Chapter Summary: After being taken and experimented on by Talon, Hanzo has a few new features and some trouble adjusting, but that doesn't mean Genji is willing to let him hide away from the world forever. (Sequel to Mata Ashita)
A/N:
yurushite kure - please forgive me
okinasai - wake up!
yurushite kure
It became a routine for them.
Every morning, Genji entered Hanzo's room to rouse him for breakfast, and if, at first, he greeted him with snaps and snarls, his hackles raised as though prepared for an assault, then Genji patiently prompted him with memories and stories, often removing his visor so Hanzo could clearly view his face, see his scars, until something he said or did triggered a flood of recollection, and it was his brother - a man, not a beast - who sat before him.
Over time, those mornings grew more and more infrequent, as Hanzo grew accustomed to his altered appearance, though it took a significant amount of coaxing, as did convincing him to draw his bow once again. Never in Genji's life did he ever imagine that Hanzo, the top archer in the Shimada clan, would one day refuse to draw a bow.
Though Hanzo insisted upon being pressed that he did not need a bow to do battle, he also refused to wield a sword, leaving his claws as his sole weapon, which was an arrangement that not a single soul in Overwatch was comfortable with. Tearing apart men with his bare hands would do the former archer's mental health no favors, though some disagreed with it out of pity for their enemies. In their minds, not even the deadliest of their foes deserved to be rent apart by the sharpened claws of a dragon.
Those who had seen his carnage before also recalled the more feral, confused state he'd been brought into the compound with, the effort they'd expended every day to guide him back to sanity. Though his skills would almost certainly be an asset, they could not afford the risk of setting off a relapse.
There was a tentative balance regarding the archer at Watchpoint, kept between those who merely felt intimidated by Hanzo's unsettling beast-like appearance, a common sentiment shared among the novice members which his prickly and withdrawn demeanor merely exasperated, and those who sympathized with him, but believed that the potential of his being a sleeper agent or a spy was too great for them to ever call him a comrade. "Remember Amelie," they said, as if those who'd known her could ever forget.
To ease some of the tension, Morrison agreed to appoint a monitor to the former captive. And if that monitor, more often than not, was his brother, who wished to remain with him during his recovery, regardless, than he expected there to be no cause for complaint from any of the various parties, and when confronted, told them as much.
Genji understood that the ex-Commander was taking most of the heat from those in Overwatch who suspected that Hanzo was either compromised or too wild to be trusted, and was loath to ask for more from a man who was already doing everything within his power, but after weeks of walls and ceilings, Hanzo needed a change of scenery. More than that, he needed an outlet. Though he was doing his best not to show it, the frustration of remaining stationary and inactive for so long was becoming apparent in his conversations with those younger members of Overwatch who so often sought him out.
Their exuberance and indifference to his transformation made them tolerable, if not entirely welcome company. In any case, he made little to no effort to curb their enthusiasm, seeming more comfortable with their presence than with their predecessors. It was easier for him to sit back and allow himself to become lost in their energy, to let their harmless chatter wash over him without any fear of subtle barbs or thinly veiled suspicion.
More and more often, however, simple words tended to slip his mind when he ventured to converse, leaving him dangling in the middle of a comment regarding the new single Lucio had urged him to sample, or on the video game D. Va was currently obsessing over. To put it frankly, it embarrassed him. Though the young ones' opinion of him remain unchanged – never once did they regard him as though he were damaged or broken - Hanzo was convinced that his lapses, as they increased in frequency, would eventually lead to him losing this small bastion of acceptance that he had managed to find. This naturally led to more mistakes, until his words degenerated into deep, frustrated growls.
He would often regain the words he'd lost, if given time, but Hanzo was never one for patience. Despite their protests, Hanzo would quickly abandon their company to recover in the privacy of his quarters, where he stewed as he paced several steps back and forth, a distance roughly the width of the average cell. Unless he resorted to scavenging in the kitchen, there was no manner of sustenance to be had if he did not bury his wounded pride and resume his interactions with the others, but there was something about how little choice he had in the matter that rubbed Genji the wrong way.
