Summary:
A story of recovery and likely an addiction to caffeinated products. My idea for the plot in the future (hint) is very much inspired by Perspective by Polite Fiction-it's strange to find a song that feels reminiscent, regretful, and hopeful all at once, but what can i say-mccree is going t it up in spite of handsoap's self loathing so prepare thyselves.
Tentacles of red peeked under the curtain of the shabby inn and grasped at the shadows of the room, uncovering the cloaked mystery of night in what eventually evened out to lovely bronze. The rising tide of sun did little to wake the man splayed across a miserable excuse for a bed, but an abandoned sake bottle on the ground assisted in directing the rest of it into his face. He turned on his back but irritatingly enough the same light followed him, reflecting from another vacant bottle before his nose, and at last urging his eyes open in an expression of disgust and a dissatisfied groan.
The offender glared back at him with the full force of the sun's rays, and Hanzo finally submitted, rolling off as gracefully as he could on the grungy cot. It was evident to him what had gone on last night, by the headache that sent his mind reeling in pain and the muddled disorientation and nausea that threatened to send the contents of his empty stomach flying. It was not a habit he was proud of, but it was the only one of his that allowed him to succumb to the familiar and comforting numbness that could turn his troubles to dust. This was not something he could extinguish, however, even with all the sake Rikimaru's could offer.
Hanzo's brother was alive.
He still could not come to terms with the idea that his dead brother could be trapped within a foreign shell, a weapon. It could not be possible… could it? Hanzo risked taking the cyborg for his word, especially when given a glimpse at its scarred and faintly familiar face, but no matter how much he questioned himself and cynically bit at the coil of distrust within him, he knew that there was simply no other reason why the other man (or was it an omnic in disguise?) would leave him alive.
I will not grant you the death you wish for.
The words incited anger from whatever residue pride was left rotting within him, but only because he had been as transparent as a fine sheet of glass, ready to crack from the gales of a tempest. The events of last night, if anything, made him question his resolution and the "purpose" his brother seemed insistent on him having. Working as a hired hand and assassin was efficient in getting food and sake into his stomach, but he knew there was something that brought him to return to this cursed place time and time again, and it was certainly not the pay. Hanamura may as well have been a ghost town.
You still have a purpose in this life.
"Foolish," Hanzo chided himself aloud, as he noticed himself falling into the same pattern as he had the previous night, just before he had resolved himself to drink it away. His mind, never the team player, refused to listen to its more rational counterpart, and burnt on through physical and emotional impacts alike, merciless as an unprecedented wildfire in a brush forest.
He hauled himself up from the floor and picked up the empty bottles from his floor and cot, disposing of them through the taped up window by unsticking the construction tape. The sounds of the city greeted him, still pensive but beginning to liven with the hoots of children as they followed their parents to the marketplace and ran around the streets after each other. The schools would be out for the winter, too harrowed by the threat of snowstorms to bother keeping their doors open to students who wanted nothing more than to throw icy balls and make their angelic indents in the snow. Hanamura itself was largely composed of elders and children, the parents usually owners of some local business—that meant that almost everyone knew each other by first name and a stranger like Hanzo did nothing but draw attention.
Fortunately, in the years since he last saw the elders of the Shimada clan (or those that were still alive), he had changed his appearance. Bordering on forty, his hair had lost its sheen and he had taken to wearing it up in a bun or high ponytail rather than let loose like he did in young adulthood. That way it was more manageable and was as different as he could possibly get from his old appearance without having to dye his hair. The only other real difference than his age and hair were the scars that lined his arms and face. While he was almost never out without a long sleeve shirt on to cover the dragon on his arm, the scars still stretched out past what the shirt could cover, remnants of alley fights against thugs and unexpected setbacks in his jobs. The two bullet wounds he had managed to get in that time were snugly hidden beneath layers of clothing at his midriff.
Hanzo sighed, watching his breath cloud in white before him. His steps were lethargic as he shuffled to the counter of the abandoned inn room where he had set up a neat display of local teas and a rusty metal teapot. Tea didn't have to be warm for him to enjoy it, but nonetheless it was disappointing to pour the remains of his precious aracha out of the tight sealed bag into a strainer and have to fill the pot with bottled water. What he wouldn't do for one spark of electricity or flame…
The aracha settled to the bottom of the pot and Hanzo closed the lid. He instead walked up to the makeshift window and peeled it open, letting the stiff breeze greet his face and tickle the hairs of stubble forming on his chin—he'd need to head to the barber in Hanamura before he decided to take action, whatever it may be. If there was one thing that would never change about him, it was that he cared for presentation more than anything. As for what he 'needed to do', there was nothing to do but attack the problem head on.
Ironic to the nature of his profession, he was not proficient in skirting around a problem and having it resolve itself—if he needed something done, he would bash skulls and pick at bones until he had seen it through to its end. He would undoubtedly have to find Genji, or whatever worthless excuse of an omnic wore his face and imitated the legendary ability idiosyncratic to the Shimada and beat the answers out of him. Hanzo held no doubt that the mysterious cyborg was an Overwatch agent—and likely the same who had wiped out the majority of the Shimada elders after his brother's death—but Hanzo would cross that obstacle when he came upon it. It wouldn't help to dwell on bitter feelings and the realization that, just he had single handedly destroyed one of his own family, his brother's ghost may have done a deed just as terrible.
Hanzo would find the cyborg if it killed him, because the man was right: Hanzo had lost his purpose. And without purpose, what else did he have left to lose? If he couldn't regain some of the honour lost after the tragedy, he would go down at least knowing he had put forth an effort to correct some wrongs or make something more out of his life than this dreary monotony of assassinations and night by night drinking.
He turned his eyes away from the scene of white and focused instead on the mess of a room, belongings strewn about in a haphazard arrangement, and the torn and mistreated yellow bed sheets halfway on the carpet ground. It was an abandoned building, a musty old inn, so it was unlikely anyone would come about to disturb him or discover the presence of an ex-yakuza and internationally wanted man's carcass idling about. How it hadn't already been snatched by some eager realtor or investor was beyond him, but as long as Hanzo had a place to sleep at night that wasn't in a garbage-stench back alley he wouldn't be arguing. It seemed that he had just enough here to take him where he needed.
The watchpoint in Gibraltar was the obvious one, although stopping into other checkpoints along the way for a quick glance was just as important. It was possibly the most well-known base of operations, which was quite risky, but the safety measures taken for that cause meant that most of the agents congregated to it after completing a mission of import for debriefing and reprieve. The cyborg would almost certainly arrive there at some point, and Hanzo would break through any defenses he needed to force the truth out of it. It was an obvious trap, a shortcut to the most dangerous situation he could get himself into, and still the only solution he was willing to find. He didn't have the self-preservation to worry about catching the cyborg alone and at an advantage.
Hanzo left the tape to flap in the wind, bringing snow and light into the abode, and took the strainer out of the tea, pouring it into an equally rusty metal flask that he downed in several generous gulps. Then he set to packing fervently, head pounding with the familiar ache of a hangover but with the resounding echo of something he had long forgotten the feeling of—determination.
Author's Reluctant Note:
I've been doing a lot of hop skipping around writing servers lately, so im taking on the grueling task of Writing a Real Thing. This is mostly as practice, and because of the tough educational program I'm in, my updates are likely to be infrequent, but it's my one goal this year to NOT drop a story for once and bring it to some resolution. No tags yet, and likely to change its name in the near future, but I'm putting it up because my sole purpose is to improve. If you do happen to stumble across it, I would love to hear thoughts before I continue so I'm not writing about handsoap sipping salad in a cup for the next four chapters :^) Thanks!