A/N:

Iro ( Japanese ) - color

Videshee ( Hindi ) - foreigner

Krpaya, sheeman, mere dost kee madad ( Hindi ) - Please, mister, help my friend.

Aap ek rakshak, bhee tha? ( Hindi ) - You had a guardian, too?

There's a street market in India where shuffling feet kick up dust in billowing clouds. They obscure the vendors and booths, giving those who walk through them a disorienting sense of detachment as they strive to keep the dirt from their lungs.

While to some it was a vital source of sustenance, to Hanzo it was little more than a road to pass through.

Still, he had traveled through worse. Despite the dust, the vibrant red of cherry tomatoes, the deep violet of eggplant, the oranges and greens and yellows, all stood out as exceptionally vibrant, and the clothes worn by the people were equally so. The women, in particular, seemed to favor bright and complex floral patterns, garb designed to draw the eye.

As he strode by a stack of fresh cabbages, he noted the silk sari draped over the left shoulder of a woman who could not be older than her early thirties. A garden of daises rose from its hem, reaching up towards her torso as though unfurling for the sun.

She was watching as the vendor turned over the cabbage she had pointed out to check for blind spots, and upon finding none, purchased the item with a nod and a smile.

He was bombarded by polka dots, by garish striped polos and their owners, who gestured for him to examine their baskets full of turnips and carrots, as well as other assorted fruits and vegetables.

He declined politely more often than not, having learned over the years that a stand-offish, silent man would stand out where a man who simply refused with a regretful shake of his head would not.

Had he remained in Hanamura for the rest of his life, he would have remained ignorant of this vast world outside the Shimada Clan, though it may have been that the elders had wished that of him. It was so much easier to control a young leader when they were naïve as well as inexperienced.

Realizing that the elders had very likely instigated his confrontation with Genji as a test of his obedience had taken time. It had been difficult to see past his pride, though it had been his pride that had blinded him to their machinations. They had never intended to follow him, but rather to groom him as the puppet through which they would control the empire.

Despite his skill, despite years of study and training, he had always been little more than a pawn to them.

And Genji?

Collateral damage.

A grey Omnic sitting on a stool behind a cart filled with spotless bananas asked the archer if he would like to try one. "Potassium can help a great deal with muscle soreness and cramping," it told him. Since Hanzo couldn't actually remember the last time he'd eaten a banana, or even what he'd consumed for breakfast that morning, if he'd eaten anything at all, he dropped several coins into the Omnic's segmented hand, then pocketed the banana it offered.

It wished him a good day as he moved on.

The integration of the Omnics in the marketplace was a surprise, in no small part because Southern Asian had suffered greatly during the Omnic Wars, but perhaps he'd underestimated the spread and influence of the late Mondatta's teachings.

The archer was nearly past the marketplace when a shrill scream rang out. It'd originated from the alley a few steps behind him.

He'd been distracted.

He hadn't looked inside.

Now he retraced his steps, furtively pressed against the wall in the hopes of learning the cause of that scream before the cause learned of him. With the concrete pressing against his back, he identified at least six men, each of them armed with ordinary tools and wooden baseball bats. They were circled around a child with a single ebony braid going down her back, no older than nine, and the damaged Omnic she was shielding.

She shivered as she clung to it, shielded it so the men could not further harm the automaton without harming her, too.

Unfortunately, not all of the men were willing to prioritize the child's safety over their hatred for the Omnic. One man raised his bat over his head, as though preparing to strike both the child and the robot she protected.

Left alone, the results could be disastrous.

This has nothing to do with me, Hanzo thought as he stepped out of the shadows. He quickly nocked an arrow, aiming it at the man intending to begin his assault. "I would drop that bat, if I were you."

The men turned, but a tick too slow, their reflexes dulled by what the reddish flush to their tan cheeks and the glassiness of their eyes told him was the alcohol poisoning their systems.

Hanzo carried a flask of sake at his waist, but he did not drink to the point of stupidity, and certainly did not go wandering around in public searching for something to take his frustrations out on. There must have been a reason these men were doing this, some grievance or grudge they carried, but Hanzo wasn't interested. There was an unarmed child cowering on the ground, her sari, a thin garment patterned with pink lilies, draped over the Omnic's head as though the cloth could somehow save it.

If Hanzo listened closely, he could hear the robot begging her to run.

