Chapter 1: Metempsychosis
Legends hail their name, sacrifice and secrets laying the foundation of their empire. The story begins with two dragon brothers who ruled the skies before walking upon the earth, and its legacy continues in the blood of the Shimada who walk the path set before them. However, history has a nasty habit of repeating itself- its lessons lost and falling on the deaf ears of its inheritors who make the same mistakes. The fabric of destiny is composed of countless different paths and threads, all joining to weave one same fate- and for two brothers, their choices were destined to lead them onto a road that was decided for them.
Until one night, when the wife of the Shimada clan's leader announces that she is with her third child. With one decision, the woven threads of reality are ripped apart. The paths that were once paved are broken through and forced aside, leaving in its wake a barren landscape for a new path to be walked- one unbound by the threads of fate; a walking puppet without strings.
The dawn of a third dragon renders the stone in which the fate of the Shimada was set asunder, and in the wake of such destruction, the fate of the world is left at her mercy.
At the age of twenty-seven, death was a subject that rarely crossed her mind. Granted, the thought did pass her by every now and then, but it never lasted long. There was no room to contemplate the mysteries of life or any possible 'if I die tomorrow' situations when she was more worried about how to pay the bills, finish the new workload assigned to her while also waiting for the next update on that new series she'd been following.
It wasn't anything new. Ever since she'd been a young lass, she would mark for herself small goals along the way, and she was determined to work for it- when she was always looking forward, she never wondered what would happen if all of it were to end abruptly. She had never been the brightest student during her schooling days, but she was good at learning other things by watching others and adding her own persuasive touch that convinced people that she knew what she was doing. She knew what to say and how to act around different people in order to earn their respect, and it opened doors that she could take- hence, the fact that she was earning enough to live rather comfortably in a small apartment while still being able to keep some savings on the side.
If there was a word to describe her, however, it would not be ambitious. Maybe the more accurate word would be selfish, or boring. What she did was simply another flimsy attempt of an individual to combat the difficulties of life, and in all honesty she merely desired simplicity. Easiness. A mundane ritual that she could rely on. She didn't care so much for greatness as she did for security. The probability of her demise simply wasn't something she stopped to consider for too long, because what good would ever come out of contemplating the end where there was no chance of a future? It was simply an inevitable fate that she decided she would confront when the time came.
She just didn't realise just how suddenly that time would come, or just how much more complicated it would make her life. But she found out soon, because one morning, three days and five months after her twenty-seventh birthday, a bus driver lost control of his vehicle and slammed into her car with enough force to knock her vehicle onto its side, sending it skidding on the highway and flipping it over as well.
Looking back on it later, she would realise that it took mere minutes. However, at that moment it felt like years passed as the ringing in her ears died down and her head stopped hurting enough for her to finally see straight. There was blood, her blood trailing down her face and interfering with her sight, pain lacing through every limb, and the smell of diesel. She wondered if she was bleeding from her arm that had been smashed into the broken glass of her door after it slammed into the road, but she couldn't't really tell. Adrenaline pushed the pain to the back of her mind, but she sas very sure she felt something wrong with her ribs. Did she fracture something? Probably. Maybe. She didn't know, but everything was hazy and confusing and she knew she needed to get out.
The sparks from her car's engine grabbed her attention from the corner of her eye. The driver in the bus seemed to have been knocked out from the force of collision, but she could barely bring herself to care about him at that point when her own life was in danger. She pressed down on the seatbelt release and yanked at it, but to her dismay she found that her seatbelt would simply not budge. Something from the impact must have jammed the damned thing, she realised, and that aas when the panic really started to settle in.
The sparks kindled a fire. People were shouting, she could hear them as they hauled the unconscious truck driver out of his vehicle, but something told her that no one will be able to get her out of this. Maybe it was some greater force telling her that this was to be her fate, maybe it was her giving up, or maybe it was just the fact that she saw the puddle of oil pooling out from the truck that was merely inches from the growing flame.
There wasn't time to make peace with God or even think of any of her loved ones before her world erupted. If anyone ever asked her, she would never be able to describe the agony of dying in an explosion, only that the single instant it lasted felt like eternity.
On that day, she died.
And then, she doesn't.
The emptiness doesn't make itself known until she wakes.
