Last Breath
Like the rest of the world, Tokyo was burning. Unlike the rest of the world, Tokyo was where Hanzo Shimada currently resided.
Not that he had any particular affection for the miserable city – Tokyo was a city of the 21st century, which meant that like most of the world's cities, it was a place of garish lights, garish animals, and garish people. Even at night, Tokyo shone with enough light to blind the stars themselves.
But today, lights of a different kind were burning. The lights of fires that spread throughout the city. The lights of a Null Sector command carrier, blinking red and blue, as if it were nothing more than a giant aircraft that had come to land. The lights of plasma weaponry in the streets below, as Null Sector's robotic legions overran the capital, slaughtering everyone in their path.
It was a bloodbath, Hanzo reflected. Or would have been if plasma didn't cauterize wounds. And while instinct told him to up and leave, the same instinct that had kept him alive the last twelve years, instinct, on this day, was muted.
Go.
That wasn't to say he didn't hear it.
Leave. Now. The battle will end one way or the other. This is not your fight.
The line between self-preservation and cowardice was thin, the eldest son of Sojiro Shimada reflected. He was a criminal, a murderer, an assassin, but he was not a coward. Even if two years since that fateful night in Shimada Castle, he had not been able to face what lay before him.
Leave.
Quick as a cat, silent as a fox, Hanzo jumped off the building he was atop of, and in a swift motion, fired a grapple to the top of said building, while buckling it to his belt. If it did its job, as it should, he'd be able to run down the side of the building into the streets below, where he could save some (some! he reminded himself, not all) people and move on with his meandering life. If it didn't function as it was meant to, he'd hit the ground very hard, very fast, and if he was lucky, people might be able to identify his pulverized mass.
Really, either option would be fine.
As it turned out, the former happened, and Hanzo began running down the street. Jumping from car to car as people, quite sensibly, ran in the opposite direction. Screaming, which wasn't nice for his ears. He understood why the fools were screaming their lungs out, he just wished they didn't have to be so loud.
Finding his perch, he fired his first arrow, and shut someone up, or rather, something. A Nulltrooper, marching down the street alongside dozens of other such machines, like warriors on a battlefield centuries past. Marching with discipline, but bereft of honour or spirit.
The arrow hit. In silence, the automaton fell to the ground, inactive – dead, in a sense, but he would not honour such machines with the conceit of life.
In response, the remaining Nulltroopers stopped, aimed their wrist cannons, and tried to end Hanzo's life in turn.
Jumping with both agility and speed, releasing arrows with both ferocity and accuracy, Hanzo did his best to avoid such outcomes. And for a good while, he succeeded.
He felt nothing. Said nothing, as one machine after another fell. Paid no heed to the fools who stopped to thank him, or cheered, or called him a hero of all things. The world had long been obsessed with heroes, all the more so since Paris, but Hanzo knew he was not one of them. Nor was he among the fools of the Japanese military who'd tired, and spectacularly failed, to stop Null Sector in his tracks.
Fighter jets shot out of the air.
Hypersonic missiles downed through a laser defence system.
Infantry and vehicles overrun in the streets as the command carrier disgorged pod after pod, wave after wave of death machines.
Fools had built omnics, Hanzo Shimada reflected. Different fools had tried to fight them. Most of humanity was composed of fools, and this conflict was to be anything like the first Omnic Crisis, millions of fools would be dead before this was all over.
Over for whom?
He shook the thoughts aside, and focused on the task at hand. A single arrow into the head of a Nulltrooper. A volley of arrows into the chest of another – one that had got too close.
Actually, all of them were getting too close. And they were still firing.
He jumped. He dodged. He weaved. He winced, as plasma tore through his right arm, burning flesh and fabric alike.
The pain he could withstand. It was the smell that irritated him more. Not just the smell of singed flesh, but the smell of death itself.
Death had a smell, and he knew it well. He had dealt death so often, mostly with a bow, once with a sword, and yet, he had never become used to it. But the smell of burning…that was new, and he had no desire to sample more of it.
He had no desire to die here today. Which was odd, because had someone offered him an honourable death even 24 hours ago, he might have taken it. Would have taken it before that night in Shimada Castle…
Plasma tore through his left leg, and this time, he yelled.
Careless, he told himself.
He kept moving, but slower than before. The Nulltroopers kept firing, with the same intensity as before. He doubted that their machine intelligences picked him up as any significant threat, but a threat he remained all the same. And with one wounded arm and one wounded leg, how much longer he'd remain a threat remained to be seen.
