The first time that Jesse McCree laid eyes upon Hanzo Shimada, he thought he was going insane.
Hanzo Shimada, heir of the Shimada throne, missing for ten years, suspected mercenary, and Genji Shimada's older brother, was supposed to be a monster. He was supposed to be a grey-skinned, white-eyed, heaving demon with red horns and a gaping maw. Hell, McCree was expecting a skinwalker, someone or something that would slay his own brother horrifically.
The one thing Jesse McCree was not expecting was a 5 foot* something, heavily muscled, very attractive man. If Jesse looked hard enough, he could see the resemblance between Hanzo and Genji. Memories of kind-of-fucked-up eyebrows, strong brow bones, and angry eyes flooded his memory. However, Hanzo was clearly older. His handsome face was marred by deep-set wrinkles and worry lines. His mouth was set in a firm line that seemed permanent. That paired with darting, suspicious eyes, and drawn eyebrows placed his expression somewhere between cool and a pained grimace.
Despite Genji's reassurances, Jesse couldn't help but dislike the man before him. This man was suspected to be responsible for hundreds of assassinations over the years. Political powerhouses, gang leaders, and Shimada elders, all were supposedly felled by the man the man before him. He seemed to have no allegiance to any political party, gang, or person. Jesse knew what it was like to go wherever the money led, but he at least let his moral compass guide him. Each detail about Hanzo that Jesse remembered fueled his distrust of the man. He had skill, yes. Overwatch could use that, but Jesse didn't trust Hanzo to remain by their side when a better, better paying job came along. Hanzo probably had an arrow for every recalled member in the quiver that was slowly slipping off his shoulder.
Hanzo swayed suddenly, and McCree raised an eyebrow. Looking closer, the man was very pale. His lips weren't then, they were extremely white and blended into Hanzo's skin. He also seemed to be shaking, and his eyes didn't seem to be focusing on anything in particular. Looking closer he could see a dark, sluggish stream of blood slowly tracking its way down the man's body and puddling on the floor. McCree met Hanzo's eyes, his question held in his eyes.
He turned to the group of other Overwatch members arguing beside him, but his attempt to inform them of their guest's predicament went unnoticed as they argued. McCree didn't support the decision they reached, to let Hanzo in, but at least he would be under guard.
When Hanzo finally spoke, his voice was wavering, thready, and strained. The mention of a medpack reminded McCree of the blood he had witnessed just moments ago. When Hanzo fell, McCree let him fall. Genji leaped forward, catching the heavy looking man in his metal arms.
"Brother?" Genji asked, his metallic voice filled with confusion. He released Hanzo gently down onto the floor, coming away with silver arms stained red. McCree stepped forward, leaning down and trying to find the source of the bleeding. It seemed to be coming from his hip. McCree lowered the waistband of the weird tit-out romper the man was wearing, revealing a mess of hastily tied gauze bandages wrapped loosely around a small wound held barely closed with common butterfly stitches. Blood was pumping steadily out of the torn flesh, soaking the bandages and Hanzo's romper-thing.
McCree felt a nudge at his shoulder, and he moved to allow Angie better access to the unconscious man. She felt his forehead, sighing at the fever she found there.
"I'll have to bring him to my lab, he has an infection," She motioned for Genji to lift Hanzo up and carry him after her. "I guess there'll be no guard for the moment," She turned to the other members with a tired wink "A moment to enjoy some peace and quiet," Turning back around to lead the way to her small lab, she sighed. "Probably just a moment, though."
…
Hanzo awoke to a very pleasant warm feeling. Peeling open his eyes, his pupils were hit with a golden, shimmering light covering his hip. The golden light trailed from his hip where he was shot through his veins. Strange places in his body seemed to glow, the area where his spleen, chest, stomach, and intestines lay seemed particularly bright. His skin was shimmering lightly like there was a thin mask of nanites covering his entire body.
"Your immune system was compromised."
Hanzo looked to the left, seeing Ziegler sitting at a small desk cluttered with papers. How old-fashioned. She was scratching away at a notebook with a bitten pencil, not facing him. A monitor before her displayed his vitals, the screen refreshing every few seconds. Looking down to the foot of his cot Hanzo spotted a strange staff, the tip open and rotating around a stream of gold nanites that fueled the glow around his body.
"I have you hooked up to my staff. You will be fine," The doctor turned to face him, a cold expression on her face. Her baby blue eyes were dark with hatred. "I promised Genji I would care for you, and I am bound by my oath, but I will not waste unnecessary resources on you."
Hanzo absorbed her words solemnly, opening his mouth to respond. His mouth was dry and tacky, and he swallowed before speaking. Doctor Ziegler took his pause to continue speaking, her expression pinching and reddening every moment.
"I was the one who stitched Genji back together. I was the one that found him," Her voice was softly accented and mean, words annunciated with clinical precision. "I know exactly what you did to him; every cut, scrape, gauge, and burn. He may have forgiven you, but I will never trust you. If you even think about betraying Overwatch, I will cut you open and take everything you took from him."
