Genji finally reached the top of the mountain.

He dropped to one knee in the snow with an exhale, condensation forming and reforming inside his mouth-guard. He looked up at the surrounding peaks as he caught his breath, all seeming to be miles apart. The sky was still clear and the sun was shining. Lucky for him. Hopefully it stayed that way.

After a minute more, snow crunched underneath his foot as he started down the way again.

His...foot, he thought to himself as he walked. He scoffed. Hardly his own. No more his foot than a hiker's glove their real hand.

That... That was it alright. That was his problem: this self-aversion, this...increasingly dissociative fear of himself. That was the reason he was climbing in this forgotten mountain range in the first place.

Since he was mostly a robot now, he was wondering if the robots had any advice on being a robot.

He'd probably be able to think of a better way to put that if he wasn't so distraught... Damn it all. How cool the idea of cyberization had sounded to him in the past. Now look at him. What was left of him...

The monastery, he forcibly reminded himself as he rounded a precarious ledge, miles of empty air waiting down below. The omnics had taken haven in an ancient monastery. He'd learned such from some of the locals here in Nepal. Word was they were..."enlightened," monks even. Perhaps they were enlightened enough to make Genji feel human again...even though they were omnic...and omnics were robots...

Genji stopped in his tracks, his scarf gently blowing in the hollow wind of the mountains.

...No. No this... This wasn't going to work. They wouldn't have anything helpful for him. How could they? What an idiot he was. He was a human, and they were omnic. What could they possibly know? Circuitry wasn't the same as a brain. They...

"You can't give up just because things are bad now. You can't ignore the future like that."

He clenched his fist.

...You're right, Genji reminded himself as he started walking again. I can't. I won't. For you.

And for me too.

After another hour or so, Genji scaled one last mountain, and suddenly came upon a stone path. Finally, a sign of civilization.

He looked up ahead, and indeed, he had reached the monastery. It was...nice, quaint, in a good way. There were three separate village areas nestled into the mountainside, connected by staircases carved into the rock. It seemed well kept.

He pulled down his scarf a bit and unclicked his mouth-guard from his face, scarred and burned as it was, but still found himself smiling in the fresh cold air despite it. He walked towards a plaza that appeared to be leading into some sort of sanctum. Large statues lined the large walkway. Statues of memorable monks that once were, he assumed.

"Who goes there?" a voice suddenly said.

Genji stopped, spotting a group of five omnics that'd been sitting and conversing on the sanctum steps, wearing robes and such. One of them was standing to greet him.

"I am...looking for help," Genji said, unsure of how to sell himself even after all this time to think. "I-I need help."

"What is your name, wanderer?" the monk asked, bearing that airy-helpfulness Genji expected and was hoping for.

It unfortunately made him feel confident in sharing his name. "Genji."

"Genji?" the monk said with an inquiring tone, tapping his finger against his chin. "Hm. Where I have heard that name before..."

Genji suddenly felt apprehensive. His eyes shot between the other monks.

One of them that was sitting leaned a bit, looking at Genji with its blank eyes. "You wouldn't happen to be of the Shimada clan, would you?"

"Genji Shimada?!" the first one exclaimed.

No...

"I... I-I was!" Genji pleaded. "But...not anymore!"

"He is with Overwatch!" a third monk censured. "They must be trying to indoctrinate us! Infiltrate us! Dismantle us from within and use us as weapons!"

"N-No!" Genji denounced, falling to his knees. There was nothing else he could do. "No, I... I just want help..."

"You will have none, deceiver!" the first monk yelled. He waved. "Begone, now!"

"Brothers," a new voice said from beyond the doorway.

Genji and the monks looked up, quieting. Another omnic was coming upon them.

He had no robe or shirt, just pants, even in the harsh cold, though it didn't really matter for his kind. He was somehow floating as well, his feet well off the floor, and he didn't appear to be standing any time soon.

"Why did we come here to these mountains?" he asked his fellow monks. "Why are we mediating on our existence every moment of our days? To deject humanity and separate ourselves from it? No, only to embrace it all the tighter in time."

He looked at Genji, with an infinitely more caring disposition towards him than the others had. "Perhaps this man is a sign from the Iris, to reach out sooner than we thought."

"B-But," one of the monks stammered, "Tekhartha, he is—"

"Someone begging for our help." The new monk gestured. "He is on his knees."

The other monks looked between each other, sidling a bit. The new monk nodded in contentment, and gently moved towards Genji. "What is your name, son?"

"G-Genji," Genji said, confessed really, pulling the words out from his own throat. "Genji Shimada..."

"Shimada," this new omnic repeated, monotone. "The crime syndicate?"

"See?!" the first monk said. "We cannot allow him to step foot in our sanctums! Who knows what trick he is trying to blind us with?!"

The new monk looked towards the other. "Look at his eyes, Kharo. Are these the eyes of a cruel man? No, these are eyes like that of a child's: desperate, lost."

"I-I am," Genji confided, looking down. "I'm... I'm so lost..."

"Then consider yourself found," the new monk said with a touch of Genji's shoulder, him looking up in surprise. "You may call me Zenyatta, and I will not leave your side until you are healed."

And as Genji knelt there, feeling oddly comforted, he believed him.

NOTES: Oh man oh man I hope this one is good. Commitment here I come.

Genji meeting Zenyatta one of those bare spots in the lore that idk if Bliz is ever gonna cover it or if they'll just leave it open to interpretation. If they DO happen to cover in the future it well then I'm gonna look rather silly with this now won't I lol.

I'm gonna try to get the next chapter out asap cuz I really wanted to share this but I also really want give a more complete idea of what future chapters are gonna be like. Idk. Either way next chapter's first on my writing schedule.