A/N: Hi there! First, thank you for deciding to read my story, I hope you will enjoy it. I wanted to clarify something though, beforehand. In most of the fanarts and comics I have found where Soba, Genji's dragon, appears, she is visible by everyone, not just Genji. So that's what I decided to do. Soba is a spirit dragon, she can teleport, appear and disappear at will, but she is visible by everyone. Anyway, hope you will enjoy the story!

"Again!" Lord Shimada shouted.

Genji was breathless, barely able to hold the wooden training sword. A green dragon stood upon his shoulders, small and thin, with the same tired look on its face. Across the training ground, Hanzo was still standing strong, both of his blue dragons twisting and turning around him. His face was emotionless. Genji felt a few beads of sweat rolling down his temples. He would have asked for a break, but he knew better than that.

He took a deep breath and ran to his brother, brandishing his sword. Hanzo took his stand, ready to block Genji's attack. Genji directed his dragon to swirl around the blade, but instead of complying the dragon bit his fingers, and the weapon slid off his hand. Genji was petrified. His sword hit the dusty ground with a bang, and his father instantly shouted:

"Genji! You must control your dragon!"

Genji looked up at the man standing on the wooden dais beside the training ground. He was a frightening man, with long braided hair and a long katana in his hands. Two golden dragons were swirling around him.

"I'm trying to, father! But he doesn't want to listen!"

"Enough!"

Genji flinched. Hanzo didn't move.

"That will be all for today. You better learn how to control your dragon, Genji. I expect more of you."

Hanzo bowed, and Genji quickly imitated his brother. Their father walked down the dais, his dragons beside him. Genji waited for the man to be gone before he ripped his dragon away from him and threw him to the ground.

"Arg! You stupid dragon! Why don't you listen to me!"

Genji picked up his wooden sword and tried to attack the dragon. Before he could hit it, though, Hanzo's sword parried his own.

"Stop it Genji. This is not how you will teach your dragon to respect you."

"But look at him! He looks like a noodle!"

The green dragon tilted his head. Hanzo looked longly at the spirit animal. It was smaller and thinner than his own, and while his dragons had a certain majesty in their bearing, Genji's was... well, for a lack of better word, it had a derpy expression.

"Your dragon will grow, same as you. But if you do not learn how to control it, it will be worst."

Genji looked at his brother's dragon, and how calm and graceful they were. He glared at his own dragon.

"I hate you!"

The boy ran away, leaving his dragon and his brother behind. Hanzo looked at the little green animal, and picked it up. As he did, the dragon's head fell backward, its tong lolling out of his mouth.

"You truly are my brother's dragon."

Genji was hidden in a corner of the Shimada castle, seated on gravel. Angry tears were running down his cheeks and he desperately tried to brush them away. He suddenly felt something hot on his shoulders, and angrily tear the dragon away from him. Of course, the bloody thing had followed him!

"No! You stay away from me!"

The dragon looked sadly at him.

"You're just a worthless...noodle! You're a soba, that's what you are! So just leave me alone!"

The dragon looked sadly at him but made a move forward. Genji picked up a pebble and threw it at his spirit animal.

"I said leave me alone!"

So the dragon did. It disappeared completely, and Genji felt relieved.

4 years later:

Hanzo knocked back an arrow, aimed, and let go. The arrow nudged itself on the right side of the center of the target. Genji looked at his own target. He was not good with a bow, he had given up on it a long time ago. But he was good with shurikens. He threw two in rapid succession, and both lodged themselves closer to the center than Hanzo's arrow. Genji gave his brother a smug look. Hanzo looked behind him, to his father who was seated on a dais and watched his sons practicing. The man nodded. Hanzo turned back to the target and knocked an arrow. He took a deep breath and declared:

"Ryuu ga waga teki wo kurau!"

His arrow turned blue, and as soon as Hanzo let go of it it seemed to disappear, and be replaced by two swirling blue dragons, who destroyed the target and the few trees behind it.

Genji was mesmerized. He turned to his bother with a bright smile.

"I didn't know you could do that, brother! Congratulations!"

"Your turn, Genji." declared his father.

Genji froze for a few seconds as if he didn't understand what his father meant. Fear grew in him when he finally understood what was expected of him. He took three shurikens between his fingers, closed his eyes and tried to breathe calmly.

"Come on dragon," he thought "don't fail me now."

He opened his eyes and looked at the target. He threw his shurikens. They hit the center, but there was no strange effect, no dragon pyrotechnics.

"Genji, show me your dragon." ordered his father.