So he did what any assassin and bastard son would do, after being hunted for over a decade.
He stood his ground. He fired.
Not that he stood his ground alone, however, nor did he fire any normal arrow. Rather, with a prayer and a cry, he unleashed the power of the Shimada dragons.
"Ryū ga waga teki wo kurau!"
Two beasts shot forward, twisting and weaving as one. Belying the torment that lay in the soul of their user. A Shimada called, a dragon came. That had been the way of things for centuries within his clan. Be it against sword or rifle, samurai or soldier, bandit or hero, the dragons always answered the call, yet always against flesh. And for one split second, Hanzo feared that the blue spirit serpents would do no harm to soulless beings of machine and nerve.
The second after that, Hanzo Shimada did something he hadn't done in twelve years.
He smiled.
The dragons swept through the Nulltroopers, passing through one body after another. One after another, they collapsed and fell – physically undamaged, but inoperable, as spirit overcame steel. By the time the dragons faded, the entire cohort of Nulltroopers had been knocked down.
Under his breath, he thanked the great beasts as they faded away. He would not be able to call on them again for a long time – not before the next sunrise at least, and winning one battle on one street of one city was not enough to change the outcome. Tokyo would fall. He had saved some fools, who might live another day. And not being a fool, Hanzo knew that it was his time to leave as well.
So he turned. Began to walk. Stopped. Listened. Looked up.
Raised his bow as he saw an Jumpset flying towards him.
Fired, and hit the warbot with an arrow.
Saw that before he had done so, it had unleashed some kind of projectile headed right for him.
Screamed, as it impacted right before him, sending him flying into a car, breaking half of his ribs.
He didn't mind too much.
He was unconscious before he hit the ground.
"Hanzo."
He pretended not to hear Asa-sensei as he readied his bow within the grounds of Shimada Castle. On the target before him, one arrow was in the centre of the bullseye, and another arrow was in the first, having split it in two. One arrow after that, and he'd achieve a trifecta.
"Hanzo."
He took aim, and after that, breath. Uttered no prayer, for he did not need the aid of gods or spirits to guide his shot true. He was the greatest archer in all the clan, and even if none said it, all knew it.
One arrow. One target. In his sight, in his mind's eye. He-
"Hanzo!"
…loosed the arrow, and watched in despair as it went awry. Mere centimetres from the original two, so that now, three arrows now occupied the giant red circle of the archery circle. A triumph that might make an amateur weep, but to the eldest son of Sojiro Shimada, it was an embarrassment.
Not that he said as such to Asa Yamagami as she towered over him, like a mother over a disobedient child.
"Did I distract you?" she asked scathingly.
Hanzo, knowing better to disrespect his elders, and his sensei, remained silent.
"No? Good. Because your sword awaits."
She tossed him a practice stick, and like a drone, Hanzo caught it. Looked at the mock-weapon in quiet disdain. And Asa must have noticed, because she asked him, "speak, Hanzo-kun."
"What?"
"You look at your weapon as if it were a dying fish on a rod. Speak, so we may move on from this nonsense."
He glared at her. "My brother and your…my brother is indulging in nonsense."
"He is."
"But you-"
"Are you Genji, Hanzo?"
The heir to the Shimada clan shook his head.
"Are you a fool?"
"No, Asa-sensei."
"If you were a fool, would your father tolerate it?"
"No." He paused, before saying, "but my father tolerates my brother's foolhardiness, while I play the role of-"
"…of the eldest born," said Asa. "Now come."
Hanzo followed her back into the dojo. He knew it was none of his business, but he noted that Asa's daughter had not come into the conversation, even if her name had nearly escaped his lips. But that did not change the fact that Genji and Kiriko were in the arcade right now, playing stupid games while eating stupid sweets, before going on to do more stupid things. To his brother, life was one big game, and no matter how many times reality stood in the way, Genji had a way of getting the proverbial extra life.
Hanzo knew that if he ever skipped out on one of Asa Yamagami's sword lessons, he'd be flayed within an inch of his own life. Genji, however, could get away with anything. Genji could be the little sparrow he was, subsisting on crumbs without a care in the world, while wiser, better men worked in the rice fields. Trying to ignore the rumbling in his stomach, Hanzo looked around the dojo – swords lined the wooden walls, while kanji hung on posters between them. There were training helmets as well, but they'd long stopped using them. As Asa had pointed out, unless Hanzo was willing to walk through the world with a helmet on all the time, he could only count on his own blade for protection. And as such, he would not use it here.
