Ch 11: Confrontation Part 2

Rin's tears flowed freely. She had long since realized it was futile to try and stop them. Closing her eyes didn't seem to do anything but fan her tears out to fall down the planes of her face in broader tracks. Her one arm was crossed over her body, trying to still herself from all the shaking, the other hand was covering her mouth, trying to muffle the sounds of her wrenching sobs. She was failing at stopping either.

There was no reason for her to doubt Genji's words. But there was also no way for her to reconcile what had happened to him and who she knew his older brother to be. And at the intersection of that maelstrom was the turmoil she could only imagine Genji and Hanzo must have felt; the younger brother for how he had emerged, and the older brother for inciting it.

Between her body's uncontrollable reaction and the waves of nausea that came from the overwhelming news, she tried her best to listen to Genji. It was the least she could do for him, but her ears were filled with the pounding rush of her blood coursing through her veins. So she was all the more grateful that Zenyatta had showed up when he did.

When Rin had not come in for her afternoon lesson, he came looking for her. That's how Zenyatta had found them, sitting next to each other in the kitchen's ante-room. Rin's face was frozen in shock while Genji's was contorted in a cycling mix of pain, anger, and sadness. The respective energy emanating from them almost made Zenyatta wince as he was caught in the intense, rippling wake.

When he had noticed Zenyatta in the doorway, Genji quickly re-implemented his faceplate, trying to regain composure as best as possible. Still seated, he bowed towards Zenyatta. Rin was already bent over, though not so much out of respect as it was her feeling as if she got kicked in the gut.

"I fear this one has interrupted something that has been long overdue," Zenyatta had said, after observing a long silence.

"Teacher, did you know…?" she had asked, shakily.

"Did I know that you were somehow connected? Yes, my child, but not to the extent as your behavior seems to reveal," he gently replied. "May I…?"

Genji and Rin had nodded in consent and so Zenyatta entered, joining them in the room and in their pasts.

He told them that he had inquired after Genji months ago during a conversation with Tekhartha. Without going into anything privy to his counseling, the Great Teacher only gave Genji's name and where he had come from. It was the family name that had caught Zenyatta's attention as he had heard it spoken of by Rin during their many discussions.

Having witnessed Genji's agitation and Rin's still on-going distress, Zenyatta had settled in the lotus position before them and began to chant. Soon, his body rose above the floor and, as he levitated, he had started grasping the first three hand seals of the Kuji-in, stopping on the fourth that Genji had recognized as the one called SHA. Light emanated from within Zenyatta that quickly enveloped the two sitting before him. Taking his cue rather naturally, both Genji and Rin grasped the SHA hand seal as well.

Just as it had formed, the light dissipated, and a new sense of muted calm settled into the room. Rin's head stopped spinning and much of Genji's tension had been released. And so they found themselves in this state, with stories only half yet told and a disquieting uncertainty of where they would lead. Zenyatta slowly lowered himself back onto the floor, still seated, waiting for one of them to guide the steps that should follow.

Now that her world had stopped spinning so violently, at least for the moment, Rin turned to Genji who sat so quietly beside her.

"If you are willing, Genji-kun, I ask that you please tell me…tell us…what happened that night."

Zenyatta nodded. "This one is not here to bear judgment, but to lighten your burden for a while, if you so wish."

If Genji knew today was the day that his mouth would finally form the words accounting for his greatest grief and loss, he would not have entered the building. He had just wanted some tea. But something assured him that this had not all happened by chance. To have met Rin onee-san here in this remote place; to be reminded of the soul within the person who was the cause of Genji's greatest despair; and now to have felt the sudden blossom of light that took away so much of the strain…no, this could not have been a coincidence. That realization prodded him forward.

