The Many Assassination Attempts of Hanzo Shimada

by staringatstars07

A series of Overwatch drabbles which all involve Hanzo suffering in some fashion.

23. the rift - part 3 (end)

The empty corridors of the Shatterdome stretched endlessly in front of Gerard as he wandered without thought or intention, content to merely observe the expansive base of Jaeger operations without a brooding thundercloud making snide comments that appeared among his own thoughts without warning or consent. It wasn't that he faulted the Shimada for being bitter – Gerard wasn't exactly thrilled about their predicament, either – but even though their deaths were still raw, open wounds, Gerard was able to think of his objectively, while Genji split the sky with his rage.

Walking at his side was like standing shoulder to shoulder with a tornado, or stepping through a candle factory with sticks of dynamite held aloft in each hand.

Still, though Gerard could no longer hear his thoughts, the Shimada's presence yet resided within him, buzzing and eternally restless.

Resting a cool, metallic palm against his temple, Gerard slumped against the safety railing, allowing it to prop him up (and keep him from plummeting to the ground several stories below) so that he could gaze at the arced ceiling above them all. Staring at that ceiling, so high and untouchable, he couldn't help but think of a snow globe, like they were trapped in a world outside of time, and tomorrow would never come.

He wasn't sure if the thought soothed or terrified him.

There had to be some way to get answers for why the Jaeger Program had decided to play God with their lives – deaths? - like this. As well as a one heck of a good reason for Reyes to willingly go along with it.

From what Gerard could recall of their time together in Overwatch, Gabe was the kind of guy who'd rather burn the whole building down than see it rot. It wasn't in his nature to be tolerant of corruption, which was especially ironic considering he specialized in clandestine operations that didn't always play nice with the law.

Maybe he'd learned to bend over the years, out of a desperate need to keep the only program that had shown any success at combating the kaiju threat alive.

Kaiju threat. Omnic threat.

The words had changed, but the song was same. Gerard had devoted his life to defending the defenseless, protecting the innocent, and all that jazz. He'd spent more time putting his neck on the line during the Omnic Crisis than with his beautiful young wife, and where had that gotten him?

Murdered in his sleep by the woman he loved.

How much more could Reyes expect him to give? There was nothing left, not even a heartbeat.

And yet he'd been thrust into another war, against another enemy that had somehow supplanted the first. Finding out that the key to convincing humans and omnics to put aside their differences and cooperate was the threat of extinction from what was essentially a bigger fish… It really made a guy wonder why he'd even bothered to sacrifice so much to fend off the omnics in the first place, when he should've just tossed a giant lizard at them and called it a day.

Damn it. The Shimada kid's eternal pessimism was catching.

He tilted his head back to see the high arced ceiling above him, idly following the dust motes that floating in streams of moonlight sneaking in through cracks and the soft illumination of electric lanterns.

This wasn't the time to fall apart. Genji was a matchstrike away from detonation, and if his brief glimpse at the Jaegers was anything to go by, they were about to be shoved into a glorified nuclear bomb. If one of them didn't keep their heads on straight through this nightmare, thousands of people would die.

Amelie would die.

He wasn't even aware of the railing's low groan as it bent and warped beneath his fingertips until a painfully familiar voice asked, "Like what you see?"

His grip went slack and he jumped, striking metal against metal with a jarring clang when his elbows slammed against the bar. Instead of the stream of expletives running through his mind, a high beeping sound denoted his surprise. When he'd finally gotten himself under control, however, he looked up to see Amelie staring at him with amusement stirring in her dark eyes, a hand placed delicately over her mouth to conceal the laughter threatening to spill past her lips. "Forgive me, mon cher," she looked him over to ensure he wasn't damaged, her gaze lingering a moment too long on the dents he'd left in the railing before she continued, "I did not intend to startle you." Venturing to step closer, an action which Gerard felt so conflicted about he was positive he was going to fry his circuits, she asked with a trace of what sounded uncomfortably like concern, "What are you doing out so late?"

Without prompting, she moved to join him, and peered over the balcony to see the mess hall below, usually bustling with noise and people, now virtually empty with the exception of a few stragglers. She'd let her violet-toned hair out of its ponytail so that it gracefully framed the contours of her shoulder blades and long, slender neck. A stray lock fell over her ear when she leaned forward to rest her folded hands on the bar, so close he could reach out and touch, and he forced himself to swallow the urge to brush it back. While her proximity made it extremely difficult for Gerard to string two coherent thoughts together, he managed to keep enough of his wits about him to listen when she softly murmured with a somewhat unfocused gaze that was at once forlorn and nostalgic, "I always like to come here at this time of night, when it's quiet like this."

When an updraft from the levels swept up her bangs, eliciting a subtle quirk at the corners of her lips, it was like they were standing on the observatory at the top of the Eiffel tower again. Back then, she'd been so light and free and weightless he'd felt a sudden impulse to place a hand on her shoulder, plagued as he was by the sudden, irrational urge that she'd fly away if he didn't. And she'd glanced back at him then, brow arced in a silent question as a healthy flush suffused her cheeks, and he'd quickly snatched his hand away – it was such a silly thought, after all – and settled back to follow her lead while she darted from telescope to telescope. At the top of the world, it was just them, the stars, and the security guard he'd bribed to let them in after hours, standing with his arms folded over his chest like a grump at the exit.

There were frown lines curving around the corners of her mouth that hadn't been there before, and a deep furrow over the bridge of her nose that spoke of worries he couldn't even begin to imagine, but underneath it all beat the heart of the woman he'd once planned to share the world with.

Resenting her for what she did to him, for everything she'd taken – his life, his body, his future - would have been the more natural reaction, but no matter how hard he searched within himself, he couldn't find a scrap of blame to spare.

A chainsaw revving below them reminded Gerard that they weren't standing at the top of the world, anymore. Stars didn't glitter in the sky above, and Amelie didn't need his hand to keep her grounded. Her beautiful wings had been clipped long ago.

Eventually, she noticed him staring, and then gestured offhandedly to their surroundings, "We think this place was a factory once," she started awkwardly, resulting in an unholy cross between showing the new guy around and tour guide, "repurposed to house the Jaegers and us," her voice dropped in register, venom dripping from each syllable, "the last hope of humanity."

When she raised her head slightly to regard him, however, focusing on the blank faceplate and shallow divets that could be called eyes in the same way that a fluffy cloud could be called a rabbit, there was a silent apology in her expression.

For a moment, time seemed to slow. He wondered if she couldn't see something in him, something familiar, some part of the man he'd once been when his arms were flesh and she fit perfectly in them. Then with a heavy, miserable sigh, she broke the connection. "I suppose omnics don't really need sleep, do they? Still," and her gaze slid off him, shoulders edging forward as though to create a barrier between them, "I'm surprised Reyes is being so lenient with your care."

Unable to flinch, Gerard felt his entire body jerk at the abrupt reminder of what had transpired that morning, of what she must have thought of him after Genji had nearly throttled her copilot. From her perspective, they were tools at best, but unpredictable and prone to unprovoked bouts of rage.

He made a mental note to thank the kid for that, later.

Alarmed, her eyes widened a fraction at the oddly visceral reaction. Confusion clouded her features, only to be quickly consumed by shame when she realized how callous her words must have sounded to the poor omnic. "It is only that you are still unfamiliar with your surroundings," she amended quickly. "It seems unwise to allow you to wander unattended when you could so easily lose your way."

Although he'd wanted to respond without giving too much away – a feat which should have been ridiculously easy given his utter lack of any discernible facial features– Gerard's attempt at a nonchalant shrug came across a tad jerky. To be honest, he hadn't wanted to look a gift horse in the mouth when Reyes had suggested they take a walk, and so he hadn't questioned it, but as for whether he needed to sleep…

Beyond learning how to kill omnics, he'd never had much of a curiosity for their operational procedures, nor had he possessed any interest whatsoever in keeping them functional. Privately, he had to admit that he was seriously coming to regret that rather blasé attitude.

A light pressure on his chestplate pulled him from his thoughts, and he lifted his head to see her staring curiously at him, a question in the tilt of her head and upward quirk of her brow, "You've been so silent this entire time… Is it that you simply do not wish to speak to me?" Gerard shook his head so fast he was afraid for half a second that a screw had come loose. "You poor creature," she told him with genuine pity, a single nail brushed over the empty space on his neck column where his vocal synthesizer should have been installed. And he'd thought it'd been a struggle not to shrink away from her touch before, but now he was consciously ordering every mechanical inch of his body not to lean into it. "Could they not even be bothered to finish you?"