Hanzo raised his eyebrows. The woman was straight to the point. Her mention of what he did to Genji made his stomach knot and his head swim with gruesome images, and he felt like throwing up.
"I understand, Dr. Ziegler. I ensure you I will attempt not to bother you or be a drain on your resources. I can not promise I will never fail Overwatch, but I plan to give your organization all I have," He mumbled, his throat rumbling with the strain of speaking after what was probably a long sleep.
The doctor seemed surprised by this. She nodded briefly at him before standing and click-clacking her way over to the staff at his feet. She fiddled with some settings, reading something he could not see. The light stream it provided switched off, and the pleasant feeling it provided disappeared with it. Hanzo immediately missed it.
"You had a poorly treated bullet wound located in your right iliacus muscle," She pointed to his hip where the bullet had dug in. "It was infected for a while, and compromised your immune system." That explained the strange glowing areas on his body. "I have applied healing nanites, and you should be fine now. Because it was so small, you should not have any downtime."
Hanzo barely listened as she raddled off what she had done, what injuries she had found on his body, and chose instead to slowly flex his prosthetics. They were still on. Strange, but appreciated. He glanced at the doctor, who seemed to notice his curiosity at his metal legs and feet being intact. She sighed and brought over her notebook, showing him pages of notes about him; his blood type, birth date, name, age, and many more pages of medical nonsense including his prosthetics and reactions to nanites.
"I took the 15 hours you were asleep to perform a cursory medical base test on you, so as to not waste time and resources." She tapped her notebook thoughtfully, her eyes glancing over the neatly written notes. "As far as your physical health, you're good as new. Mentally though, there's no prescription to treat what you have."
She walked back to her desk, where the monitor no longer displayed his vitals. "You've been discharged, but remember Shimada; I've got my eye on you."
A few minutes of stiff silence and a comm call later, a small girl in an oversized sweatshirt walked through the lab doors. She was Korean, and couldn't be older than 18. Hanzo had to struggle to hide his surprise at his new guard. She seemed to notice this, striding forward with stick straight posture. She paused before him, eyeing him up and down judgmentally.
"안녕! Agent reporting for duty!" She said cheerfully. The Korean greeting seemed much too informal and happy for her judging eyes and pouty mouth. "I got stuck with your guard duty until lunch, how unfair!" She continued, turning to lead the way out of the lab.
"Hello," Hanzo finally snapped out of his shock to respond gruffly. His pride wouldn't let him apologize to the young girl for existing. If she was so upset about performing her duty, perhaps she should not be in the ranks of Overwatch. She was so young, too. Certainly, she was too young to go on missions, let alone enter battle. Hanzo thought back to his training as a young boy. He could fight before he could speak. Perhaps she was raised like that, too. A heavy sadness covered his heart at the thought of this girl, , fighting so young. He was also slightly appalled that Overwatch would allow this. Surely they had sense enough to recognize her age and to pull her out of combat. Perhaps she was only an on-base asset, set to tasks such as cleaning, cooking, or polishing armor like the servants at Shimada castle. There was also the chance that she was merely a ward, under the protection of Overwatch from a family like the Shimada that would force her into a life of combat and anger.
His thoughts stopped when he nearly ran into the girl. He didn't notice when she stopped. turned to him, pointing at the door next to them.
"This is your room. Your stuff's already inside, so just chill in there until lunch. There's a bathroom and whatever. I'll be outside this door the whole time, so don't try anything!" Her voice was so high and young it strained Hanzo's ears, especially when she raised her voice to a near yell. "Athena'll know if you're up to no good, too." Hanzo had no idea who Athena was. "Oh, and I don't know what happened with you and Genji, but you're apparently not a good guy. Prove them wrong, and you've got my trust." ushered him into the room, slipping out a small gaming console from the big pocket of her hoodie. " signing off." The door slid shut in Hanzo's face.
The room was empty. There was a single sized bed, a small dresser with three drawers, and a door in the corner. The bed's sheets were white, the dresser was black, and the door was white.
Opening the door revealed an equally empty bathroom, with a shower stall covered by a white curtain, a stark white toilet, and a white sink with a mirror over it. The tiles, however, were black. Probably, surmised Hanzo, to hide the grime. The thought sent him grimacing and his skin crawling. He'd have to clean it thoroughly if he were to use it. The bed sheets, too.
Walking back into the main room Hanzo noticed his bags set haphazardly in the corner next to the bed. Well, bag. Stormbow was leaning against the wall, his arrows resting next to it. Hanzo had bought a small, cross-body backpack to keep his few possessions when he crossed through South Korea. Inside it, he had packed his citizen clothes, a hairbrush, a toothbrush, and other miscellaneous items he used to keep up his appearance. This bag was laying near his bow and quiver, knocked over with a few of its contents spilling out.
With a sigh, Hanzo walked over to correct it. He was shoving everything back in when he noticed something strange. A wisp of smoke clung to the back of his hand for a moment, impossible in its blackness, before dissipating into nothing. The back of his neck prickled like someone was watching him. Hanzo turned slowly but was stopped a quarter of the way by a clawed hand gripping the back of his throat. The hand shoved his head into the wall in front of him before he could react, cutting off any noise he would have made with a wave of dizziness. A second clawed hand wrapped around to cover his mouth, ensuring his silence. After a moment of wavering nausea, he felt a presence lean into the curve of his spine.