Well, perhaps it's not emptiness, per se. To her, it feels like a state between waking and dreaming- some sort of limbo that she's perfectly aware of and yet not. She thinks can see, but there's nothing to behold- and certainly nothing to feel, either. Thoughts come to her in a muddled mess of words and images, languages overlapping and visuals blurring together into a senseless product that she can't comprehend. A part of her longs to get a grip and pull herself together, but another part of her remains blissfully unaware and listless in the face of such an odd situation.
She thinks she may have been drugged, or maybe she's actually dreaming. Is she awake? Asleep? God only knows. It feels like eternity in this little bubble of existence, vaguely aware of anything that's going on, but one moment she's floating in limbo and the next she feels herself falling.
If this is death, it really sucks.
Consciousness floods her senses, and suddenly she's aware of just how hard it is to breathe and how constricting the space around her feels. She can hardly move, her limbs feel numb and she can't see- why can't she see- and she's suffocating and then-
Light. Blurry, blurry light. Sound. Weightlessness. Something seems to envelop her and lift her into the air, and she wonders if this is what those religious folk refer to as their ascension into the paradise beyond the skies. She didn't think she'd be worthy of entering heaven's gates, to be completely honest, but if that's where she's headed she doesn't mind at all.
A sharp pain jerks her out of the fantasy, however, and instinctively she cries out in surprise and mild annoyance. However, the scenario alerts her to the fact that she can actually feel, immediately waking her up as she tries to figure out what's happening. Her memories are blurry- there was the crash, the blood, the fire. She realises she must have been rescued then, and the thought makes her want to sigh in relief.
However, something isn't quite right. Despite the awareness of her actions, there's something strange about her senses. She's sure she screamed, but her voice sounds horribly fuzzy in her ears. There's light, but she can barely tell apart the shapes and figures moving around in her line of sight. She can feel hands touching her- is that water?- before the warmth of what might be a towel drapes over her and wraps her up snugly. It makes no sense to her- why were they covering her in sheets that were completely restricting her movements? Why did the shadows looks so... huge?
Most of all, what on earth were they saying? She can distinguish so many voices, but their words are of a language she cannot comprehend. It takes a moment to distinguish the pronunciation of the syllables and accent, but she's quite sure they are speaking Japanese.
There's more movement. More weightless sensations and unintelligible words, but her consciousness fades in and out. She doesn't know how much time passes in between these moments of awareness, but she decides that it's the medication taking effect and to let the doctors do what they have to without causing too much of a fuss.
However, there are times she can't quite control what she does. Sometimes she feels so unbelievably hungry and cries out, unable to articulate herself properly, but every time she does it, she gets fed. How exactly, she can't quite comprehend, but she doesn't complain. For what feels like forever, she drifts in and out of consciousness, waking only to a blurry world and more often than not, hunger. She's quite sure that people are moving her about, too, but she can't do much other than squirm in the sheets they've wrapped her in.
It takes a long time before she's able to properly see, and to grasp what exactly is going on around her. When she does, however, it's not in a situation she expects.
She wakes up one day, only to find that the figures which had begun to sharpen in detail over time now have distinct features that she can tell apart. Every move they make is known to her, she can see and hear and feel more clearly than ever before.
That's when she realises someone is carrying her- a woman with distinctly Asian features, who is much bigger than she is. The stranger holding her in her arms looks down at her as she squirms in terror, and there is so much warmth and concern in those warm russet eyes that she ceases all her struggles.
"Tomoe? Doushita no?" The woman says in a tongue unknown to her, and she can almost feel the panic rising as she begins to realise just what's wrong with everything. A man suddenly arrives by the woman's side as well- he's just as huge and intimidating, but there's a soft smile on his face as he says something that makes the woman laugh.
There's also a child in his arms and another by his side, both of whom stare at her in innocent wonder and fascination. And that's when she realises what has happened.
This is all wrong. She can't believe this. She can't.
For seemingly no reason at all, she starts crying again. Only this time, despite everything the strangers do to soothe her, it doesn't stop until she is so tired that she falls asleep again without realising it.
Weeks pass, and she never wakes from her hellish nightmare. Admitting to her predicament discomforts her greatly, but when she has fallen asleep only to awake many, many times to the same scene and place, she can't deny her circumstances any longer. She has escaped death, but in a way that she had never even considered before.
Tomoe is her new name. She's been born to a family with two siblings before her, and from what little she can observe from her surroundings, they are rather well-off. From the rare times that they carry her outdoors she has seen the polished emblems on the gates, the occasional security guards or servant that she spots around the mansion, and the mannerisms every person around her adopts- all of that and more served to indicate that the family that brought her home is in fact, loaded. Initially, she was unable to tell exactly what year she had been reborn in, but she had learned from looking at the date on one of the digital screens that the era in which she had once resided had long since passed. By more than just a few years.