They bowed. They grasped their training sticks. Master and student circled, before the student struck first, was parried, and yelled as the master's stick hit his arm.
"Again."
The student struck. The master dodged. The student's leg was hit.
"Again!"
The student waited. The student circled. The master struck, was parried, then the master struck again, the tip of her stick hitting his chest.
"Maimed, maimed, and dead," Asa said. "I expect better of you."
"Well, life is full of disappointments, isn't it?"
Quick as a cat, Asa used her stick to hit Hanzo's temple. He yelled, falling to the ground.
"Get up."
"Damn it woman, I'm bleeding!"
"Get. Up."
Hanzo obliged. Part of him, the child, wished nothing more than to lie down on that wooden floor and wait for the ending of the world. Better that, then the alternative. But the man, the part of him growing by the day, rose to his feet. Stood. Waited. Frowned, as he saw the look in Asa's eyes.
"Sensei?"
"I've hit your head," she murmured, "but it's clear that your mind left it long before this session."
"I-"
"Is it your brother? Or are you that enamored with the bow?"
Both, Hanzo felt like saying. But he knew better than to interrupt his sensei…which didn't stop him from giving speech to his thought.
"My brother is playing games, and you're hitting me on the head. My brother is-"
"-the better swordsman," Asa interrupted. Hanzo started to protest, but she continued. "I have more to teach you than I could him."
"Even as he plays games?"
"If one game is won, can not another be started?" Asa asked. "Yes, Hanzo, you are skilled with the bow. If the enemy is careless enough, they may fall to your arrows. But here, in my dojo, it is the way of the sword you must learn."
"I would never let my enemy get close enough to use blade upon me."
Asa smirked. "Many have said that before they found iron in their ribs."
"Yet I speak truthfully," Hanzo said. "I will have my bow, and break it with my last breath. For if I should fall, I would know I would be unworthy."
Asa gave him a look of…respect, he wondered? It was hard to tell.
Harder still as she lunged forward, and sent him sprawling with but a single blow.
Onto the cold, concrete ground of Tokyo.
Hanzo woke up.
His first thought was that he was alive, which was a plus, he supposed. The second thought was that he was no longer reliving memories of his teenage years, but back in Tokyo. Tokyo the city, not a small part of it called Kanezaka.
The third thought was that he was bleeding from the inside, and that while he might be alive now, that state of affairs wouldn't last that long. Be it from Null Sector, or the failings of his own body.
He struggled to get to his feet. Pain, like a thousand blades in his chest conspired to keep him to the ground. The pain worked in concert, and only his groans kept its music at bay. He struggled to his feet, wheezing. Wincing. He checked his shirt, and sure enough, his stomach had turned a sickly purple colour.
The rat-tat-tat of gunfire echoed through the streets. Squinting through the darkness, he could see that the command carrier was gone – either downed, or more likely, moved onto its next target. Tokyo was still a warzone, and based on everything he'd seen, he had no doubt that Null Sector were the victors. Perhaps by the time he entered the grave, they'd have taken over the whole world – accomplished in a year what Anubis hadn't in twice that number.
Still wincing, he looked for his bow. There, on the ground, he found it. And on instinct, he picked it up, and began to stagger down the street.
I'm dying.
Strangely, the thought didn't bother him that much. Even stranger was the hope, however silly, that the people he'd helped earlier had made it to safety.
He groaned. He rasped. He fought the urge to just lie on the street and wait for death. He tried to ignore the sight and stench of the bodies around him. Instead focused on the shells of Nulltroopers and other warbots. He did not consider them 'dead,' for they had never been alive, no matter what some omnics and their sympathizers claimed. He had dealt with monsters for most of his life, and had been a monster for just as long. When terrorists like Null Sector's leader broadcast their manifestos to the world, he knew monsters when he saw them.
Just as he saw the ground rushing up to him as he fell. As he lay there. Groaning.
"Get up."
Still belly first, he looked forward, and knew that either he'd died and gone to Hell, or that he was mad. Because in no life would he have ever summoned Asa Yamagami to his side.
"Get up," the hallucination repeated. "Your lesson must continue."
"Begone, woman," he murmured.