Hanzo did not believe in the humanity of the Omnic, nor was he fool enough to fashion himself as some kind of defender of the innocent, but the girl and her guardian were outnumbered by men who should have known better than to take their frustrations out on the weak and defenseless, and that was something he could not ignore.

A flash of green darted across the rooftop in his peripheral, but its significance failed to register, as at the same time the girl raised her head to look at the archer with hope blooming in her almond brown eyes. He gestured with his bow for the men to put down their weapons.

The first man he'd spoken to, one of the youngest of the group, scoffed, "There's no law against harming an Omnic, videshee. But there's plenty against harming civilians." There's a slur to his words. It doesn't stop his companions from rethinking their compliance.

Though annoyed that the man's defiance had caused the rest of the group to regain what little resolve they had, Hanzo noted the dirt on their elbows and knees as they tightened their grips on their weapons, all of their attention on him now instead of the girl.

She tugged at the Omnic in an attempt to drag it away now that they were no longer surrounded, but the Omnic's motor functions had been damaged by the blows Hanzo suspected it'd sustained while protecting her. Unlike the men, the girl was clean for the most part, any traces of dirt on her recent. She was the daughter of merchants, a caste above her assailants.

It certainly lent credibility to the theory that Omnic-hatred was not the sole motivator of this conflict, but that hardly mattered now. Wherever Hanzo pointed his bow, there was a body. In such a narrow arena, firing an arrow into the chest of one man could allow for the rest to strike him from behind.

There was only one thing to do in such situations, wasn't there?

The men in front of him shifted nervously as a feral grin crept up his face. It was not the expression they'd expected to see on a cornered man.

Hanzo released his arrow into the thigh of the man directly in front of him, causing him to yelp and crash into his companions, thus breaking the seamless circle they'd formed. He ducked to the side to avoid the crow bar aimed at his head from behind, then blinked in surprise as the assailant fell to the ground, clutching the shuriken buried within his shoulder blade.

He didn't stop to think on it, but fired a volley at the feet and knees of the men around him. They outnumbered him, but years of training and experience had been good for something, after all. While drink had made these men sluggish, his reflexes were sharp, honed to a deadly edge.

He stepped out of the circle of fallen bodies at his feet without looking down. "The next time you find yourselves itching for a release, think back on this pain. The innocent are often not so defenseless as they appear."

A chorus of groans met his words, but Hanzo supposed it would have to do. His thoughts were already moving past them and onto the girl.

She'd managed to drag the Omnic several feet across the dirt and was still pulling at its limbs now, her brow furrowed and beading with sweat as slender arms struggled to bear the overwhelming burden of the automaton's dead weight.

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at his approach, resuming her former position as the robot's shield without a second's hesitation. She remained like that until Hanzo unstrapped his bow and quiver, then kneeled to lay them on the ground. Continuing to utilize slow movements, he opened his palms to show that he had no intention of harming her or the Omnic.

Gradually, she withdrew from its body, allowing him to see the full extent of the damage. Its headplate was severely dented, sparks trickled from its shoulders and hands. The injuries were all consistent with both an ambush and defensive wounds, though the archer had expected nothing less.

"Krpaya, sheeman, mere dost kee madad."

Regretfully, he shook his head. The Mandarin and smattering of Korean he'd studied in his youth were proving to be of little use when it came to deciphering any meaning from the Hindi language. "I'm sorry, but I don't-"

A calm, mechanized voice from behind him interrupted, "She's asking you to help her friend." Genji stepped forward to kneel on the Omnic's opposite side, pinched a set of exposed wire sticking out from a gouge in the Omnic's torso, then politely asked the girl, "May I?" He gestured to supplement for the minimal inflection in his tone. After looking to the Hanzo for reassurance, the girl nodded, withdrawing carefully from the Omnic to allow for some space, though she refused to move far, and would throw herself over the robot once more should it appear that any harm would come to it. For Hanzo's sake, Genji explained as he stripped the plastic covering off the wires he'd gripped, "Most Omnics regenerate automatically when damaged. It's likely that there's some kind of block preventing his system from repairing itself, so I'm going to try to kickstart it by channeling into him some of my own energy."

The girl watched with a hawkish gaze, her mouth pressed in a thin line as Genji used one of his fingers to inject a foreign electrical current into the Omnic. After what she'd experienced, Hanzo couldn't help but be impressed by her dedication, even if he could not quite find it within himself to comprehend it. Why would anyone go to such lengths to protect an artificial life? Of the two, was it not the girl who was irreplaceable?