Genji tried. He called upon his dragon but nothing happened. The noodle dragon didn't even appear on his shoulders.

"Genji, your dragon."

"He..." Genji lowered his head. "He doesn't want to appear."

His father didn't say a thing. Only he looked at his son as if he was a cockroach. Even Hanzo felt the coldness of their father's stare as he walked down the dais and left.

Genji was about to walk away, but Hanzo placed a strong hand on his brother's shoulder.

"What happened to your dragon, Genji?"

Genji didn't answer, he kept his head down and tried not to cry.

"Genji, look at me. What happened to your dragon?"

"I don't know. He doesn't want to appear anymore, I haven't seen him for a few months."

"You need to fix this. If father learns about it..."

"What does it matter? I don't want to be part of the clan."

"Don't say that."

Genji finally looked up, hate in his eyes.

"I don't want to be part of the clan. I will never be a good ninja, and I will never be a good Shimada, so what does it matter."

Genji escaped his brother's grasp, and walked quickly away, ignoring Hanzo who kept on calling his name.

5 years later:

Genji had a date. It was with a young woman he had met in high school, and with whom he had kept contact. They had agreed to meet at Rikimaru, but Genji had decided to go to the arcade an hour or so before, to perhaps win his girl a prize. Just as he was pushing a coin in the pachimari machine, he felt a hot presence on his shoulders.

"Well, there you are. Let me guess, you heard about noodles and you decided to join?"

The small green dragon slid off his master's shoulders and twirled lightly around him.

"Well sorry, but I am not buying you noodles."

The claw plunged into the plushes and caught the top of a pachimari, before it fell out of its grasp, and back into the machine. Genji half-heartedly looked at the number displayed on the machine. 2. He looked back at his dragon.

"Tell you what, if you can help me get a plush, I'll buy you noodles."

The dragon nodded and settled on Genji's right hand. Genji felt his hand warming nicely, and he moved the claw again. When he pressed the button, the claw closed around the base of the pachimari and kept it all the way to the drop trap. Genji jumped lightly with joy and picked up the pachimari out of the machine.

He looked back at his dragon.

"Alright, noodles for you. Think you can get me another one?"

The dragon seemed to smile.

When Genji arrived at Rikimaru, his date was already there, seated at the counter. He walked up to her with the pachimari behind his back and his dragon on his shoulders.

"Sorry, I'm late..."

The girl turned with a smile when she heard the voice of her date. She was about to greet him when she noticed the strange scarf around his shoulders, a green scarf staring back at her.

"Genji? What is that around your shoulders?"

"Oh! This is Soba. My dragon. It's a family thing, anyway, Soba helped me get you this, and so I promised her noodles."

He showed her the pachimari and she smiled.

"Oh, you're so sweet. Thank you."

She took the plush and hugged it, making the poor thing squeal like it usually did.

"Thank you Genji, and thank you Soba."

The dragon nodded while Genji nervously scratched the back of his head. He sat down next to her and placed Soba on the counter.

"Have you ordered yet?"

When she shook her head, still fascinated by the small dragon on the counter, he stood up.

"I'll go, be right back."

He left to find a waiter while his date tried to pet Soba. First, the dragon let her pet her, but when she suddenly felt her master's absence, she seemed to panic, and the girl had to hold on to Soba to prevent her from escaping.

"Hey, where are you going? Don't worry, Genji will come back."

Soba looked through the crowd in the shop, and when she saw Genji she seemed a bit more at ease. And then she saw noodles, and she passed her tong on her nozzle.

Genji came back with three bowls of noodles in his hands. He placed them on the counter and caught Soba right as she was about to jump in one of the bowls.

"Don't eat too fast, you'll be sick."

He let her go and she jumped into her bowl, followed by the laugh of Genji's date.

"Soba really likes you."

"It's new" answered Genji. "She used to hate me, and I hated her just as much. For the longest of time, I thought she was a male, and that's why she hated me and she would disobey me all the time, and that's why I hated her."

"What changed?"

"She disappeared for an entire year, and when she came back we had a long talk. I mean, it was me talking a lot and her nodding, but that's when I figured out she was a female."

They both looked back at Soba who was covered in noodles, which didn't seem to bother her.

"So she's your pet?" the girl asked.

Genji finished his mouthful before he answered.

"Actually, she's supposed to be this powerful force my family possesses, but I don't use her to fight."

Soba looked to her master, a few noodles balanced over her nozzle, and Genji chuckled before petting her.

