Duty Part 1
"You have seen...him?" asked Hanzo, gravely, his demeanor noticeably changing.
"As much as one like me can see someone," replied Rin, trying to tread lightly. She could already feel Hanzo's Ki begin to roil within him.
His large hands closed around her upper arms which were resting at her sides. She didn't have to be able to read energy to understand the intensity coming from his grip.
"When? When did you see him?" he asked, quietly.
"It was about a year ago."
"Did he tell you anything?"
"He told me everything."
Hanzo loosed his hold on Rin and tried to gauge her. The dying flicker of candlelight playing across her face could not hold long enough in one place to piece her expression together into a whole. He angled away from her and walked to the back of the room, where Rin had once been crouching hours ago. The chirping of crickets stopped immediately at the noise of wood sliding upon wood as he opened the shoji doors. It was as if the night held silent for this moment of his judgment day. He expected it would be one of many.
"Don't you want to know what he said?" Rin asked, without moving, her back to him.
"I was there, Rin. The actions I took will never be forgotten. I don't need them recounted to me," he answered, as he raised his head to the moon. The sky was cloudless and the moon seemed to be glaring back at him, unabashedly shedding light on his transgressions for all to see. For Rin to see.
"I put duty above my own flesh and blood," he continued. "My anger and sense of honor led me to commit an unnatural act. After that, what meaning of duty and honor could remain?"
"And so you left," she stated.
"Yes. There was nothing there for me. My duty to the clan ended with my brother's life. And whatever I had been raised to be ceased to exist the moment I cut him down. My father was gone. My duty, finished. When it was over, I remember the sound my katana made as it fell away from my hands, there, in the Great Hall. The dull peal of it as it hit the floor still echoes in my mind. I swore never to pick up another sword again.
"What happened to Genji then?" she asked softly.
"I was given a great responsibility: A commission - To maintain the power of our clan, to reassert our strength without a wrinkle of weakness in the fabric of our ranks. But Genji refused to be seen as a liability. And with his refusal to reform, I saw in him the downfall of all our father, and our father's father, had worked for. In my anger, I had put my hands on him. He, naturally, defended himself. Swords were unsheathed and words were exchanged that could never be taken back," Hanzo recounted and took a moment, as if to remember those words, like falling daggers.
"When it was over, we both were wounded. But my blade, full of rage, cut deeper. As he lay there, unmoving, I looked down at his broken body. My brother. His blood spilling on the floor in front of our family's shrine. I dropped my katana and knelt down beside him, cradling his limp body to me. His youthful face bruised and battered; I could barely recognize him. I called to him to again and again. But my uncles, who had been looking on, came and took him away. 'It is done' they said to me. They left me there, kneeling in his blood. Where they laid him to rest, I would never know."
"Hanzo-kun..." said Rin, plaintively, turning around.
"I looked around the Great Hall then;" Hanzo continued, freeing himself of this memory for the first time, "The names of my ancestors and our family's crest proudly displayed on the high walls. Tapestries hung about to extol their success. Generations of Shimadas. This was now my imparted empire. And I felt nothing. So much power, rightfully bestowed upon me. But, without my brother, I was lost. I stood from where I last embraced him and walked away, never to return to the Shimada clan again."
Hanzo felt her approach him before he could see her. She stood to his right, and, without looking at him, reached over and took his hand in hers. They stood silently for a moment, framed by the doorway.
"Soon after you left was when the Clan Wars began?" she inquired.
"Yes. When word spread that the Shimadas were without heirs, there was a clamoring for power that lasted several years. The clans warred with one another, each weakening more and more from the in-fighting. By the end, it was easy for them to be dismantled by outsiders. The families were either killed or dispersed underground into fractious pieces that could never yield authority again. How fitting that the son who swore to uphold the ways of the Clans was the one who started the downfall of all the families, including yours..."
"You may have started the fateful stone from rolling down the hill but it was your brother's hand that directed the final destruction. He finished what you began," Rin informed him.
"Then this would be the first time he has ever followed in my footsteps," said Hanzo. He was both bemused and curious.
"These eight years of your wandering, not knowing what had become of him, I can now reveal all to you. At last, I ask again, do you want to know what he has told me?"
He thought back to a few nights ago, when Genji had shown himself. Hanzo had never felt such elation and dread at once. His brother was alive! There was no mistaking those eyes. And the dragons obeyed his command. And yet, there he stood before Hanzo in cold metal and soulless sheen. He spoke of forgiveness and a changing world. But all Hanzo could do was go back to the shrine and pay his respects to the brother he once knew. The only one he cared about. The one who had died. Which Genji was Rin speaking of; which Genji spoke words to her that she so wanted to relay to him now?
"Yes," he finally said. "Tell me."