Acrid, rotting breath reached his face as the monster spoke, its voice sounding like burnt coal rumbling over itself, gruff and painful.
"You made the wrong decision, Shimada. We intend to correct it," the voice rattled in his ear.
Again his head was slammed against the wall, and the presence at his back drew away, leaving him to crash to the floor in a disoriented heap. His head stopped spinning moments later, and he whirled to face the intruder. Anyone who could surprise a Shimada, let alone Hanzo himself, was a force far greater than the normal man. However, when Hanzo turned, the room was just as barren as before.
The door burst open at that moment, and the small girl from before entered with a small pistol gripped expertly between her hands. She scanned the room, spotting him in the corner next to his bag. A confused look crossed her face in a moment, her pistol dropping as she muttered: "Clear!". She looked around another moment before swinging the bathroom door open. Again she searched and mumbled to herself. Re-entering the room, she stared back at him. For a moment there was silence. It was tense, uncomfortable. They maintained eye contact, Hanzo keeping his face neutral and her face clear distrust.
"I heard two large crashes. Care to explain what happened?" She asked, her high voice more serious than he had heard it so far. She crossed her thin arms over her chest, her hip cocking out to the side like a disappointed mom. Or a pouting child.
Hanzo thought for a moment. He remembered what happened, but it couldn't have happened. A phantom, attacking him and threatening him, only to disappear a moment later? Unlikely. More likely he was disassociating or hallucinating, or finally going insane. Perhaps it was all three at once. Still, it was concerning. His head hurt, so he definitely had fallen. Something in the back of his mind reminded him that if electric spirit dragons that lived in the flesh of a chosen host could exist, then anything was possible. The chance of that being true, however, were so slim that Hanzo discounted it almost immediately. He had never in his long life come across supernatural powers like the Shimada dragons.
Realizing he was taking too long to respond, Hanzo glanced up at Agent .
"I tripped, Agent . I apologize for the fear it might have caused," He finally choked out of his tangled thoughts. "My prosthetics, I have kept them on too long and now they are less responsive. I must remove them for maintenance to fix the issue."
Hanzo pointed to his silver legs. It was true, he had kept them on too long. It was possible that Doctor Ziegler removed them during her testing and note taking, but Agent didn't know that. He sat on the bed, the old frame creaking quietly under the sudden weight. looked over the room once more, then back to Hanzo where he sat. She glanced at his legs, then back to his face. Turning away with a heavy sigh she sauntered back towards the exit of his room.
"To be honest, I thought those were boots," She threw at him in a teasing tone. "Lunch is soon, and I'm ready to go to chow town. So hurry up with those repairs and then I-er, we can go eat!" The door slid shut behind her once more.
The moment her form was hidden from Hanzo's view he relaxed greatly. Removing his prosthetics was a process he didn't like to perform in front of people. He unclasped the connector circuits, pressed in the three buttons surrounding the base, and twisted his leg. It groaned slightly but released with a hiss of steam. Repeating the process for the other leg, Hanzo almost moaned as his stumps were freed from the steel prisons. He massaged the stumps for a moment. They were red but seemed unbothered by long wear. Perhaps Ziegler had removed them during her examination.
Allowing himself a moment reprieve he sat, leaning against the wall his bed was pressed against. Closing his eyes, he reached out for the dragons once more.
Please... He tried, calling out for his guides. I don't know what to do. I think I am falling into something I can not control. He remembered Ziegler's words from earlier. "Mentally though, there's no prescription to treat what you have." Maybe he was really going insane. Was that was Ziegler was referencing? Perhaps. Please, tell me if I am on the right path. Tell me if I am slipping, I need guidance. He begged the dragons, pleading for them to answer. They didn't. He was interrupted by pounding on the door.
"Let's go! I don't want to be late for lunch!" She called, prompting Hanzo to slip his prosthetics back on, clicking into place and refitting the connectors. He stood and walked to the door, preparing himself to face the world once more. The snake in his gut at his dragons refusal to speak wound itself tight, squeezing and coiling in the familiar feeling of uneasiness. Once more he felt as if he were five years old, sitting in his clan gi before his dragons for the first time. Fear, apprehension, and the feeling of being lost.
The door slid open, revealing impatiently staring at the opposite wall. When she noticed him, she perked up and started to lead the way down the hall, chattering about the food and other members, something about high scores and competitions, but Hanzo wasn't listening. He was too focused on his refusal. Perhaps the dragons hadn't responded, because he really had gone insane. Perhaps, they couldn't reach through the fog of his mind any longer. The image of his dragons clawing angrily through his mind, reaching out but only getting pushed farther away, surfaced in his mind. It scared him. However, the thought of his mighty spirit guides screaming at him, their words silenced and throats clogged by mist, trying to warn him away from his path, that terrified him.