6 years later:

Everyone had come to pay their respect, and now Hanzo and Genji were alone. Their father's body rested before them, in his ceremonial robes, his katana between his hands. As both young men looked at their father, Hanzo declared in a low voice:

"I've talked with the rest of the clan. They want me to take the head."

"And I won't oppose you, brother. You are the oldest, the better fighter and the better leader. I have no claim to the clan."

They stood in silence a while longer, before Hanzo finally brought out the problem he had meant to talk about.

"The other members of the clan are counting on you as well, Genji. They want you to be just as much a part of the clan as me."

"You already know the answer, brother. I was never meant to be a fighter."

"It's not about being a fighter, it's about being part of the family and carrying the family's legacy."

"What will happen if I refuse?"

"I don't know, brother, but I'm afraid for your life. Father is no longer there to protect you. The clan will want to be obeyed, and the fact that you are my brother will not stop them."

Genji looked one more time at his father, before moving away from the ornate table.

"The let them come. I will not be enslaved by my name."

Pain had made his vision blurry, but he could clearly see the bright green light in front of him, protecting him. He tried to crawl to his katana, almost sure he had left it somewhere ahead of him. He felt so hot in the night air, perhaps because of all the fresh blood covering him. He tried to extend his right arm and yelped in pain. He tried to close his fingers around the small irregularities of the ground. There was no hand left to obey. He tried to move his left arm. A piece of wood stuck under his shoulder blade prevented it from him. He thought he heard dragons fighting, roaring and biting and clawing at each other, but it was impossible. Soba didn't know how to fight, how could she protect him?

It all stopped suddenly when steps rang closer to him.

"I'm sorry, brother, but the clan has left me no choice."

A blade pressed through his ribs, and the last thing Genji heard was a cry of pain.

His eyelids were so heavy. They were impossible to open. His entire body felt tired, and asleep, as if every single one of his muscles were dead. There was a regular beep beside him, and he felt a needle in his left arm, giving him something which burned like pure alcohol in his veins.

Yet he felt a warm and calming sensation close to him. He forced his eyes open. He was in a bright hospital room, where everything was white, from the door to the bed sheets to the machines on his left. But then he noticed it, a small bundle of green beside him, coiled asleep like a snake.

"Soba?"

His throat was dry, and he would have asked for water had he known how. Every time he tried to move his lips he could feel the multiple bandages on his face.

Soba woke up instantly, and like a cat, she came to caress his face.

"You protected me..."

Genji looked down at Soba and noticed the tubes giving him air through his nose. He tried to move either of his hands to pet her, but neither of them moved.

The door opened, and a blond woman wearing a lab coat walked in.

"Mister Shimada, I'm doctor Angela Ziegler. I work for Overwatch. We found you in Hanamura almost dead. I managed to save you but..."

She walked up to him and started doing some checkups, looking at his eyes with a flashlight and noting his status on one of the machines.

"We have a lot to discuss, but first, can I bring you anything?"

"Some water, please and... noodles, for my dragon. She deserves it."

Angela smiled gently.

"I was wondering what she was. She stayed with you throughout the entire operation. I'll see what I can do."

Angela left the room, leaving Genji and Soba alone. They looked at each other longly.

"You saved me, didn't you? I thought you were weak, but you were strong, stronger than me."

Angela walked back in with a plastic glass of water.

"There you go. Noodles are on there way."

She held the glass for Genji to drink, and once he was done she placed it on the bedside table.

"Mister Shimada, I'm afraid I was not able to save as much of you as I wish I could."

Genji looked at Angela with worry. She nervously crossed her fingers. It was never easy to tell a patient he had lost a limb, but Genji's case was far worse.

"I'm afraid I will have to be blunt. We already had to replace your heart and your liver, both of which had been badly damaged. We also replaced some of your broken ribs by metallic ones, as they had been too severally broken. You lost both legs and your right arm, and the nerve controlling your left arm has been severed and unfortunately cannot be fixed. You also had a concussion and we had to replace pieces of your skull with metal plates. You lost a lot of blood, Mister Shimada, but the fact that you are awake and not disoriented leaves me to believe that they were no damage to your brain, although we will have to do more tests. For now, all I can tell you is that Overwatch will take care of you for as long as necessary."

Genji considered longly what the doctor had just told him. He would never walk again. He would never be able to use his hands again. His heart was not the same anymore.

"Is there a way to fix me? To make me fight again?"

"There could be. But it would be painful, and long, but I promise you that I would do anything to help you."

"Then make me fight again, doctor. Help me become stronger to protect those in need."

Angela smiled lightly.

"I was hoping you would say that."