"The lesson is not over."
"I passed your lessons."
"Passed them?" the hallucination asked. "You turned your blade on your own brother."
"Then I suppose he wasn't the greater swordsman, was he?"
"He was greater and fairer than you, yet you clipped the sparrow's wings."
Hanzo had no answer, for any retort would have been a lie. Genji…he'd left him in a state far worse than this one. Left him for dead. Turned his back on his body, turned his back on the clan, turned his back a third time after their meeting a year ago.
"Your sword is lost. Your bow is breaking."
Hanzo managed not to scream as he got back up to his feet. As he felt his ribs crack, tearing through his flesh. Piercing his heart.
"You are dying."
"I bet…that…joys you…"
The hallucination remained silent. Hanzo stumbled, only steadying his floor by leaning on the bonnet of a car. Stared into the dead eyes of the poor unfortunate soul inside, their flesh marred by the burns of plasma fire.
"Swords, bows…what use are they against this?" Hanzo whispered.
The hallucination said nothing.
"Asa-sensei?"
The hallucination said nothing.
"You are a manifestation of my mind, and I command that you…" He trailed off, for the ghost of Asa Yamagami had vanished.
Despite everything, despite the pain in his chest that it brought, Hanzo laughed. Not only was he hallucinating, he didn't even have the strength to get his hallucinations to stay with him. Scarce wonder he'd never risen to lead the Shimada clan.
Where to now, then?
A question he had asked himself more times than he could count, as he'd travelled from one point on the globe to the next. Always one step ahead of the Shimada, and later, the Hashimoto. Always the same question, always a different answer, always a course that had kept him alive until this night. This night, his final night, he had no direction bar the road that led to Yomi-no-kuni.
So he kept walking. Kept stumbling. Part of his mind wondered if there was a field hospital. There was fighting in the city, and above, he saw a dropship make its way through the sky. Its engines shining a magnificent blue, that complemented its white frame. Still, it was going the other way, and he-
"Gah!"
…fell once more.
"Hanzo."
He lay there. He coughed, his blood staining the pavement.
"Look at me, Hanzo."
He closed his eyes and waited for death to take him. He knew the hallucination's voice. Death, a thousand deaths, would be preferable to answering the call of Sojiro Shimada.
"Hanzo!"
And yet, ever the obedient child, he opened his eyes. Pathetic, really. Even in his last hours, he couldn't escape his father's will.
Sojiro Shimada was well dressed for a spirit. His black hair slick and tied behind him, his business suit prim and proper. Hanzo had never believed in ghosts, or spirits – not even when his mother had died, and they'd attached ofuda to her shrine. People were born, people died, the idea that they lingered in this world was nothing but the human brain rationalizing the fact that death was a fact, and conjuring up hopes of something lying beyond.
And yet, as his father knelt down, his resolve cracked – just like his ribs, but with pain of a different kind. He had last seen his father after his assassination by the Hashimoto. Had held back tears then, just as he always had with every loss and sin in his life. For one, brief moment, Hanzo Shimada wished his father was really there before him.
"You're pathetic," his father said.
The moment after that, he spat blood and rolled over onto his back – better that, then lying on broken ribs.
"Dying in the dirt, just like your brother."
"I'm dying on concrete, actually," Hanzo murmured, as the ghost of his father stood above him. Looking down at him with the gaze of a disappointed parent – a gaze Sojiro had mastered by the time his eldest son was three.
"You are dying, but with so many things unfulfilled."
Hanzo remained silent. He had no intention of discussing regrets with his psychosis.
"The dragon returned, yet you did not take to wing alongside him."
"Dragons…spirits…stories…"
"The dragon fought with tooth and claw, yet you did not take flight."
"Father…too old…"
"Are you ready to die, Hanzo-chan? Must you disappoint me yet again?"
"Disappoint you?" Hanzo whispered. He glared at his father. "I did everything you asked. I was the son you demanded. You let Genji flutter away like a bird, while you kept me within the cage."
The ghost of Sojiro remained silent. And why wouldn't he, Hanzo wondered? The real Sojiro was gone, and never coming back. This apparition had no answer, because there was no answer bar that of the accident of birth.
Hanzo had been born first. Hanzo had been groomed in his father's stead.
He'd walked the path. He'd strayed from the path.
He'd failed his clan, his father, his brother.
Really, he thought, as he closed his eyes, having a poltergeist torment him in his last moments was a mercy.