And suddenly the space they inhabited was quiet, so quiet. The sounds of construction faded to a low hum in the background, the shuffle of sneakers and clang of tools becoming muffled, as though dampened by a veil, and Gerard couldn't look away from the pain etched permanently into every line and curve and dip of her body, the grief that never quite fled, not even on those rare occasions when her lips remembered how to smile.

Then she pulled back, and with what was likely an attempt at lightening the mood, said, "Well, don't dwell on it too much. Speaking is an ability most often granted to those who least deserve it."

After that, she lapsed into a thoughtful silence that lasted long enough for him to begin to wonder if he wasn't intruding, but she never asked him to leave, and the truth was that even though every second she looked at him without an inkling of recognition was agony of the highest degree… he wasn't ready to leave her side.

While he watched, something inscrutable flitted through her features, and soon he was moving, or rather, being moved. "Come on," she called, giving him a tug that quickly turned into her dragging him through the halls while he struggled not to fall flat on his face, "I've got an idea."

Fluorescent lights and unconcealed piping flew by with her in the lead, and he gave into her pull like the moon giving into gravity. The dust motes blurred, becoming bright streaks of gold as his systems struggled to keep up with the speed of the visual input they were receiving. It made the whole thing feel surreal, like he could wake up in their home at any second and see her sleeping next to him.

But this wasn't a dream, and he wasn't the type to run away from reality. Something told him that if he could feel her touch, her hands would be colder than ice, but what difference did that make to an omnic? He couldn't feel anything, let alone the warmth of his wife. However, where his sensory faculties failed to provide, his memories were only too happy to fill in the gaps.

For a moment, they were running through the streets of Paris, flush-faced and intoxicated on the night and the significant amount of good wine they'd had with dinner. It was their first date, maybe their second because he distinctly recalled her taking some time to warm up to him, and her dress was long and closefitting, black with sequins that glittered like starlight.

She'd looked at him like he was the only man in the world that mattered, made him feel like he could take on Talon with a toothpick, and said – "We're here. You can let go of my hand now."

…No, he's pretty sure that's not what she said.

He glanced at his surroundings, taking stock of the rows of whirring computers on stand-by and the floor-to-ceiling viewing window that substituted for the entirety of the circular room's back wall. And if the sheer amount of equipment wasn't a dead-giveaway for the room's purpose, then the unhindered view of the Jaeger cockpits would have made it excruciatingly obvious that Amelie had led them into the central hub of the Jaeger program - its brain, so to speak.

This was where Reyes issued orders, where kaiju attacks were detected, where dozens of men and women did everything they could to keep their pilots alive.

Amelie regarded him with an odd look, probably wondering how an omnic that was less than a week past its initial activation could get so lost in its thoughts, and he snatched his hand away like her touch was a magnet of opposite polarity. Not repulsed, but repelled.

Flexing her now free fingers, she stared for a moment longer, making him sweat internally, before she finally set about achieving whatever task it was she'd set out to accomplish. He watched her sift through the drawers of a large and impressive desk towards the front, which happened to have an intimidating amount of paperwork stacked on its surface. It didn't take long before she was holding a blank writing pad and a pen with a soft noise of triumph.

Then she held it out and he took them without question. It was while he was thinking of what to write that she noticed the soft green glow of his fellow omnic talking to her partner on the balcony outside. Her expression hardened briefly, before becoming clouding with confusion when it became obvious that Hanzo's mechanical copilot wasn't behaving in a way that was openly hostile, and Gerard realized, regretfully, that his time with his beautiful wife was up.

With an apology in her tone, though he could tell her thoughts were already moving past him, she asked, "Do you think you will be alright getting back to your quarters on your own?"

That was how he came to use the pen and paper to communicate, and the first thing he wrote down was a half-truth, Oui.

Yes, he could find his way back to the basement without her. And, no, he wouldn't be alright.

But because she couldn't read his thoughts, and it was only logical that a copilot made just for her would be programmed with knowledge of her native language, she offered him a small but sincerely grateful smile, and then she brushed past him, leaving him standing in the dark with a writing pad pressed against his chestplate and a pen held tightly in his grip.

---

Hisssss.

Genji swiveled his head at the slow release of pent up air coming from the omnic hanging beside him. They were back in the basement now, which shouldn't have been a surprise since there wasn't anywhere else for them to go, but Reyes had still looked pleased to see them when they'd ambled in at roughly the same time. And Gerard had been sighing ever since.

Annoyed by the interruption when his own thoughts were swirling like brackish storm waters, Genji tiredly snapped, And what are you so happy about?

The other omnic glanced down at the writing pad and pen it'd managed to hold onto, since Reyes didn't have the heart to confiscate the objects when they'd already had so much taken from them, and would undoubtedly lose more. So he'd pretended not to see it, having resolved to take the heat if it came up. The way he saw it – treating the last hope of humanity like slaves wasn't the best idea when it came to assuring their cooperation. If they weren't at least thrown a bone every now and then, or even treated with a shred of human decency, then what incentive did they have for risking their second lives to save a species they technically weren't even a part of?

Clutching the writing pad closer until it began to wrinkle, Gerard replied, I ran into Amelie. She gave me this.

After a short pause, Genji gave a curt nod. Excellent. A sardonic edge coated the word like spikes on a mace. Did you use it to tell her you're her dead husband? How did that go?

You know what, Shimada? He felt the stirrings of a reply form in his head but bulldozed over it, Screw you and the lying sycophant that convinced you you're funny.

It was expected to be another few hours before the commander came in to check on them, giving them plenty of time to grate on each other's nerves, but then the empty, silent room came alive with flashing lights and a blaring siren that could wake the dead and every fish in the sea, besides.

Shortly afterwards, the sole entrance to the basement was flung open, and Reyes came marching in, looking calm and composed in a navy blue suit, but only in the most superficial of senses, as the bruises under his eyes and sweat beading on his forehead told a very different story.

He looked like he'd rather be anywhere else, doing anything else, but he had a job to do, and if there was one thing Gabriel Reyes could be counted on to do, it was his job. "I didn't want to have to rush you like this," he disguised a deep, steadying breath as a short pause to gather his thoughts, "but we're looking at a double, maybe even a triple breach of the Rift, and that means I need all hands on deck." Gradually, his hard expression eased, providing them with a glimpse of the affable, spirited young soldier buried beneath the stress and grit, "I hope you've been bonding with your pilots," there was a smirk carving its way through the scarring he wore like a badge, "because this is going to be your first true test in the field." And then sadly, solemnly, he finished, "Don't let us down."

The pipes restraining the omnics released with a expulsion of steam that issued from their mechanical limbs, but they were ready this time and they landed on their feet, tense and ready to move.

Gerard moved to follow Reyes out the door, falling back into old habits where following his lead felt natural and right, back when the monsters were people, not lizards the size of mountains, but he turned back when he noticed Genji wasn't next to him, anymore. Actually, he hadn't moved an inch, and was standing still at the exact spot where the tubes had dropped him, both of his fists clenched so tightly the metal groaned at his sides. From one fist, a single white petal could be seen peeking out from between his fingers, but before Gerard could ask him about it, he lurched forward, taking one overly large step before his strides fell into a natural rhythm and Gerard quickly found himself being left behind.

When Gerard caught up with him, he asked, You want to tell me what that was about? But the Shimada kid acted like he couldn't hear him. It would have even been believable, considering that the hallways and ground floor were swarming with staff sprinting left and right,each trying to get into position for the coming confrontation, shouted orders, and alarms that no one had gotten around to silencing yet… except for the small matter of their psychic link.

As soon as they were out in the hall, the blurred forms of faceless men and women in tan, navy, and orange jumpsuits flew by, pushing past them, though they parted for their Marshall, keeping a respectful distance despite their hurry. While they shoved their way through the crowd, Reyes debriefed them on the status of the other pilots. "American Anubis and Frostbite are being deployed as we speak. We're sending Izanami in as back-up in case things get out of control. Lacroix and Shimada are waiting for you in the holding area. They're to have a pivotal role to play in this mission, but there's no time to debrief you, so I'm just going to have to ask you to trust-"

Before he could finish, Gerard surged past Genji, pivoting on his heel mid-stride to shove a sharp metal elbow against the Marshall's throat until he had him pinned against the wall, and the crowd froze, their attention glued to the scene as it played out. Static issued from Gerard's mouthless faceplate in the form of a low, furious growl.

I may not be an expert on omnics, but I do know I'm a hell of a lot stronger than you right now, Reyes. Either you start giving us some answers or you're on your own.