Anywhere, even the den of your allies, could be a prison, as long as you were never allowed to leave.
Ever since his retrieval, Hanzo had chosen to dress himself in casual and loose yukatas. The coarser material did not tear so easily as silk when he pulled the fabric over his horns. However, for a man who had once been so fastidious in the care of his appearance, he made no effort to wear the garment properly. It slid carelessly off his shoulders, revealing his Shimada tattoos and scaled chest. While it wasn't unusual for Hanzo to wear his clothes loose, it usually served a pragmatic purpose. For instance, drawing back a bowstring and firing an arrow were much simpler tasks without any fabric to hinder the fluidity of the movement, but Hanzo hadn't worn a quiver in weeks.
Not since his first disastrous attempt to fire an arrow had led to the unintentional snapping of Storm Bow's string. "It is a sign," he'd said with a defeated sigh, and had refused to draw it since.
But Genji had not spent months attempting to find and free his brother so that he could allow himself to wither away behind the bars of a more comfortable cage.
With that in mind, he concealed himself within the shadows outside the Overwatch control center, internally perfecting his argument as he waited for the previous Commander to wrap up the meeting he was conducting. Once Morrison finally did step into the hallway, Genji silently trailed him, falling into step behind him as though he were the man's own shadow. He stopped in his tracks once the soldier paused, coming to an abrupt halt in the middle of the windowless, white hallway. He tilted his head, listening. "Alright, Shimada," Morrison announced gruffly, "out with it. I know you're there."
With a quietly amused chuckle, Genji stepped away from the side of the wall he'd pressed himself against and out into the open. "How is it that you sensed my presence, Commander?"
"I'd been expecting you to come around for a talk for a few days now. It's about your brother, right?"
"He's been here for weeks, Morrison!" Throwing a cybernetic hand out to gesture to the sunlight streaming through the window, Genji told him with an undercurrent of emotion roiling beneath his normally subdued tones, "You cannot keep him trapped within this building forever."
Morrison stiffened, still unused to being spoken to as though he were some ensign to be ordered around. Then he took a breath, forcing his muscles to relax as he mentally checked that mindset. Instead of acting on his first impulse, which was to aggressively defend his own decisions, a hold over from the old days, he simply told Genji the truth - that his brother still hadn't recovered. His pointed ears still twitched in agitation whenever the noise level at the base grew too high, his slitted pupils still tracked movement as though anticipating that they might turn on him at any moment. Morrison doubted the man even realized he was still doing it.
Neither of them mentioned that he would likely never recover fully.
Locked up, experimented on, and treated like an animal. Though Morrison may have had his doubts about the man, there was no part of him that believed he'd had it coming. All he had to do was take one look at the way the brothers looked at each and, even now, instinctively sought each other out for encouragement and reassurance, to know that their bond had survived an ordeal that would shatter most. It may have been broken, thinning and frayed at the edges, but they were rebuilding, little by little.
The very fact that the cyborg was standing in front of him now, petitioning for Hanzo's freedom when the man himself maintained silence on the issue, spoke volumes.
Morrison watched calculatingly as the ninja seemed to struggle for a moment. "I fear for him." The admission wasn't exactly the shocker of the century but the soldier held his tongue. "If he remains here without ever stepping foot beyond these walls, then how will he ever truly heal?"
It was a fair question.
The problem was that Hanzo wasn't his brother. There was no guarantee that they could send him off on an all expenses paid trip to Nepal and he'd come back with a shiny new attitude and his own Omnic teacher in tow. Chances were good that if they shipped him over to the Shambali in a crate, it'd take every monk in the temple just to get the stubborn idiot out of the box. "Does he even want to leave?"
"If he does not, then that is exactly why he must."