"Hanzo."
He kept his eyes closed. The pain was fading. The voice was fading. Everything was fading, and in this silence on the shores of death, he welcomed it.
"Hanzo."
"Your ghost no longer bothers me, old man…"
"Hanzo, your bow."
Hanzo opened an eye.
"If this is your last breath…"
Hanzo stared, then frowned, then smiled. Of course, he told himself. How right you are, father.
He knew he was either dead or insane (both?) when the ghost of his father handed him his bow. It was not a weapon that had ever been as honoured as that of the sword. No samurai or shogun was ever known for their deeds in shooting a man from a hundred yards as opposed to defeating him with the katana. It was not bows that had bested blades, but rifles.
And yet, it had served him well. Taken lives, saved his own. Saved others on this day, perhaps.
The ghost said nothing. What the real Sojiro would have said, Hanzo could only guess at. Likely nothing. He had remained silent at his father's funeral, why not the same in reverse?
"Oh dragon," Hanzo whispered, as he held the bow above him, beneath the stars. Beneath the shining angel of steel descending from on high. "Be released."
With a groan, Hanzo Shimada broke the bow in two.
And with a final breath, Hanzo Shimada died.
With a breath, Hanzo Shimada woke up.
With a groan, he looked around the interior of an aircraft.
He knew it was the interior of an aircraft not from sight (though that helped), but from sound. The constant hum of a ship making its way through the air, even if the sky beyond was unseen by its metal walls. He was lying on a gurney where a device took his vitals, but he quickly deduced that it wasn't a medbay, likely because the ship had no such capacity.
Of course, Hanzo realized, there was an alternative. That he was dead, and that this was Yomi. An unlikely proposition, but then, history was filled with unlikely possibilities becoming true. It was "unlikely" that the omniums would have reactivated nearly thirty years ago, and "unlikely" that an organization like Null Sector could have amassed enough firepower to launch a global war, and it was "unlikely" that the blonde-haired, pale-skinned woman who'd just walked in was anything other than a doctor.
"Ah, guten tag, ser Hanzo."
He stared at her – German, by her accent, but he couldn't be sure. He'd learnt to speak English only out of obligation, picking up on accents had never been assigned to him by his tutors. But it mattered little. He was alive, she was (likely) keeping him alive, and given the insignia on the right shoulder of the suit she was wearing…
"Overwatch," he murmured. "Seems like I'm not the only one risen from the grave."
"Technically, you were only dead for ten minutes. Not enough time to bury you."
He stared at the woman, and she smiled.
"Yes," she said. "Nanotechnology did its work. Well, some of it. Resurrection is not substitute for proper medical care."
Hanzo was wary of people who smiled. Nine times out of ten, people who smiled at him had an agenda, and the one other time, he wasn't interested. But he weighed the possibilities regardles – if the woman was a member of Overwatch (and that was likely true – that Overwatch had been seen operating in places like Paris, Seoul, and Rio was beyond dispute), and she was a doctor, then that stood to reason that she was Dr. Angela Zeigler. The "guardian angel" of Overwatch back in the day, before their inner demons got the best of them.
"Where are we?" he asked.
She checked a display on her suit. "about 2,200 metres above sea level, and about three-hundred and five klicks east of Tokyo."
"And Null Sector?"
"Defeated, or at least, defeated in this part of the world." A shadow passed over his face. "We've won almost every battle, but the world is still losing the war."
"And how do they feel about that?"
Dr. Zeigler smiled grimly. "Who's 'they?'" she asked. "And are you asking how they feel that they're losing, or that an organization banned five years ago is the only side winning?"
Hanzo didn't answer. In part because he didn't want to engage in word games with a woman who, doctor or not, had a pistol holstered at her side. In part (actually, almost entirely in part) was that it was at this point that the door to the room hissed open, and his heart skipped a beat upon seeing who entered.
(Actually, according to the BPM, his heartbeat had spiked, but semantics.)
"Angela," said Genji Shimada, as he walked into the room, carrying a duffel bag. "Wasting time on this scoundrel?"
"Play nice, Genji. Your big brother was brought back from the brink of death."
"Oh, he'll be fine. Hanzo like to live his life like an arrow – dance on the tip, toy with falling."
Hanzo's mind was spinning. Genji, here – wearing some kind of tracksuit over his cybernetic armour, but still, here.