Grabbing the thin, slender limb pressing against his windpipe, Reyes managed, "Damn it, Ger." He didn't sound angry, just tired and desperate. "We don't have time for this." His next words were cut off by a choked gasp when Gerard steadily leaned in to increase the pressure.

Make time.

Arcing a brow at the tone and uncharacteristically aggressive body language, Reyes inclined his head slightly, as though listening, then huffed into his comm after Gerard had loosened his hold enough for him to respond to whoever was on the other end with a grunted, "Stand down. I have it handled."

Wary of whatever unseen threat had been called off, Gerard released him, allowing Reyes to clear his throat and adjust his suit with a scowl. After he'd finished composing himself, the Marshall nodded at the gathered crowd, wordlessly letting them know that he was perfectly fine and everything was under control, before he guided the omnics in the direction of the holding area, and the instant he found a space in the corridor where there didn't seem to be a million ears hanging onto his every word, he stopped. Only then, when they were as alone as they were ever going to get, did he lower his guard, allowing traces of the grief he always held at bay to seep into his weathered features when he softly confessed what only a few other souls on the base knew, including the pilots.

"It's a suicide mission."

Gerard stumbled back a step, feeling as though the ground had shifted beneath his feet. After regarding them both for a long moment, Reyes dragged a calloused palm over his face. "Look, they left you to die once. And you can do the same, if that's what you really want. No one will blame you for it. Heck, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who cares. But you care, don't you? You'll have to live with it. If you ask me, it's not what you're made of or where you're from that defines you, but when life throws a crucible at you and you have to make a choice, that's when you find out who you really are."

Then he set off at a brisk pace to meet his pilots, without once looking over his shoulder to see if they followed.

---

Arms folded over his chest, one foot tapping out a steady rhythm, Hanzo waited outside the Izanami with Amelie for their omnic copilots to report for duty. Like them, McCree and Fareeha were suited up to engage. Though they were ostensibly on stand-by, it was common knowledge that Reyes would do everything in his power to keep them out of the fight. This well-known fact didn't seem to faze the Shatterdome's youngest pilot, however, as Fareeha was practically giddy at the prospect of joining her mother in battle. Whenever she ceased clambering over the limbs of their Jaeger to plant her feet on the ground, it seemed as though it was all McCree could do to keep her from vibrating right off into space.

For the moment, she was hanging by her legs off the shoulder while McCree happily conversed with Lena and Emily. Because of the importance of this most recent encounter with the kaiju, Winston had been relegated to the control room, which meant they wouldn't be participating in the mission, but that didn't keep them from coming to keep their fellow pilots company while they waited to be deployed.

Speaking of deployment, Hanzo tilted his head as his helmet was patched into the comm channel, where he could hear Morrison report to base, No sign of them yet.

Keep your eyes peeled, Morrison. Reyes immediately barked in response. Don't let your guard down for a second. I'm not accepting any casualties today.

Allowing himself to be distracted by the conversation taking place ahead of him, Hanzo thought briefly of how the two had been suspiciously absent during yesterday's lunch, though he had a pretty good inkling as to the nature of activities they'd been otherwise engaged in, which was only confirmed by the flush of pink that stained Emily's cheeks when McCree said innocently, "Missed you both at lunch, yesterday. So, what were you up to?"

His eyes widened comically at the sudden color dancing over her features, understanding dawning like the start of a new day. Snickering at his reaction, Lena playfully nudged her girlfriend, "We were just catching up, right, luv?"

When Emily half-heartedly batted her away, Lena put on a mask of hurt, pouting, "Oh, don't be like that, Em." Then she flung her arms around her and accosted her with kissy faces until Emily finally gave in, letting Lena cling to her while she dissolved into soft gasps of laughter that quickly had her wiping tears from her eyes.

Combing back his bangs with his fingers, McCree groaned. "Ugh. Fareeha don't come down here," he called up to the monkey in the form of a human child. "Save yourself. It's too late for me."

Even as high up as she was, it was easy to tell she was rolling her eyes.

Lena stuck her tongue out at him.

It was such a peaceful and familiar scene that it seemed out of place at the end of the world, yet Hanzo found it oddly comfortable, a visible and tangible reminder of what they were putting everything on the line for.

A soft, gossamer touch on his wrist guided his attention away from the scene, and he glanced down at the pair of lavender fingers lightly perched on his wrist. Amelie didn't acknowledge it directly at first, so he didn't say anything, though there was a distance in her gaze as she continued to watch the affectionate back-and-forth play out that worried him. Then her gripped tightened, becoming strong and unyielding to match the ferocity in her voice when she whispered, "We protect them."

Almost unbidden, Hanzo smiled. "Until the end."

For an instant, her yellow eyes searched his own, and he allowed it, not turning his head in the slightest until she visibly relaxed, whatever she'd been looking for having been found, as he'd known it would be.

A commotion from their fellow pilots alerted them to the approach of Marshall Reyes, who looked harried, despite his best efforts to appear composed. It was understandable, given that two of the pilots sent out to search for the invading kaiju were his best friends, but one had to wonder if the omnics trailing at his sides, one with a notebook clutched in its hand, didn't have something to do with it.

Thrilled to see the omnics again, Lena waved excitedly. Hanzo, however, felt very differently about their presence.

He folded his arms over his chest with a huff, "Do we really need to bring them? They haven't trained with us once, and the midst of battle isn't the place for them to learn."

Predictably, Reyes scowled, jabbing a thumb at the pair. "I didn't drag their shiny rears here so you could leave them here to rust, Shimada."

The plain omnic, having listened to the exchange intently, scribbled out a single word on its notebook, raised it for the Izanami pilots to read – Allonsy – and then tucked it under an arm so that it could begin to climb the scaffolding that led to the cockpit. Amelie turned to watch it climb, amusement tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Exasperated by the machine's foolishness, Hanzo demanded, "What purpose could their presence possibly serve at this juncture?"

The second omnic, whom Hanzo recalled speaking with late the previous night, straightened as though offended, then brushed past him to pointedly join the first in climbing the scaffolding and entering the cockpit. There was something achingly familiar about its mannerisms, but Hanzo didn't allow himself to dwell on it for too long, since it was probably meaningless, a coincidence and nothing more, that he had led him to momentarily see another in the omnic's place.

Without skipping a beat, the Marshall replied, "They're insurance."

Amelie's head whipped around, her eyes wide with shock at the bluntness with which the Marshall admitted to their expendability. Hanzo's answering chuckle was mirthless, empty and bitter, "Trying to replace us already?"

But instead of rising to the challenge, the expression carved on the Marshall's scarred face was one of pity. He sighed. "You can twist my words all you want, Shimada, but despite your best efforts, I actually do like you." Surprisingly, Amelie smirked at the comment. Hanzo shot her an accusing look, to which she only shrugged. After observing the exchange, Reyes clapped a hand on both their shoulders, "Come back from this alive. Both of you."

Curving a single perfect brow, Amelie said, "Impossible orders don't suit you, Marshall."

"Then I guess you'll just have to show us a miracle." After leaving them with those parting words, Reyes stalked over to where McCree was definitely-not-watching with a stern set to his shoulders, stopped within arm's reach of the increasingly worried and confused cowboy, then promptly threw his arm's around him, pulling McCree into an embrace he couldn't have broken out of if he tried.

He didn't try.

After a second of stunned inaction, Jesse cautiously rested his hands on the man's broad back to return the hug.

Meanwhile, seeing what was happening below, Fareeha clambered down from her perch to land soundlessly on the ground, whereupon Reyes briefly released Jesse to pull her in, too. It lasted as long as it could, given the circumstances, or maybe even a little longer, before Reyes released them, held them both at arm's length so he could look at them long and hard, and then ruffled his hands through their hair, causing them to pout while they went about fixing the mess he'd made.

Reyes stepped back, looking vaguely uncomfortable with the amount of affection he'd just shown but also entirely unrepentant. With a goofy grin that perfectly mirrored that of the girl standing beside him, McCree tugged on the brim of his hat, righting it, "Always knew you were a big ol' softie, hoss."

Unexpectedly, the Marshall cracked a toothy smile, and reached forward to flick him lightly on the forehead, "Keep it up and you'll be eating that hat."

Fareeha and Lena snickered at McCree's expense while Emily tried to spare him some dignity by clapping a hand over her mouth, but the laughter shining in her bright brown eyes gave her away.

It all came to an abrupt end when the comm sparked to life with an unearthly howl.

Reyes? The name, strained with forced calm, was almost drowned out by the shriek of claws tearing through metal. I think we found Jaggerhead.