Frowning, the soldier considered that. Hanzo was accustomed to being imprisoned. It wasn't simply a matter of being introverted, as the small space was familiar to him now, even comforting. It was conditioning wrapped up with coping mechanisms, both of which would only strengthen their hold on him over time. "Alright, I see your point. But he carries a bow out there or it's no deal. Too many of my people won't go within five feet of the man, already. The last thing I need is for him to come waltzing through the front door with blood in his teeth."
Though he couldn't see Genji grimace beneath his mask, he knew the cyborg well enough to recognize a flinch when he saw one. "He will also continue to be monitored. I trust that you are up to the task?"
If Morrison had learned anything – and he liked to think that he wasn't entirely dense –it was that they could not allow their judgment to be clouded by suspicion and fear, especially fear of their own. Overwatch was created in the hopes of subduing those who would lock a man up for months on end, not to emulate them. Even so, that did not mean Morrison believed in trusting blindly. Yes, confining Hanzo to Watchpoint after the man's experience with Talon was borderline inhumane, but that didn't mean the possibility of embedded, latent programming was zero. The more you felt for Talon's victims, the more your heart bled for them, the more they could be turned against you.
And so, it was as the cyborg bowed his head in gratitude, his cybernetic form already taut with the anticipation of telling his brother the good news, that Morrison resolved to he wait, and watch, and see how this played out. And then, once all the pieces had fallen into place, he would do what had to be done.
One could say that the fluctuating state of 's quarters was due to the multifaceted nature of the girl herself. Though she had a tendency to stream through the night, powered on nothing but the fumes of sodas and energy bars past, there was no denying the crispness with which she folded her pink sheets over her twin-sized mattress, or the precision with which she dropped clothes into her laundry basket. Beneath the superficial squalor of the caffeine addict's latest all-nighter was a military-esque discipline, and beneath that, was a fun-loving teenaged girl.
When Genji stepped into her quarters, she and Lucio were both seated with their legs crossed on the floor, a game controller in their laps while they focused on outdoing the other on the pixelated racetrack their avatars traversed. A smirk crawled up the musician's cheek as his green dinosaur nearly pulled ahead, but 's prehistoric spiked turtle tossed a shell at him, causing Lucio's brief moment of triumph to wink out as his racecar careened off the track.
Instead of continuing to observe as the pair began to bicker, Genji turned around the corner threshold to see Hanzo sitting atop 's comforter, several stacks of thin, colored paper in his hands while he struggled with the folds. Beside him was a pile of torn and punctured sheets, each of them an aborted attempt at recreating the paper animals he once used to make so effortlessly.
Immediately after Hanzo felt his gaze on him, his concentration slipped, causing him to accidentally impale the half-completed crane on a long and curved claw. Snarling, he tore the sheet off his finger and tossed it aside.
Hearing that, Lucio sighed, "I've been telling him to start with something simple, like a frog or something, but the dude's got no patience." He waited for Hanzo to reply, or lob a crumpled up ball at him, only to tilt his head to the side with concern when the silence the archer was meant to fill stretched on indefinitely. "Shoot," he glanced over his shoulder to spot the long suffering look Hanzo had aimed his way. "Did we hit our word quota for the day, big guy?"
Rolling her shoulders back as she popped her gum, casually chimed in without taking her eyes off the screen, "Nah, he's just frustrated and it makes it hard to focus. Give him a minute. It'll come back." Interestingly enough, Hanzo appeared to be both please and annoyed by their understanding.
It was a strangely domestic scene to walk into, a microcosm of a family given the time to grow by Hanzo's weeks of recovery and recent stationary lifestyle. Although he'd never say it aloud, Genji couldn't help but feel that not everything that had come as a result of Hanzo's capture was terrible. Forcing a cheer in his synthetic tones that he didn't necessarily feel, Genji announced to the quiet room, "I have good news, nii-san. You've been cleared to go on a mission."
Hana's head whipped to face him like it was spring-loaded. "Is it a solo mission? Because if it is, I'm going with him."
"That defeats the purpose of a solo mission, Hana." After putting the game they'd been in the middle of on pause, Lucio plopped the controller in his lap, before leaning back on his arms with a cocky grin, "And you can count me in, too."