"To say that I highly respected my brother would be a mild thing," Genji began, "He was everything I was not and would not be. That was clearly a choice I made in my freedom, but I honored him because he did not have one himself. He did not bend under the crushing weight of the empire he would soon have to uphold alone. Every day, he seemed to become stronger in will and fortitude. There were times when he expressed that I show more share in it, but I was certain that he was only going through the motions for our elders, knowing that the direction of my heart and mind lay elsewhere. Though I did not agree with his position in the world, I looked up to him, I treasured him…I loved him above all else."

That last phrase; it made Rin's chest felt like it would cave at any moment. Had she not heard almost these same exact words leave Hanzo's mouth regarding Genji?

"What I remember of that night, they are nothing but flashes and moments. I remember feeling cold and numb, looking up at my brother. At the time, I did not know how I had arrived in that position. But as his eyes met mine, his face was contorted and in such despair. I had never seen my brother cry before, not even when our mother, and much later, our father died. I was very confused at first. But before I could ask him what was wrong, I felt this sensation that I can only describe as…shrinking away."

Zenyatta nodded.

"I did not want to shrink away. I began to fight against it. I called out to my brother to help me, to keep me from disappearing. But my body felt as if it could not contain my spirit any longer…"

Rin began to feel a great surge of force coming from Genji. She knew Zenyatta could too.

"The next thing I knew, I woke up to flames writhing around me. The heat was everywhere and everything. I tried to move but could not. Not knowing why I was not able to move, I looked down at myself. I was wrapped in cloth; swaddled, like a baby. And everything was on fire. Things came in steps: Seeing the flames, seeing myself, then feeling it. Even now, I cannot describe to you the feeling of fire as it ate away at me and being helpless to do anything about it. I called out for my brother again…"

Whether Genji knew it or not, he was clenching and unclenching his hands as they lay atop his bent knees.

Rin couldn't stop herself from covering her mouth again to keep from gasping in shock, her breaths taken in short staccatos.

"When my eyes opened again, I was surrounded by strangers and bright lights. They were speaking frantically. I no longer felt any pain but, somehow, I knew there would be a terrible price to pay for it. A pale and beautiful face bent over mine and spoke to me softly. Even though I was surrounded by chaos, her gentle voice cut through like a bell in the mist. 'I want to help you, but I need your help too,' she had said. She told me that only I could permit her this. And in exchange for making me whole, I would help her take down the people who did this to me. Why would I reject such an offer? But who had done this to me, I had asked her."

"It was then that four men took her place. They were dressed in uniforms and introduced themselves as agents of an organization called Overwatch. For years they had been assigned to me and watching over the Clans, waiting for an opportune time to strike at the criminal grip they had over my country. They were the ones who had intervened and saved me from the fire, taking down two of my own uncles and several guards to do so. I asked about my brother and that is when they told me what happened. I still have no memory of it myself. Just that look on my brother's face. The Great Hall was too heavily guarded to penetrate so they did not witness what had happened between us. But through their surveillance bots, they heard it all. Afterwards, they watched as Hanzo left the Hall, bloodied, then leave the compound completely. They said they sent a few men to trail him and the rest followed me as soon as they later realized I had been taken out of the Hall. As the agents descended upon my uncles and their guards, one of them was heard yelling to call for Hanzo, to come back and finish his duty."

Rin's tears again flowed. How had it come to all this? The Hanzo she knew, her Hanzo-kun, could not have been able to bear this. She wanted to believe, she prayed, that Genji, deep down, would know this as well. If there were any way that Rin could have taken away her sister's suffering, she would have done so in the blink of an eye. She was certain Hanzo would do the same for his brother. So how…

"What choice did I have?" he continued. "As before, I did not want to shrink away. Whatever was left of me would fight and fight to find the answers to the maddening questions that immediately came. I told them 'yes.' I told her 'yes,' my doctor. She saved me. She gave me a second chance to recover the life I had squandered; to make it mean something. It was as much creating as it was healing. I was fitted, adjusted, affixed, wired, attuned, connected, and fitted again. And, after a few short months, I was ready to take down an empire that took hundreds of years to build; an empire built upon the backs of my friends and family.