WOLVERINE

Logan has buried lovers, outlived teams and forgotten whole decades of his own life, yet one promise he made in a ruined Tokyo street has followed him since Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 #181 (1984). The X-Men had barely returned from the first Secret Wars when a dragon that had grown monstrous on Battleworld rampaged through the city, and in the wreckage Wolverine found a dying woman shielding her small daughter, Amiko Kobayashi. With her last breath the mother asked him to look after the girl, and he swore Amiko would be raised as though she were his own.

Keeping the oath proved harder than making it. A full-time X-Man could not raise a child from a mansion that doubled as a battlefield, so Amiko was fostered with Logan's fiancée Mariko Yashida, head of Clan Yashida, where she lived in comfort and saw her sworn protector only rarely. The arrangement held until Mariko was assassinated by the Hand, at which point no legal plan existed for Amiko at all and she vanished into Japan's foster system, landing with abusive carers while Logan still believed she was safe.

When Logan finally learned the truth, in Wolverine Vol. 2 #82 (1994), he posed as a social worker to inspect the household, removed Amiko that same night, and bargained with the Silver Samurai to have the ronin Yukio accepted as her new guardian — surrendering the Honor Sword of Clan Yashida in exchange for the Samurai's influence and his pledge to watch over her. Amiko later learned her mother had belonged to the Shosei, an order of warriors who guard the world against demons, and began training toward that inheritance herself.