(She tries not to think about it too much, but it's hard.)
She's also a very quiet child, and she is sure they notice it- but because she is so young, they do not question it as much as they should have. Still, she is very much aware that they're concerned by how little noise she makes, if the slight furrow that sometimes appears in her new mother's brow or the quiet concern in her father's voice as he murmurs to her is any indication. Maybe they think there's something wrong with her, but she can't bring herself to care too much when there is so much going on.
The person she once was is dead, her friends and family will never see her again, and she doesn't know if they even had a body to bury. She's grateful that she didn't have a significant other in her life at the time of her demise- that was one less person who would have gotten hurt. Even with her acknowledgement, it is hard to separate then from now- hard to call these new people her mother and father when she acquaints these names for people she'd known her entire life, hard to accept that her name is Tomoe and she is barely a few months old, hard to accept that everything she once had and loved is no longer hers. She has to get over it sometime, she knows, but as easy as it sounds she just can't.
'Impossible' isn't a word in her dictionary- it never was, that was why she'd excelled in the field she had pursued- but she'd be damned if this isn't coming extremely close to it.
Tears spring to life in her eyes as she lies awake in her cot, but not because of the typical reasons that babies cried (or is it? Who knows, perhaps some babies are just as overwhelmed as she is now but simply have less control over the manner in which they throw their tantrums? Gods, what is she even thinking, even the idea sounds stupid). She doesn't scream and wail, but she she can't hold back the tears as they drip past her cheeks and soak into the covers of her cot. Her body is so weak and has yet to adapt to this life enough that she couldn't even wipe them away, and she can't help but feel unbelievably frustrated with the world and herself.
Why her? Of all the people, why would she get this end of the whole death and rebirth shtick? Why did she have to remember and feel all this hurt?
Part of her wishes her consciousness had died in the crash. Sometimes she believes that fate would have been better.
The tears are free flowing now, but stubbornness keeps her mouth firmly shut as she weeps silently. She won't make noise and call those people to her. She won't. She doesn't want them near her.
And yet, as she is sniffling quietly and trying to get her arms to cooperate to wipe away her tears, she hears the sound of the door sliding open. It's dark in the nursery and she can't see very well at all- it must be night, she thinks- but soon she's able to pick out the top of a head and two large eyes that blink sleepily down at her from the edge of her cradle.
It's one of the kids of her new 'family'. The older one, if she remembers correctly. Why is he here? Had he heard her crying? No way- she's positive she had remained quiet. But what reason could there be for him coming to her room otherwise?
"Tomoe?" There it is again- the name that's both hers and yet not. It makes her feel ill more than anything else, but there's nothing she can do about it. The boy wraps his fingers over the edge of her cot as he stares down at her, a frown marring his features- he appears displeased, even a little worried, and he says something in Japanese that she can't catch. Her inability to even understand what he's saying only serves to fuel her annoyance for seemingly no reason, and she's so, so tempted to scream. She's angry, and confused and she just wants everything to make sense again-
The kid disappears from her sight for a moment, and she hears the door sliding closed. It's almost a relief that he's gone, she thinks as the silence envelops her once again, but barely a few seconds later the door is sliding open again and she can hear his soft footsteps against the hardwood floor as he shuts it carefully behind him.
She's confused for a moment, when suddenly, those small arms are reaching into the cot. To her surprise, she finds herself being picked up and out of her tiny bed. The boy grunts slightly upon carrying her, but he is stronger than she anticipated- he's never held her before, only her new... parents have- and she's actually very surprised he's even able to hold her so steadily as he sits on the nearby chair. He's so young, probably not even seven years old, and yet he's cradling her and shushing her and using a handkerchief he'd retrieved to wipe at her tear streaked face. All she can do is stare at the face of this little boy who still seems so much bigger than she is, with soft hands and gentle eyes that look at her with such protectiveness that she just feels safe in his arms.
He has their mother's eyes, she realises. The same quiet voice and loving touch that could calm her even on her worst days. But there's something else there- some sort of pull towards him that she doesn't quite feel towards her mother. If anything, it reminds her of her father and the way she instinctively feels more comfortable with him over her other parent. She doesn't know why that is, or what it could be, but it makes her feel more at ease than she has in a long time.