And for the briefest part of a second, despair flooded through the Marshall's features, saturated every inch of him like a man drowning, but it was gone before the others could react, replaced by grim determination. Spitting a curse, he raised his head to shout at the Izanami pilots, "Shimada, Lacroix, get in your Jaeger. I want you out there now!"

Amelie reacted first, shoving her black helmet on her head before turning to dart to the elevator that would bring them to the cockpit, while Hanzo followed, sticking close to her until they'd crossed the bridge into the holding area, where their spines were fitted with the spinal graft that would link their neural patterns to the machine. They split into left and right hemisphere; Amelie taking the stand in front of the plain omnic that was already sporting cords at the base of its head and back to connect it to the Jaeger, and Hanzo taking the right.

There was an unanimous, yet unspoken decision that Izanagi would be making an appearance during the battle, as Hanzo's strength and ferocity were vital in close combat, while Amelie's reflexes and finesse were better suited to supporting brawler-type Jaegers that could distract the kaiju while she sniped from afar, dealing heavy damage with a rifle that tore through flesh and fat and bone with the ease of knocking down a cobweb. If they were going to successfully cancel the apocalypse, then the pair of them would need to play to all of their strengths, and while switching dominance during combat could be difficult, the crux of it was that it required not only focus, but complete trust in the abilities of their partner.

Luckily, they had that in spades.

Amelie placed her hands on the disks that appeared beneath her palms, felt the connection between her and Izanami transform from its usual background hum, like waves crashing on a distant shore, to a swell of sensations as her senses became compounded by that of Hanzo and the Jaeger's.

There were pedals beneath her feet, but also concrete, hard and unyielding. Her arms were slim and compactly muscled, but strong and large enough to lift a cruise liner and wield it like a club.

And there was the sudden disorienting impression of having been made whole again, of moving with legs that were her own. She was herself, but also so much more.

She glanced at her partner to see him looking oddly pensive as he studied the sections of his armor where his prosthetics were located, and mentally brushed against his consciousness. It felt oddly intimate to do so when there were two distinct and alien presences within their neutral link, but the omnics added nothing, just as Reyes had said they would, and she had more important things to worry about than her pride.

Hanzo twisted to face her, his dark eyes widening marginally at the contact, before his lips twitched into one of his rare, honest smiles. At the same time, his consciousness asserted itself, and the overwhelming flood of sensory feedback instantly became more manageable.

With audible humor in her voice, Amelie noted, "And I thought I was taking point."

"You looked like you could use some assistance."

Behind them, the omnics clicked and whirred, beeping occasionally, though she was pleased to see that her omnic had brought the notebook she'd given him into the cockpit.

Hydraulics clanked and hissed as the head was secured to Izanami's main body and then Winston was on the comm. Uplink confirmed. Intiating neural handshake in 15, 14-

Hanzo looked over his shoulder to catch the omnic with the vivid green visor watching him. It tilted its head curiously when it caught him staring, a gesture that tickled uncomfortably at memory. "Do you think they will see?"

Though not unsympathetic, as neither of their pasts were a cause for pride, Amelie could only shake her head. "Whatever the case, we will find out soon enough."

8,7,6

And Izanami was moving, rolling out on conveyor belt to deposit them into the sea revealed when the hanger doors opened. A storm raged over the churning waters, dark and black. In the distance, they could see lights moving and twisting, and adjusted their coordinates to the position. Frostbite was holding Jaggerhead off for the time being by freezing the waters around the beast in a bid to slow its movements and lower its core body temperature, but the second confirmed kaiju was still nowhere to be seen, which was discouraging to say the least. The only thing more terrifying than a kaiju you could see was a kaiju you couldn't.

There was a disorienting lack of gravity for a split second, and then they were falling, before landing on the ocean floor with a jarring force that sent pain rocketing through Hanzo's phantom limbs, and he hissed, biting back a cry.

The omnic behind him also made a sound, though Hanzo couldn't fathom why. Omnics, as far as he knew, couldn't feel pain.

The countdown paused, replaced by Winston's concerned tones, Everything okay, Shimada?

Hanzo grunted. They didn't have time for this. "I've come too far to be consumed by my past now." He sensed the scientist's reluctant acceptance before-

3,2,1

Amelie closed her eyes.

She's seven years old at her first dance recital, and she's in love. Dancing is better than anything she's ever known, better than stuffed bears, better than toys, better than pretty dresses and sweets. And every time she effortlessly twirls and pirouettes, she looks into the audience to see the warm glow of her mother's proud and smiling face. At the end of her performance, she rushes straight into her mother's arms, where she's loved and safe, and marvels at the wetness in her mother's brown eyes when she holds her close and whispers, "Je t'aime, mon petite Amelie."

She's been bedridden for weeks. The doctors say she won't last much longer, but Hanzo blocks them out because they don't know his mother the way he does. She'd never leave him and Genji behind.

He says he's an Overwatch agent like that's supposed to impress her, and maybe it does, if only a little. More impressive by far is that he's more than a match for her verbal wit, and they spar like fencers whenever they run into each other at parties, until one day she noticed how he looked at her when he thought she wasn't looking, and it lit a fire inside her that burned light and happy and giddy through her veins. It was like nothing she'd ever felt before, like being alive for the first time, and suddenly, ballet was no longer the sole love of her life, because that role had been claimed by a man with bite on his tongue, mischief in his smile, and a hand that fit perfectly in hers.

His sandaled feet planted firmly on the tile outside the noodle shop, Genji curled around his ramen protectively, hunched over the bowl like a starving dog. And Hanzo rolled his eyes, not bothering to speak in English when there were no tutors to reprimand him for not doing so when he said, "No one's going to steal your food, Genji. Stop being ridiculous." Just as Genji raised an accusing brow at him and his suspicious lack of ramen, his order was completed and handed to him over the counter.

Genji's eyes went wide, "You're going to eat with me?"

Settling comfortably against his little brother's back, Hanzo teased, "That was the plan, but you are so slow I wonder if I will not be finished before you take your first bite."

Heedless of Hanzo chuckling under his breath as he watched, Genji promptly stuffed his face full with noodles.

They come out of it like they're breaking the surface, their neural handshake strong, maybe stronger than it's ever been. But the complete absence of sound coming from the omnics worried the pilots, who reached out tentatively to them, prodding for a response, except the space in the Drift they inhabited felt empty and cold, so barren of thought or emotion that the pilots instinctively pulled back.

Well, they'd worry about that later, if later ever came.

Frostbite was firing concentrated blasts of nitrogen at the kaiju's limbs, and had managed to successfully freeze the creature's arm, affording Morrison and Amari to land a hit on the beast that shattered the appendage into chunks.

Lightning split the sky with jagged lines of bluish-white, which was just as well. Lightning didn't belong to the sky or the Gods, it belonged to them.

"Morrison," Hanzo growled into the comm, "Get behind the kaiju and hold it steady."

The Jaeger in the distance shifted immediately, getting its arms behind one of the kaiju's limbs to keep it from diving back into the bay, while Amelie activated Storm Bow protocol. The cord came out from the Jaeger's wrist, thin as fishing line, stronger than titanium alloy. Then Hanzo hooked it to a catch on the other wrist and pulled until there was enough extra line left to attach it to Izanami's chest. When it was done, the cord looked vaguely like a crossbow.

Ana's urgent shouts came on the link as the kaiju continued to thrash and wail with its undulating, acid-filled gullet, just as the sky directly above Izanami grew fragmented with streaks of powerful, heated lightning that combined into a searing white. And the air was rent by a strike that seemed to cut through the fabric of reality when it slammed into the Izanami, resulting in a billowing cloud of spray and steam that briefly obscured the now sparking, crackling, spitting bow held aloft in the Jaeger's hands.

Deftly, Hanzo nocked it with an arrow taken from a compartment in the Jaeger's right arm. Since it was made of the same material, the lightning spread to it, volatile, deadly, and aimed straight at Jaggerhead's heart.

Before they could release it, however, something in the depths whipped around Izanami's legs, and yanked with enough force to throw them off-balance, causing the shot to go wide and slam into the kaiju's shoulder instead, causing the flesh at the site of impact to boil. Though the creature screamed in agony, its thrashing only increased in strength, forcing the American Anubis to release it.

It was the last thing the pilots of the Izanami saw before they were dragged beneath the surface.

---

"Izanami's gone radio silent, Marshall," Winston said solemnly. He knew what was coming, knew what had to be done, but still had to ask, "What are your orders?"