Angela, he'd called her. Not "Doctor Zeigler." Angela. Was he…were they…when did they…?
And again, Genji was here. Here. Last he'd seen him, he was in Shimada Castle, before disappearing into the night like a yūrei. Now, their paths had crossed again. And as Dr. Zeigler gave his brother a smile before walking out, it was a path the two Shimada brothers were left alone to talk.
"So," said Genji, switching from English to Japanese. "My brother. In Tokyo. Fighting robots. Almost like one of those games you decried me from playing."
"Life is not a game."
"I know," Genji answered. "So do the people you saved. They send their thanks by the way."
"I…saved them?"
"Well, you saved them, and we saved them, and even the Japanese Defence Force saved them. The command carrier is down, Null Sector's been repelled from Japan, and you, dear brother, have chosen your path."
"I did no such thing."
Genji chuckled. "You always were a poor liar, Hanzo."
"And you were a lousy little brother."
The words came out unbidden and unwanted, but they came out all the same. The BPM couldn't take the measure of Hanzo's heart, but had it done so, it would have registered shame. It was by his hand, after all, that his brother was confined to this cybernetic shell. By his actions that Genji Shimada had nearly died twelve years ago. Whatever his frustrations towards the carefree child Genji had once been, they paled in the light of the man he'd become.
A strong man. A better man. A man who, after a moment's hesitation, removed his helmet.
"Nonoshiri," Hanzo whispered.
Genji remained silent. It wasn't the first time Hanzo had seen his brother's scarred visage – he'd removed the helmet's faceplate in Shimada Castle. But here, with the entire helmet removed…
"Angela's been treating me," Genji said. "Though you'd agree that some scars never heal."
Hanzo supposed so. The man before him…physically, he looked better. The scars less brutal, his face less pale, his eyes less sunken. Hanzo's blade had scarred his brother's face that day, just like the rest of his body, but Genji looked…alive, he thought. Even some of his hair had started to grow back. He would never be the man he once was, yet he was a step beyond the walking dead.
"This is yours," Genji said, as he placed the bag in front of his brother. "I assume you did this yourself."
"What are you-"
The bag was opened, and Genji took out the two halves of his brother's bow. Broken in two, per Hanzo's last actions. His last breath in this world, before being restored to life.
Hanzo sat up – slowly, his ribs were healed, but the pain was there – and held both halves in his hands. Indeed, he had made that declaration to Asa-sensei all those years ago, and had seen it through at the end of his life. He just hadn't expected he'd return to it.
"You're the best archer in the world, Hanzo-san," Genji said. "It would be a shame for you to leave your bow now, when so many have need of it."
Hanzo snorted. "More would benefit from your sword."
"They already do."
Hanzo looked at Genji. The question was there – unspoken, but audible to both. It was a question that Hanzo had answered a year ago. A question that here, now…well, the answer was the same, he told himself.
And he suspected that Genji knew it. Nevertheless, his brother began to speak.
"Asa-sensei was an incredible teacher, was she not?"
That was one word for it, Hanzo supposed.
"She would train me and never stop driving me to improve. Your brother, she'd say, is an excellent bowman. Far better than you could ever hope to be. All you can do now, Little Sparrow, is master the sword."
Hanzo smiled, in spite of everything. A smile he forced to fade, as he looked at his weapon.
"Scars remain," Genji said, as he took the two bow halves in his hands, "but some things can be fixed, can they not? Made whole?"
He handed the halves to Hanzo, and the two brothers remained in silence. Broken only by the eternal hum of their chariot in the sky, and the low breathing of two men who had both drawn last breath, before being granted their second chances.
"We'll be landing in Hawaii," Genji said. "A safe haven from Null Sector's advance, for now. You have then to decide whether you be the dragon, Hanzo Shimada, or the fox."
"The fox is cunning. The fox survives. Dragons have a nasty habit of burning everything down."
"The world already is burning, onii-san. Sometimes, you can only fight fire with fire." Genji nodded, and headed for the door. Paused, and whispered, "please do not break my hopes a second time."
And with that, Genji Shimada left, and closed the door behind him.
And yet, Hanzo reflected as he held his bow, had left another one open.
A/N
The idea for this came from reading the back-of-book blurb for Heroes Ascendant, namely the Hanzo story by E.C. Myers. Of course, this isn't what will happen in the actual story (I assume - for starters, Kiriko was nowhere to be found here), but basically, that's where the idea for this came from.