<div class="floatleft">(https://i.imgur.com/RK9d9kH.jpg)</div><strong>Name:</strong><em>Evie Connors</em><br/><strong>Date | Location:</strong><em>Sunny Afternoon  | Japan, Ishikawa Estate, The Garden</em><br/><strong>Wearing | Carrying:</strong><em>Casual clothes, hidden knife</em><br/><strong>Tagging:</strong><em>Mai Ishikawa (Naomi's mother)</em><br/><strong>Notes:</strong><em>Takes place 19 years ago and includes backstory going back farther</em><hr/><br/>Young mother Mai Ishikawa’s life is sheltered in the upper branches of Japanese society, in the relative Elysium of an idyllic, nature-oriented compound that acts as home, dojo, and fortress for the Ishikawa family. Her days are long, with expectation she care for her daughter, serve tea to Hitoshi’s guests, and appear as a presentably demure Yakuza wife.<br/><br/>But her daughter is older, having just turned three. More and more, she must visit the city, and the loyalties of Yakuza are complex and fraught, and to send such a beautiful creature and his only daughter into the city without protection is unthinkable for Hitoshi. Nor can he rely fully on Yakuza who could owe cross-loyalties to so many of Hitoshi’s rivals.<br/><br/>Classically, this is a job outsourced to either close family, of whom Hitoshi has none, or to contractors. American military are often useful, they’re abundant on nearby military bases, have experience working privately in Japan, and have a reputation for not betraying their charges—a reputation their officers insist they maintain, since a percentage of their pay gets kicked up the command structure.<br/><br/>Today is a beautiful day in the garden and Hitoshi sits with a stranger when Mai brings tea. Just as she’d heard through the servants, Hitoshi’s chosen an American bodyguard, likely a woman known for carousing with men to assure Mai’s not a temptation. Whoever this is, the only thing Mai can assume about her is she’s a woman who’s slept with several men since arriving in Japan.<br/><br/>The American is red-haired, dressed in the simple military leggings and sleeveless top of a soldier, a pair of glinting dog-tags falling to the top of her shapely chest. She’s taller than Hitoshi even sitting down, legs folded, and one arm is—while skin-colored—plainly synthetic, with armor plating over the shoulder, bicep, and forearm. Her mechanical hand holds the tea-cup as though she were left-handed; or perhaps she’s merely demonstrating she can use the hand for delicate work. Not everyone can.<br/><br/>There’s something familiar in her fierce eyes, very familiar. “Come, Mai. Sit. I believe I’ve secured you a bodyguard.”<br/><br/>The realization will come on stronger and stronger. It’s been four years but this is Evelyn Grant-Sterling—a shock. Eve had always been tall, but now she’s built too; powerful shoulders, her natural arm showing the subtle contouring of a fighter, her frame trim and strong. It would be like meeting the president drinking cheap beer in a pub, like seeing one of the popes on the crapper. Eve Grant-Sterling, beautiful heiress, piano prodigy, in military fatigues looking like a veteran of the American Resource Wars.<br/><br/>What happened since last they met to bring on this change? Whatever the case, Hitoshi seems ignorant of who this really is. “What is it you are called?” Hitoshi says in English.<br/><br/>“Evie,” she says. “Evie Connors.” She glances up at Mai, maintaining a straight face, but there’s an intensity in her stare and for an instant, Mai will remember the game they played as young girls in Evie’s mansion.<br/><br/>Hide and seek. Evie knew everywhere to hide and never lost. She was a bloodhound when it came to tracking Mai down across the estate. Everytime she’d find Mai right away, peak in a cabinet, behind a potted plant, and whisper, “Found you! I win again.”<br/><br/>She doesn’t say it out loud, but she has the same look in her eyes.<em>Found you. I win again.</em><br/>