Reyes was standing at his side, keeping an close watch on the pilot's vitals. He hadn't lost anyone so far, but one crack in the hull and both of the Izanami pilots would drown in their cockpit.

Before he had a chance to respond, Ana came on the comm, furious and afraid, Gabriel, don't you dare.

After taking a moment to massage his weary eyes, Reyes pressed a button on the control panel to respond, "It's the only way, Ana. The fate of the world rests on this mission's success. I can't spare her from this."

She's a child.

Although her temper was rising, Reyes kept his own firmly tamped down. He was no good to anyone if he couldn't control his own emotions. Softly, he asked, "And how many more children will die if those monsters aren't stopped?"

Everyone sitting in the control room could hear the shriek of the kaiju in the background, the hum of machinery, the screech of metal carved away by claws, but it didn't drown out Ana's quietly despairing plea.

Reyes… She's my daughter.

"I'm sorry." He ordered Wild Abandon's deployment, and prayed to anyone who was listening that God would forgive him, because he certainly wasn't going to.

---

Genji hadn't known exactly what to call it, but when the kaiju yanked on their legs like it was trying to rip them off (which it, in all likelihood, was), sending a shock of white hot pain through the connection, Hanzo's grip on something had slipped, and then he was falling, hurtling through memories of a childhood he could still recall, but now he was once again seeing it through new eyes.

His brother's eyes.

When the Drift finally settled on a destination, he found himself standing in the hallways of Hanamura once more, dressed in the same clothes and armor he had worn on the night Hanzo had struck him down. He walked aimlessly through the familiar labyrinth, too occupied by the sight of his own flesh hands to care where his feet led him,until the murmur of hushed voices gave him pause. He looked around at the paintings of past Shimada oyabuns, orienting himself. If memory served, then this room had belonged to his and Hanzo's shared History tutor.

Frowning, Genji crept closer to press his ear against the door. At once, he heard his brother's voice, "I am hence forth resigning from the Shimada name, as well as all associated responsibilities and privileges."

As quietly as his stealth training allowed, Genji opened the door to peer inside, where Hanzo was sitting amiably with their former teacher, drinking tea.

Matter-of-factly, as though they were merely discussing the weather, the old man replied, "They will hunt you."

If this were news to Hanzo, he didn't show it. "I look forward to it."

It was the last straw for Genji. He kicked the door open, storming into the study with a furious, "Are you serious?" He jabbed a finger at Hanzo's chest, though he showed no sign of having heard as he took another sip of his tea. "All that about not abandoning the clan, serving the clan, and the first thing you do after killing me is leave? Did I mean anything to you?"

He was panting for breath, his chest hurt like someone had stepped on it, but neither of the men reacted, forcing Genji to realize that this, like everything else he had seen in the Drift, was a memory. He couldn't change an event that had already happened, no matter how much he wanted to - needed to know how Hanzo could betray him, strike his own family down without remorse, and then turn his back on the very clan he'd sacrificed so much for.

"Why did you come here, Hanzo? Why tell me this?" Genji whirled at the sound of their teacher, having almost entirely forgotten his presence. "You know I cannot simply allow you to leave without reporting this to the Elders." He looked regretful, but resigned, as though it was only the way of things that he would be condemning his best student to death.

Still, Hanzo nodded to show he bore the wizened old man no ill will. He'd expected this, Genji realized, but he'd come to visit, anyway, when it would have been so much easier, so much safer just to disappear in the night. When Hanzo finally answered, there were no tears in his eyes, but his expression was weary, the first glimpse Genji had seen of the sad and broken man he would become.

"Who else would I tell, sensei? Everyone who ever loved me is already dead."

---

Straining against the chains shackled to his wrists and ankles, Hanzo snarled at his captors through the wet bangs plastered over his forehead, baring teeth that glittered like fangs and eyes that shone a luminescent blue in the dark. "This clan will rot," he promised. "No. Genji was right. It is already rotten. How far will you go to protect its putrid corpse?"

Thin lips curled at the corners of his mouth, the head of clan security, Saito, stepped forward to deal Hanzo a ruthless backhanded blow across the face. Grimacing up at his jailer, Hanzo leaned forward to spit a lob of crimson saliva at his feet.

Stiffening, Saito glared down at Hanzo with blatant disdain, then ordered his lackies to, "Hold him down."

Surprised, Hanzo blinked, confused by the sudden onset of unwelcome hands pinning him to the floor. He realized what was going to happen a split second before Genji did when Saito stepped into the cell with Hanzo's own katana held tightly in his grasp, causing the young heir to writhe and scratch and bite to get free, like a true caged animal.

And Genji screamed at the men to stop, screamed at Hanzo to run, to fight. He screamed, his own voice joining with the agonized cries of his brother when the blade fell on his right leg. It took several tries to get the limb off completely, but by then he'd nearly passed out from the pain. And there was still one leg left to take.

"I'd like to see you try to run from the clan now, my lord," Saito sneered when he was done, but Hanzo wasn't listening. He was too pale, staring emptily at the bloody, bandaged stumps where his legs had once been.

Before leaving, Saito asked, "Should I leave this sword with you? Grant you the option of an honorable depth?" Though the action was sluggish, Hanzo raised his head at the offer, the spark of some indescribable emotion coming to life within the depths of his gaze. But Saito only scoffed, "I think not," and the spark was abruptly snuffed out.

For reasons he couldn't fully understand, there was little Genji wanted to do more strongly in that moment than paint the walls with that man's blood. It just didn't make sense. Hanzo had murdered him. By all rights, he'd earned this, deserved it.

So why did the sight of Hanzo burying his bloodless face in his hands as sobs, devastated, harsh, and raw, burst unbidden from his throat upset him so much? It didn't feel like justice, or even vengeance.

It felt wrong.

Unable to stand it, anymore, Genji yelled at the memory, "You did this!" And as though he could really hear, Hanzo shuddered. "You don't get to play the victim here. Not after what you did to me." He did his best to hold onto the anger, the rage, only to be abandoned in the end, just when he'd needed them most. Sinking to his knees onto a floor tacky with congealing blood, Genji gripped the bars of Hanzo's cell, and stared, transfixed by the point at which flesh abruptly and brutally ended. "...Your legs."

Then, quietly, so quietly Genji could almost convince himself he'd imagined it, a hoarse whisper traveled through the stagnant air, "I'm so sorry, Genji." Even after hearing it second time, and then a third, he still couldn't quite bring himself to believe it was real, but it didn't stop. Hanzo repeated the words like they were all he could say, all he knew, not a mantra that would keep him sane, but a requirement for existing. And hearing them, Genji finally came to a decision.

He let go.

Reaching through the bars, Genji gripped his brother's hand.

Hanzo returned to consciousness feeling much the same as he did after waking from a nightmare, shaky and jittery and cold. In this instance, however, the overwhelming sense of drowning wasn't entirely metaphorical. Izanami's protective glass visor had fractured, which explained the frigid Alaskan water spraying his face and pooling around his heels.

Instinctively, he twisted to check on his co-pilot, ignoring the incessant tugging of the connection cords attached to his back. The movement set off an abrupt wave of vertigo, and his vision blurred into amorphous shapes stained crimson by the red filters which accompanied the alarms blaring their warning from every angle. With a frustrated growl, Hanzo forced himself to focus on the slumped form suspended on the platform next to him, "Amelie!" The only thing keeping her from tumbling into Izanami's engine were the attachments on her drivesuit and the omnic crouched protectively over her as she groaned, her eyelids fluttering as though they were just slightly beyond her power to lift. It stroked her hair with a gentleness Hanzo had never before witnessed in a machine, though it was clearly careful not to touch the matted patch plastered to her temple, where a nasty gash ran slick, slippery blood down the side of her face.

Upon realizing that the disorientation and nausea that dredged up unwelcome and distracting memories from those rare occasions when Genji had talked him into drinking weren't his own, Hanzo concentrated on extricating his own sight from Amelie's, resulting in a strange, sickening sense of double vision, since they were still deeply entrenched in the Drift, but he could focus, he could move. It was less than he would have liked but exactly what was needed, as it enabled him to shove their shared malady aside. It wasn't his, and even if it was, it wasn't important.

It seemed his own omnic hadn't disengaged from his platform. In fact, while both of Izanami's pilots had been out-of-commission, it had remained to contribute what power it could alone, but without the human pilots, there was very little it could do. It had nothing to offer the Drift – nothing that the Jaeger could pick on, at least.

Even so, it had tried to dislodge the tail wrapped like a hangman's noose around Izanami's neck, to stop the beast from dragging them deeper and deeper into the ocean. Sparks rained down from its knee joints due to the strain of piloting the Jaeger but itself, and for the first time since he'd met the omnic, Hanzo was grateful for its presence.