The boy murmurs something to her again in that foreign tongue, but she doesn't need to understand what he says to know his intent. His presence comforts her and chases away the dark thoughts, making her feel safe and warm as he slowly rocks her in his arms. It feels like home, she realises, and for the first time since she's been born again, she begins to think that maybe this new reality isn't so bad.
After that day, the feelings of anger and frustration do not come to her quite as easily as they did before. It does little to encourage her to be more lively or noisy, but she allows herself to cry more often when she needs attention, or babble as she tries to train her tongue to speak. She thinks that maybe the change in demeanour has brought her family some sort of relief, but that may have just been her imagination. Regardless, it is frustrating at most times that she can hardly do anything without the aid of another person, and it makes her very uncomfortable and irrationally embarrassed whenever they do so much as bathe and change her. Being an adult woman in an infant's body is not something she'd wish upon her greatest enemy.
Once her needs are sustained, she usually falls quiet again, but unlike before, she makes an effort to respond to things that her family members try to say or do. She almost pities them whenever they try so hard to make her laugh- the younger of the two boys especially, as he always goes out of his way to offer her his toys and pull strange faces at her that it's really quite adorable- and rewards them for their efforts by responding the way they want her to. It feels terribly forced sometimes, but watching their faces light up makes her feel both relieved and guilty. She doesn't mean to make them worried, but she's still feels out of place and misses the life she'd lost.
Amongst her own internal conflicts, however, she learns.
She learns that her parents are named Sojiro and Ginchiyo. She only picks this up whenever one of those stern faced elders that stayed in their home- who are they? Why do they live under their roof?- come to summon them away from her side for whatever reason. Her understanding of Japanese is flimsy, but her physically infantile mind seems to be adapting to it fairly quickly- the two adults that spend most of their time with her aside from the occasional servant both seem keen on calling themselves 'otou-san' and 'okaa-san' around her. They probably expect her to call them that in an attempt at getting her to speak her first word, and she does try- it just doesn't help that her stupid tongue needs to adapt to her speech.
Sojiro is a strapping man with broad shoulders and a greying beard to match the hair atop his head- how odd, she can't help but think; he still looks too young to have grey hairs so fast- and an elaborate tattoo down the expanse of his right arm. There are scars along his arms, even a few that she glimpses just beneath the collar of his robes sometimes, and it is clear that he keeps his physique in top shape. A warrior, her mind whispers whenever she feels the rough callouses on his hands as he carries or plays with her- but why he is one, she doesn't know.
Ginchiyo is a tall, elegant woman with warm brown eyes and an equally warm smile. From the way she addresses the two young boys that she has come to learn are her brothers, as well as herself, she can tell that she is utterly loving in her treatment of them, yet also mildly stern. The latter side shows in the way she chastises the younger brother for his unruly behaviour, or quietly scolds the older one as she brushes out his tangled hair. There is a certain weariness in her face, however- some sort of worry that she sees in both parents' eyes as they look at each other when they don't know she is watching. Or maybe they do. She does know, however, that a lot of those looks are incited by her when she falls into one of her more depressed moods, or when a few of those elderly folk that roam their halls for some reason says something in their haughty tone that she doesn't quite understand but doesn't like.
The servants, she notices, address them both as 'Shimada'. The titles vary, but there is no mistaking the surname they speak.
When she realises that the names of her brothers are Genji and Hanzo, the pieces begin to line up in her head- and the cogs in her mind start to turn.
The memory is faint, but it is there nonetheless. She remembers her days in college when she pursued her diploma, and the activities she would get into along with her friends. One such activity was gaming- just another simple thing that could help take her minds off her real life worries for the briefest of moments as she immersed herself in a world of fantasy away from reality. She'd had a soft spot for good fiction, and she had favoured one game in particular that her roommate had recommended to her for its expansive lore and interesting characters.
Among which, if she recalls correctly, were named Genji and Hanzo Shimada.
'It can't be', she thinks the first time she makes the connection. Maybe she's been born to one of those couples who really dig their old fandoms and are fine with giving their kids really special names that will get them bullied for the rest of their days until they finally get a legal name change. The surname, the mansion she lives in, their family status... it could be coincidence, right? It has to be. There is no way it could be anything else- things like rebirth are hard enough to believe, but being reborn in a fictional universe? Nonsense. Insanity. Impossibility.