Feeling the weight of his attention, the girl softened considerably. With a questioning nod towards Genji, she asked, "Aap ek rakshak, bhee tha?"

When Hanzo asked his brother for the meaning of her words, Genji merely regarded her in silence for a moment, before slowly inclining his head.

However frustrating it was to be left out of the loop, the archer could not argue with the results. The child's youthful features brightened, her mouth spreading into a wide smile that showed off the large gap where her adult teeth had yet to grow in.

There was a whirring of gears as the Omnic's visual sensors flared to their full brightness, before finally stabilizing as its self-repair began the complex process of completing what his brother had started.

With an enthusiastic shout, the girl threw herself at the Omnic, wrapping her arms around its neck in a fierce embrace as it fumbled to catch her. It beeped anxiously at her, no doubt chiding her for her recklessness, and the girl laughed, too relieved to care.

The Omnic, its cybernetic hands now lightly placed against the girl's back, securing her as it moved to face them, nodded gratefully, acknowledging what they'd done, though Hanzo felt compelled to insist that Genji, and not him, had been responsible for its recovery, but Genji headed him off by accepting the Omnic's thanks with a subtle bow. He wished the duo well before motioning for Hanzo to do the same.

Even knowing he would not be understood, that none of his questions would find their answers here, he searched for the right words to part on, before deciding a simple handshake would suffice.

Once his quiver and bow were back in their rightful place upon his back, he extended a hand to the duo. The girl stared at the open, calloused palm for a moment, then latched onto it with both of her hands, pumping it vigorously as she met the archer's perplexed frown with a brilliant smile.

She then surprised them both by shouting, "Thank you!" at the top of her lungs as they exited the alley, earning a chuckle from Genji, who commented that they should not have been so surprised. Despite its past misfortunes, India was still rife with tourism. And children were better listeners than most were inclined to admit.

Once they'd successfully mingled with the crowd, Genji pitched his voice low in a mimicry of Hanzo's. "Think back on this pain." He tilted back his head in a hollow laugh. "You're so cool, anija."

"Have you been following me, then?" Hanzo asked levelly. With his temper as it was, he was striving to refrain from hastily jumping to conclusions, but found doing so especially difficult when no other explanations for his brother's sudden appearance readily presented themselves. Certainly, with his body as it was, he had not come to the marketplace for the food.

"Actually, Overwatch received an alert detailing an armed Japanese man walking the streets. I volunteered to look into it." He trailed off into a contemplative hum. Several minutes later, he suddenly asked, "Why did you enter that alley, anyway? In what way did defending that little girl and her Omnic benefit you?"

One of the bolder merchants approached them with a bonsai in a clay pot, casting an admiring glance at Genji's sleek form as he did so. The realization that the vendors believed Genji to be a newer model of Omnic, one which he had procured through wealth and means, brought with it an acid taste in Hanzo's mouth. At his side, Genji was still waiting for an answer, heedless of the attention. At long last, Hanzo relented. "To raise arms against the weak is dishonorable. To do so against a child is deplorable. I had no need of any further reason to intervene than that."

The cyborg cocked his head to the side, as though struggling to comprehend, but Hanzo could sense that he was merely being facetious. It was a gesture easily associated with his brother, even if the appearance behind it jarred against memory. "So, you went out of your way to help a little girl and an Omnic you didn't even know? And for no other reason than because it was the right thing to do?" It wasn't hard to see where this was going. Hanzo's growing scowl unintentionally scared off another vendor. "But you're right, anija." Of all the things he'd missed about his brother, his penchant for sarcasm was not among them. "You're definitely not Overwatch material. I don't know why I even offered."

Hearing that, Hanzo realized that he could never confess to the fact that the entire reason for his passing through India was to find transportation into Nepal, so that he could take Genji up on the challenge he'd issued in Hanamura. It, like many, was a secret that would die with him.

As the crowds faded, Genji fixed Hanzo, who'd remained stubbornly silent for some time, with a penetrating sidelong stare. "You're here because you want to join, aren't you?"

Rather than confirm his suspicions, Hanzo pretended to seriously consider trading his Omnic for eight, healthy chickens.

"Anija!" Genji chided him sharply. " I am worth at least ten chickens."