Reaching behind his back, Hanzo grabbed the first cord he could get his hands on and then tore it off, resulting in a disconnect as the nerves struggled to adjust to the sudden lack of feedback that was both immediate and unbalancing. To go from feeling everything to feeling nothing was akin to a sudden drop, like taking a step on the expectation that there would be solid ground beneath your feet, only to discover there was nothing but air.

This wasn't his first experience with Post-Drift emptiness and its voracious appetite, though. He knew that the emptiness was an illusion, that his own senses would take awhile to get used to after the heightened intensity of joining with the Jaeger, but there wasn't any time to grow accustomed to it. The only thing to do was press on and hope that even his seemingly dulled senses would be enough to recognize any injuries that were serious enough to warrant attention.

Finally, he was disengaged and he lurched forward, stubbling on a floating sheet of blank paper that stuck to the bottom of his sole. The floor of the cockpit was covered with them, little white boats floating in a restless sea.

The kaiju dragging them under shrieked, causing the red emergency lights to fluctuate dangerously while Hanzo clapped his hands to his ears to keep his eardrums from bursting.

There had to be a way to get rid of it.

Once the horrible screeching stopped, Hanzo sloshed his way through the rising water to kneel next to the omnic at Amelie's side. After a brief hesitation, it passed her to him. He positioned his elbow beneath her head to support her, to keep her upright while he examined the extent of the wound on her temple, and her lashes fluttered, revealing a darkened, unfocused gaze, "Gerard?"

She sounded so vulnerable, so raw and confused, that he felt a physical ache in his chest when he silently shook his head. Beside him, her omnic had gone very, very still, but Hanzo wasn't in any state to think too much of it, so he mentally added it to the long list of mysteries he would have to solve another time and gently passed her back to it. "Get her in the escape pod," it should have come out like an order, but the strain of the interrupted Drift and overwhelming concern for his partner turned it soft, pleading. "There should be enough room for you in there, as well." The omnic nodded soundlessly, its arms already repositioning themselves so that they would jostle Amelie as little as possible when it was time to move her. "You go when we're clear of this monster, and not a second later. It's designed to take you straight to the surface." He paused, struggling for words when the kaiju suddenly swerved, causing the ground to tip violently beneath them. Growling, Hanzo reached out a hand to steady the omnic before it could slide into him. Gripping its shoulder tightly, he shouted over the blaring alarms and sirens, "I'm trusting you to do whatever it takes to get her back to the Shatterdome! Do you hear me?"

It nodded once. Twice. Hanzo relaxed. Unbidden, his gaze drifted down to Amelie's too pale face, to the weak hand that batted feebly against her omnic's chest, as though she knew what he was planning, knew that she would be forced to leave him behind. With a noticeable slur that did nothing to erase the steel in her spine, she told him, "'m not leaving you."

She didn't drop her stern, stubborn gaze until Hanzo's hand found hers. "I'll be right behind you," he said, nearly choking on the lie. But she nodded, accepting it, believing it. And why not? He'd never lied to her before.

It seemed like the omnic wanted to say something after the archer nodded his thanks, not trusting himself to speak at the moment, because it leaned forward, its head tilted slightly so that it stared up at the conflict plainly seen in Hanzo's expression, but the only sound that issued from its mouth was static. Before he could make anything of it, Hanzo's comm crackled, and familiar voice, high with worry, called, Izanami, what's your status?

Hearing that, Hanzo nearly sagged with relief. "We're submerged, Winston. The exterior hull is damaged and we've taken on water." He shot a scowl at the mottled purple and blue tail spiraled around Izanami's visor, "Any suggestions on how to separate ourselves from this beast would be greatly appreciated."

There was a brief sound of a scuffle in the control room, a cry followed by - What the hell did you do to your eye, Ziegler? - before a panicked, absurdly young-sounding girl replaced Winston's deep tones on the comm, No, don't! It's dragging you to the Breach, and you need a kaiju to get through! If you just let it take you, you might be able to activate the nuclear reactor and shut it down for good. Pressing his thumbs against his eyes to relieve some of the pressure pounding within his skull, Hanzo pictured the teenaged prodigy that always trailed after Winston like a tired pup, with bags under her clear blue eyes and a smile that said she was running on fumes and caffeine.

Was he willing to trust a child with a PH.D with his life and the lives of every man, woman, and child still drawing breath, besides?

Normally, the answer would have been a resounding, earth-shattering no, but every word she'd said had rung with sincerity. This was something she believed in wholeheartedly, something she'd been willing to fight her own allies for if it meant being heard.

It was no deception, no child's prank, and yet, he wondered if she truly realized the extent of what she was asking of him. Well, it didn't matter much to him whether she did or not, but "I won't do it with Amelie on board," a line had been drawn, one which he wouldn't cross, not even for the world.

Reyes took over, making his irritation known, Shimada, we are talking about ending the war here. You cannot let your personal feelings get in the way of that.

Sacrifice the few for the many, cast his emotions aside and do what was necessary. It all sounded so goddamn familiar. Gripping the comm so tightly his knuckles groaned at the pressure, he replied, his anger carefully restrained so that heat and fire laced his words without spiraling out of control, "She deserves a say in this," in his peripheral, Hanzo saw that his own omnic had swiveled to stare, "but as she is currently in no state to do so, the decision falls to me." Rising to his full height, Hanzo nodded towards the escape pods, watched the omnic weather Amelie's feeble protests as it carried her to the escape pods, then announced with the full weight of his dignity and pride, "For this final mission, Izanagi will be more than enough."

---

Exhilarated by the drop into the sea and the adrenaline rush that came with every battle, McCree let out a loud whoop. He and Fareeha could make out the still ongoing battle, but Anubis had obviously taken a few hits in the interim between the Izanami getting dragged away by a Category IV and their deployment. There were deep scores across the Jaeger's scarlet visor that, with any luck, hadn't breached the cockpit. Upon seeing them, Fareeha's matching grin morphed into something fierce.

With her lips pressed into a thin, grim line, she triggered the release of Wild Abandon's lasso, and Jesse was in her head, helping her aim the superheated alloy.

It whipped over the cockpit, sunshine gold against a black and blue backdrop that had yet to be lightened by the approaching dawn.

The lasso shot from their grasp to sail towards the kaiju in an arc so graceful it would have made a ballerina jealous, and then it looped itself around Jaggerhead's rippling neck. There was a burst of steam from the point of contact, and it screeched, knocking out lights and electricity for miles.

Keeping Jaggerhead's thrashing head within his sights, McCree yanked on the rope, tightening it in the hopes that it would burn all the way through to the spine, and crowed, "Let's show these old timers how it's done! What do you say, 'reeha?"

Fareehe surged forward, something untamed and feral causing her to bare her teeth and howl, "Ride 'em, cowboy!"

JESSE! What are you teaching my daughter?!

---

Shame flooded Hanzo at the sound of the ongoing battle coming through his earpiece. It had been his and Amelie's wish that they never be dragged into this fight

When he made to return to his platform – because alone or not, impossible or not, he still had a job to do – it was to find his omnic standing directly behind him. After the stress of the day, if the kaiju didn't kill him, then a heart attack surely would.

The ground shifted beneath their feet as the kaiju dragging them under altered its course, and Hanzo felt himself stumble. He reached out for a handhold, for something to steady himself, but his fingers touched nothing but empty air. Before he could fall, however, the omnic grabbed his arm, its grip too tight, bruising, but it kept him from falling, kept him from being dragged through the remains of Izanagi's glass visor and swept out to sea.

Its movements were silent. Its reflexes were lightning quick.

After muttering his thanks in his home language, Hanzo allowed his lips to quirk up at the sides with subdued mirth when he told the omnic, "In a different life, you may well have made for an excellent ninja." The machine jerked as though it'd been shocked, its grip momentarily growing painful before it abruptly released him. Hanzo stepped towards his platform, his mind already moving the past the omnic's strange behavior as it worked through every scenario that would lead to the Izanagi's freedom and the mission's success, but when he spared the machine a backwards glance, it had yet to move.

He fumbled with the cords he needed to secure, finding reattaching them frustrating and trying since he couldn't see his own back and thus was effectively doing it blind. He'd managed to get the one, but the others… He couldn't get the angle right. He could feel the friction between the metal fasteners as he clumsily tried to join them like an ache in his teeth, "Kuso."