And yet, as she sits against her oldest brother's chest on the floor of the nursery, watching fondly as the younger of the two attempts to arrange a puzzle and babbles sentences she can only half understand, she can't help but wonder if her denials could be wrong. For their sake, she hopes they aren't- in what little time she's spent actually trying to get to know her family, it didn't take much at all for her to crumble under the attention and love of her two older brothers.
She adores them both- Hanzo in particular after that one night, but Genji worms his way into her heart not long after. The younger of the brothers is more carefree and innocent in ways that Hanzo isn't, and the way he expresses his affection for her is much less subtle. Genji is much more enthusiastic about playing with her and trying to make her laugh with his antics- he even brings some of his toys to her nursery just to spin some wild tale for her with his teddy bears and dolls, and Tomoe never fights the urge to play along. He's louder and less reserved and overall a joy to be around, if a bit exhausting to entertain. During the few times he's allowed to carry her, however- always with someone's supervision and not for very long; he's too young and not as strong as his brother- his touch is just as careful as Hanzo's, and his eyes shine with some sort of awe that makes her feel almost ashamed to be deceiving them all with her act.
She still had no idea if she should break the truth to them when she is able to, or if she should play along with the act until she can no longer pass for a genius child. The mere consideration of the latter option makes her lip curl- that'd take at least fifteen years of this facade, and she isn't sure it'd be good for what knowledge she did retain to be repressed and hidden for so long. There is almost no way she can deal with pretending to be dumber than she really is- for all that she's lost, her pride and ego stubbornly remain- but to deal with the pressure of growing up as a 'prodigy'?
"Fuck that."
"What was that, imouto?"
Oh sweet baby Jesus, did she actually say that aloud?
Tomoe blinks up at the startled face of her oldest brother, confused by the sudden question. This seems to catch Genji's attention as well, as he stops trying to align the few pieces he'd managed to put together just to stare at her with the same look of shock on his face. Suddenly, a grin breaks out on his face, and he jumps to his feet as he scurries closer to her and drops to his knees.
"You heard that too? What was it?" Genji leans close, practically vibrating in excitement as he all but sticks his ear to her mouth. "Say it again, Moe! Say it again!"
Oh, oh god. How could she remedy this? She can't let her first word be a cuss for crying out loud!
With panic igniting her nerves, Tomoe does the first thing that comes to mind.
She bawls.
The answer to her questions comes to her almost ten months after her rebirth.
Ginchiyo - mother, she chides herself internally, despite her conflicting feelings regarding the sentiment behind that title- is carrying her in her lap and reading a children's book to her when it happens. The proof of the fate that she has found herself entwined in is presented to her with a simple turn of a page in a Japanese picture book with words that she can only barely read. As she slowly recites the characters written on the pages and associates them with the nouns, having picked up speech a little faster than most children, her voice catches in her throat when her eyes land on the new page and the picture that adorns it.
The image is that of a humanoid, metal structure- torso and limbs and all. Instead of the usual facial features, however, there seemed to be slits and sections where the segments of its 'head' were held together, with small lights glowing from some of the places where the internal circuitry was visible.
It is a robot- no, it's an...
"Omnic." Ginchiyo pronounces slowly as she points at the letters below the page. She seems to frown slightly upon her sudden silence, her expression showing visible concern as she watches her. "Om-ni-c. Can you say it, Tomoe?"
She can. She knows she can. But fear numbs her tongue and sends her heart beating so fast it feels as if it is about to burst. Panic silences her words and she feels so very, very cold, because her worst fear in this new life has been realised.
Tomoe Shimada resides in the world of Overwatch, as sibling to the infamous Shimada brothers. Her family rules a criminal empire in the heart of Japan- one that is going to be toppled by the heroes of the Omnic Crisis that has yet to occur.
Her brothers are going to try and kill each other.
It is at that moment that Tomoe knows, without a doubt, that everything is about to go horribly wrong- and that she is only going to make it worse.
AN: I fell into Overwatch hell and like the sucker that I am for well constructed universes, I had to compile my headcanons and theories about the world somehow before Michael Chu beats me to the punch, haha! This was a plot bunny that wouldn't go away until I wrote it, so I did. I've always wondered about the Shimada clan and Hanamura's internal politics and structure, so I'm hoping to flesh that out somehow. Let's hope it goes well lmao, I've got a vague idea where I want to take the plot, but it needs some serious work, so I'll see to that.
Idk how often I'll update this but I can promise I'll try- my priority goes to finishing NAIS first though, so updates won't be all that frequent. Fingers crossed though, and thanks for reading!