cheap food.
All dark and murky—probably soy sauce? Yeah, soy sauce wasn't expensive, and it did taste pretty good.
The instant he came in, Su Ming filed all the intel away in his head and locked onto a few people who were about drunk enough. Only then did the proprietress finally lift her head.
She saw the short little Dwarf first, then the tall Beauty standing behind him, and her pupils involuntarily dilated.
Her first reaction was: why would a woman this beautiful be with a freak like that? And the second: this ugly-looking man must be anything but ordinary.
She couldn't help bowing again, kneeling to authority.
"Look up when you talk."
Su Ming said coolly, projecting a faint sense of detachment, and even switched into a Capital accent.
"Hai."
She didn't know why, but she felt like she'd been locked onto by a tiger. This kind of presence… could he be on the level of the Emperor himself?
Seeing her so cooperative, Su Ming didn't need to pump the drunks for information anymore. "A few days ago, there was a red-haired foreign girl hanging around the outskirts of town. Did you see her? Think it through before you answer; don't waste my time."
"Yes, my lord. Foreigners aren't exactly rare here, but I've only ever seen one with red hair."
"Who did she talk to? And where did she go afterward—do you know?"
Su Ming put on a show of lofty arrogance, looking at people only out of the whites of his eyes and lifting a hand to half-cover his nose, like he was too disdainful to breathe the same air as these commoners.
The imprint of a class-based society ran deep in Japan, especially in this era when surnames weren't even universal. The more high-and-mighty you acted, the easier it was to get things done before people figured out who you really were.
"Hai. She asked me about a man, a lieutenant who used to work in the old prison not far from here—Lord Yashida Ichiro."
The proprietress answered very submissively. Su Ming stroked his mustache; so far, it all lined up.
"Tell me where the Yashida Family estate is, and then sell me a flask of the best sake you've got." Su Ming produced a ten US Dollar bill from his suit like a magic trick. In Japan, this was as hard a currency as it got.
With US Dollars, you could buy all sorts of good stuff.
Like all kinds of scarce goods that had come into Japan along with the US Army garrison.
Instant hotpot, spicy strips, Powerful Beverage, American canned food, the whole range of drinks under the Skywalker brand, plus the high-end stockings, lingerie, cosmetics and so on produced by Wilson Enterprises…