Then the cords and wires were plucked from grasp by cold, slender fingers. Hanzo listened without comment to the omnic's bursts of harsh static while it fastened the attachments, somehow certain that he was being fervently insulted.

By the time it was finished, the neural load was overwhelming. Not even the supernovas exploding in his vision could compare to the damage ravaged upon his mind. It felt as though he was going to burst, and everything he'd ever been, every thought he'd ever had, would disappear in a blaze.

Until, unexpectedly, it eased. Not enough to free him of the pain or the pressure entirely, but enough for him to think, to feel, to move.

Ignoring the warmth dripping from his nostrils, Hanzo turned to his left to see that the omnic had attached itself to Amelie's platform. It still felt empty, like sharing mind space with a black hole, but it was unquestionably thanks to the machine's intervention that he was no longer paralyzed by the agony of bearing the neural load alone.

Its actions were confusing, irrational. The omnic had tried to throttle him within seconds of meeting him, yet now it was passing up chance after chance of letting him die. Could it be that it wouldn't be satisfied unless he died at its hands? Or was it simply prioritizing the mission over taking his life?

Realizing he didn't have time to ponder the omnic's motivations, Hanzo nodded his thanks, though he couldn't help adding with a smirk, "You are terrible at killing me."

In response, it did something very rude with its hands, startling a laugh out of Hanzo, though his amusement faded when his companion once more went rigid at the sound, hands still lifted in front of its chest. He'd almost forgotten that the omnic hated him, a rather dangerous misstep on his part.

Though he mentally cursed himself for unintentionally offending the only ally capable of helping him turn the tide, Hanzo shifted his focus to the tail wrapped around their vessel, "We need to get free of this thing."

With that one goal in mind, he and the omnic sank into a battle stance, each unconsciously mirroring the other. Some distant, quiet part of Hanzo wondered if it wasn't the Drift causing them to sync like this, but no – this went beyond that. Rather than a sharing of experiences, it felt more like a reawakening of something old, something ingrained, not in his mind, but in his body. In his heart.

---

"Are you just mashing buttons?"

Too busy pressing random buttons on the holographic screen floating in front of his face, Genji didn't bother turning to look at Hanzo. He already knew what he would see, brows knitted in frustration, a slight frown that would only grow deeper and more emphatic with time.

I am a state-of-the-art omnic or something, Hanzo I know what I'm doing.

He had no idea what he was doing. All he knew was the water level had reached Hanzo's torso, the leaks had turned into spouts and torrents, which meant there wasn't much time left before the cockpit would be completely submerged, which would severely diminish Hanzo's chances of surviving this.

And Genji could've punched himself in the face, because for some inexplicable reason, despite all common sense and a slew of excellent reasons for him to wish for his brother's death, not least of which being his current form…

He didn't want that.

With a cry like the screech of scraping metal, he furiously jabbed a button in the uppermost right corner of the screen, only to feel a sudden, phantom sensation of weight in his hands.

Staring outside the protective glass shield at the silver shurikens pulsing a soft green between Izanagi's fingers, Hanzo breathed an awed, "We have shurikens."

Yosha, we have shurikens!

Now, this was more like it. The kaiju caught wind of the change, however. Maybe it was a shift in the currents, or maybe it was the pulsing light the weapons emanated, but their motion came to a sudden halt as its crocodilian head twisted to face them. Then its body wrapped around them, choking, suffocating. Hanzo gritted his teeth against the surge of panic rising within him at the ghosting pressure squeezing his ribs.

As one, they drew back their arms, synthetic and organic limbs tensing with potential before releasing the pent-up power in an explosion of will. The stars shot from Izanagi's grasp, and just as they'd pictured it, sunk into the fleshy snout of their adversary. It reared back with an agonized roar that shook ocean floor, sending up clouds of sand to muddy the waters, but it wasn't enough to save it. Hanzo's arm darted forward, a motion which caused Izanagi to jam an open palm into the blubber coating the beast's chest. A building heat at the base of Genji's arm was all the warning he received before a blast of focused energy erupted from the Jaeger's hand, and though it didn't last long beneath the sea, the close range allowed it to carve a perfect, smoldering hole in the kaiju.

It was lucky that the wound was both fatal and cauterized, as the last thing they needed was its poisonous blood flowing into the cockpit.

Withdrawing Izanagi's arm from the corpse with a noise of disgust, Hanzo stared coldly at the remains of the fallen creature as its tail fell limp and its body began to drift into the distance. "That," he sneered, "was for wasting my time." And he slammed a fist down on the manual escape pod ejection, sending Amelie and Gerard out of any lingering damage as they were launched to the surface.

It was a glimpse of a side of Hanzo he hadn't expected to see, and while Genji couldn't honestly say he'd missed it, it was something of a relief to know that Hanzo was not quite as changed as he'd appeared.

After taking stock of the toll the kaiju's assault had done to his prosthetics with a withering glare, noting a black char that looked too similar to electrical burns to be a coincidence, Hanzo paused long enough to fill his lungs, before directing the Jaeger back to the Breach.

The young Swedish girl from earlier came back on the comm, sounding like she was hanging onto her composure by a thread. Apparently, the Rift was going to open again soon, and this time, the kaiju it released would be stronger than any other they'd encountered.

It was a testament to how close they were to putting a permanent wrench in the kaiju's plans for total global takeover that the hive mind was now sending out its best to stop them in their tracks.

For a while, Hanzo refused to speak. In fact, he made no attempt to even look at his copilot again until after they were standing on the edge of a smoldering X carved into the ocean floor. It'd taken them precious minutes to get there, what with their legs being mostly out of commission, but with the Rift closed, there was nothing to do but fill the gradually shrinking space in the cockpit with sound. "I am sorry you had to be trapped down here with someone you hate," it was sincere, honest, and tinged with regret, "but thank you for staying with me, regardless. As selfish as it is, I was… grateful for the company." His gaze darted to the sole remaining escape pod. It was nearly fully submerged now, rendering it useless for a human. "But if you stay now, I cannot guarantee that you will ever leave this place."

He stared determinedly straight ahead, while Genji tried to make sense of the chaotic emotions swirling, mixing, clashing within him. Where had this kindness been when he'd needed it? Why was Hanzo so willing to bestow this choice upon a stranger, a machine, but not his own little brother?

Had he truly meant so little to him?

But Hanzo was afraid. Though others would have missed it, the signs were clear to him, the hard set of his jaw, the tense line of his shoulders. It was a fear that bled through their connection, and with it, came a vivid picture of his own face, as it screamed at Hanzo to let him leave, let him go.

Let him live.

Straightening, Genji expelled steam through his vents. He would need time. To sort through the black, roiling hatred he still felt at Hanzo's betrayal, and the love for his brother that thrived despite it, its roots having grown too deep within him, become too entrenched in the very fabric of his soul, to be detached and devoured.

Hanzo owed him that much.

Genji recognized the exact moment when Hanzo realized he wasn't leaving, because the tension drained out of him in increments, the carefully constructed mask of indifference crumbling from the sheer relief of knowing that he wouldn't have to face the end alone. Then the Breach shuddered, expanded, and a creature with a head that was roughly the size Izanagi's entire body burst forth. It was sinew and muscle, built for speed, with flesh that rippled as it moved and yellow, bulging eyes.

Genji longed to bare his teeth at the monster, to glare into those huge, dilated irises and scream his defiance, but to his surprise, it was Hanzo's lips that curled into the very expression he'd imagined. Perhaps his side of the Drift was not so empty, after all.

He decided to test that theory, I am calling this one Doomfist. It is a proper edgy name for a final boss.

Hanzo arced a brow in response, but that could have meant anything. Maybe he'd left the stove on. Or maybe he was finally coming to grips with how utterly screwed they were. The possibilities were endless.

The kaiju shrieked, an earsplitting wail that rattled inside Genji's head. And he didn't have a squishy, organic brain for the sound to vibrate into mush. It was impossible to tell how badly Hanzo was affected with his helmet on, but a glistening crimson flowing freely from his nostrils made it clear that drawing out the battle anymore was not an option.

Massive jaws clamped onto the remnants of Izanagi's limbs, and it shook them, slammed down against the ocean floor like a dog playing with a chew toy. The water rushed over their heads now, which wouldn't have been a problem if the constant damage hadn't jammed Hanzo's oxygen supply.

Their holographic screens blinked red. An image of an oxygen tank on its last dregs flashed in the bottom corner, and Genji scrolled through the list of viable weaponry faster, no longer content to ignore the wealth of useful, Jaeger piloting information he'd been programmed with.

While he searched his internal database for something useful in close range, which was apparently asking for a lot when both of the pilots were snipers, Hanzo inputted a code, causing Izanagi's ribbon to whip forward and slice through the kaiju's chest, forcing it to loosen its hold on them.

Having realized it was the biggest break they were going to get, Genji decided not to waste it.

He slammed a palm down on the most recent addition to the Jaeger's arsenal, and the Izanagi responded by reaching over its shoulder to detach its spine, which straightened joint by joint into a rigid sword. A familiar weight in his hands, an extension of himself, his past and future entwined, soldered together into steel.

It was heavy, too heavy to bear alone, which was why it was so fortunate that he didn't have to. He felt Hanzo's strength join his, and through him, Amelie. He caught glimspes of smiling faces, snippets of late night conversations. Affection, acceptance, compassion, and a fierce desire to protect.

With their spirits joined in a roar of rage and defiance, they barreled through Doomfist's defenses to deal a final, fatal blow to its torso that cut into the shallow diagonal slash it'd been dealt before. Though it was difficult to tell with the clouds of Kaiju Blue obscuring their field of vision, the sensation of the blow tingled in Genji's palms. He was sure that their blade had severed the beast's spine, but just to be safe, he sliced a line across its throat. The flesh puckered, gapped, then split at impact.

Leaning forward to see through the haze, Hanzo squinted his eyes at all the blue. "I suppose I cannot fault you for being thorough." And a burst of white noise, drowned out by the alarms but still audible to those locked in the Drift, filled the cockpit like a startled laugh.

Then they gripped Doomfist by shoulders, and plowed the corpse into the Rift, allowing it to swallow them both.

---

The Kaiju Homeworld was cavernous, with every inch of available space occupied with fangs and claws and shifting shadows. Too many eyes followed them as they fell.

Hanzo's breaths were shallow, the cockpit completely submerged, but it didn't take much to fall. Anyone could do it.

Their minds were synced now, with Genji's own thoughts appearing to Hanzo as wordless impressions of panic, confusion, and worry, none of which he'd expected to come from the omnic that once tried to strangle him.

He tried to tell it to leave, because he was dying, because even though his oxygen had depleted to the point where black spots flashed in his vision, his hands still remembered the weight of the blade, the sensation of flesh splitting at the seams. Heart pounding in his chest, he struggled to remain in the present, where there was still one last task for him to complete.

No longer sure if he was speaking out loud or merely forming the words in his mind, Hanzo plugged in the self-destruct, set the timer for a minute, and grunted, "There's still time. Go."

He didn't expect the omnic to yank him off his platform.

It dragged him through the water, chattering angrily and hissing the entire time as a stream of bubbles spewed forth from its faceplate. When he refused to respond, however, the omnic gave him a frustrated shake. They were so close to the escape pods. The timer was nearly at zero.

Snap out of it, Hanzo! Are you a Shimada or aren't you?!

Hanzo blinked.

It sounded like-

But it couldn't be.

Forcing the entirety of his remaining energy to the forefront, Hanzo raised his head to look closely at the omnic with a mix of hope and fear in his dark eyes."…Genji?"

Upon hearing his name leave his brother's mouth, Genji froze, one pointed metal finger hovering over the release button for the last escape pod. There were so many things they needed to talk about, so much Genji needed to ask him - none of which he could do if he let him die now.

Snarling, he punched the release, and the escape pod flew upon, allowing him to stuff Hanzo in there. He went inside without resistance, which, if Genji knew anything about his brother, meant he was unconscious.

Refusing to let it end there, Genji squeezed in alongside him, brute-forced the door shut, and triggered the launch.

---

-we're not getting any readings off him –

- it could be the suit -

- he's not breathing -

Having gone offline for a second thanks to the shockwave, Genji hadn't anticipated the onslaught of worried comm chatter that would make it clear that, yes, he had survived, and no, he wasn't a pile of discarded scrap metal under the sea.

But something was still wrong. He was cramped, locked inside the escape pod with Hanzo, but there was no movement in the container besides his own, no wheezing, shallow breaths or grumbling. And, suddenly, all those fragments of conversation made a terrible kind of sense.

He kicked off the pod's hatch, sending it flying, then scrambled to an upright position so that he could rip the helmet off of Hanzo's head and toss it. This was expensive equipment he was ruining but he honestly didn't care, not when the world had been saved, the kaiju defeated, and his brother wasn't breathing.

Genji pounded on Hanzo's chest, willing him to cough, to groan, to complain. All he had to do was take a breath. Just one. It wasn't hard. It was the easiest thing in the world, even easier than falling.

And then a sudden convulsion wracked Hanzo's body, followed by his eyes shooting open as he sucked down a gulp of precious air. It was followed by a harsh coughing fit, and Genji sat back, giving him space as relief and exhaustion flooded him in turns.

"I thought you hated me."

He looked up at that, surprised that Hanzo remembered that particular revelation, and even more so that those would be his first words to him after they'd narrowly survived a nuclear explosion.

Too tired to move, Genji waved a flippant hand in an attempt to dispel some of the tense atmosphere forming between them. I thought I did, too. Guess we were both wrong.

This was it, then.

Well, better get it over with. Are you not revolted? He thought venomously, and watched Hanzo flinch. This body. I'm not even human, anymore, I'm –

Fake. A weapon. A monster.

Under the clear blue sky, rocked gently by the ocean in the pod they shared while gulls called overhead, he couldn't bring himself to finish.

He didn't have to.

Hanzo's thick, corded arms wrapped around him, and for a moment, Genji panicked, thinking he was being attacked, that maybe Hanzo had finally remembered that he had tried to throttle him a few days prior and decided to return the favor, but Hanzo's shoulders were shaking, his body trembling,

After tentatively resting a palm on his back, Genji worried that the tremors were a side effect of oxygen deprivation. It was an explanation that seemed so much more likely than Hanzo - stern, cold, collected Hanzo - weeping freely on his shoulder.

And little by little, the ice in his own heart began to thaw.

It's okay, anija. I am here... I am with you.

A thrumming in the air heralded the arrival of a helicopter with a cowboy hat sticking out of it that would take them back to base, though it was still far enough in the distance that Hanzo would have time to compose himself. And that was what they had now, wasn't it? Time.

But even knowing that, it didn't change the fact that things between them had been irrevocably changed.

Hanzo had friends now. A family that he'd chosen for himself.

A home.

How could he, an omnic programmed with the memories of his dead brother, possibly belong in such a warm and happy place?

"Will you stay?" Genji looked down to see Hanzo scrubbing at his eyes with the backs of his knuckles, his expression open and raw in a way Genji hadn't seen since they were boys. After dealing with a mask for so long, he'd almost forgotten that Hanzo was even capable of making such a face.

With a fondness for his brother that Genji hadn't expected to feel again, he thought with as much gentleness and sincerity as he could muster, I doubt you could get rid of me if you tried.

Floating not too far from them was a similar escape pod, its hatch torn off its hinges as their's had been. Hanzo glanced at the interior of the bobbing pod where his copilot rested, her chest rising and falling steadily, and then up at the omnic sitting on the edge. It waved.

Though the inside of his mouth tasted of brine and bile, Hanzo forced himself to swallow. "Is it - Is he also… like you?" Thinking back to how the omnic had hovered over Amelie, how eagerly it had agreed to protect her, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, he realized he already knew.

Once things settled down some, he planned on having a serious conversation with one Marshall Gabriel Reyes.

It wasn't long before they were all loaded onto the helicopter and en route to the Shatterdome, where a hero's welcome awaited them. Amelie woke up shortly before they landed, and Hanzo was at her side in an instant, taking her hand in his, letting her know that she was okay, that she was safe. Her startling yellow eyes focused on him, afraid. "Did we protect them?"

Hanzo stepped aside to show her McCree trying to chat up the pair of omnics sitting on the bench (it was a very one-sided conversation) while unbeknownst to him, Fareeha stood behind him, imitating his mannerisms with what had to be the silliest expression she could think of. Closer to the pilot's seat, Morrison snored softly on Ana's shoulder while he dozed. Zarya and Mei laid sprawled out on the opposite bench, a little beaten, a little bruised, but unquestionably safe.

Reassured, Amelie gave his hand a light squeeze before settling down into her cot with a tired smile. "Good answer."

---

A/N: A huge shoutout to everyone who read and enjoyed this little series within a series. I was so grateful for the support. It really made me want to do my best on this au.

Also, in other news, disteal has an amazing Gerard comic on tumblr which wound up inspiring some of the backstory seen in this chapter. As for Hanzo... not even canon can take the prosthetics headcanon away from me.