Genji did his best to calm them down before they could decide to stow away on their plane or something equally drastic. "Of course he's not going alone. I'll be with him." He watched as the tension gradually seeped from their frames. "And it's a surveillance mission. At most, we'll be gone three days, then you can fuss over him and pester him for the details as you see fit."
A noisy crinkling drew their attention back to the mattress, where Hanzo had once again picked up his pile of paper to attempt another origami fold. After tracking the folds for a time, Genji recognized the beginnings of a paper lily. Unfortunately, Lucio hadn't been wrong when he'd said his brother was too impatient, as it wasn't long before the petals were impaled and Hanzo was agitatedly flicking his hand to shake them off.
Having kept an eye on his progress through her peripheral while she and Lucio restarted their match, commented with an offhandedness that came across as too deliberate to be sincere, "You know, you'd have an easier time if you'd let me file those bad boys down."
Shaking his head, Hanzo snapped his thumb and fingers together sharply in a gesture Genji had only ever seen among the Nepalese monks who'd either sworn silence or lacked the ability to communicate through speech.
Before he could ask about it, however, preempted him, saying proudly, "I've been teaching him some of the ASL I picked up on my old base. It'll help some if something like this happens on a mission."
"His Japanese and Chinese seem to stick with him, though," Lucio added.
"Well, we started learning English when were older, maybe eight or nine. Japanese and Chinese were taught simultaneously, as well as the basics of our ninja training."
Hanzo sighed, then with a mischievous spark in his gaze, pointed at Genji and mimed a roar, along with several other gestures that the cyborg couldn't begin to guess the meaning of. Hana snorted first, amusement quirking her lips into a smile, and Lucio outright snickered.
Since Genji was waiting for an explanation, Lucio helpfully explained as he wiped a tear from his eye, "He says you were a monster that terrified the teachers so badly they had to tie you down."
After making a mental note to learn the basics of sign language (he was fairly certain that both his master and Dr. Ziegler would be willing and able to help), Genji turned to face his brother with a wounded, "Et tu, anija?"
At first, Hanzo's expression fell in blank surprise, his head tilting quizzically to the side in a mannerism that mirrored his own, causing Genji to briefly and silently panic that he hadn't made it clear enough that he was kidding. Then, impossibly, a toothy grin began to stretch over his features, familiar as an oft-remembered dream and entirely unrepentant.
The four of them glanced up at the ceiling when Winston's voice announced over the loudspeaker that they were each being called to report for a mission update.
Once everyone was seated in the conference room, Winston pulled up a hologram of a globe on the table. On it, a pulsing red dot could be seen over Moscow. Reports claimed that the Russian mob had formed a base of operations in an abandoned storage warehouse near the Moskva River.
They waited patiently for the archer to speak, as most had made a conscious effort to allow him the chance before looking to others to do so in his stead, and Hanzo wetted his lips, hoping that the sound would come, "Mondai nai."
Low, rough, and not exactly the language he was aiming for, yet so much more than he was once capable of. Even so, Hanzo winced at how unpolished and strange the words of his native tongue sounded coming from his altered vocal cords.
"He says it ain't gonna be a problem," the outburst came from McCree, who turned to meet the eyes of everyone who turned to face him without any shame and, in fact, puffed out his chest with pride. "I've been studying."
Due to a wealth of practice with prioritizing necessity and speed over comfort, Hanzo and Genji each had their bags packed and were ready to depart within in the hour.
They'd already said their goodbyes to the majority of Overwatch, which meant that their farewell party consisted solely of Hana, Lucio, Tracer, and their newest teammate, a young and exceptional scientist named Mei. She'd been frightened of Hanzo at first and had thus taken to avoiding him during her first few weeks on base. It wasn't until they'd discovered a shared love of tea that they'd found a bridge with which to conquer that fear. Ever since then, they'd taken to spending the early mornings together, each with a mug in their hands as the sun rose and colored the sky.
Having calmed down significantly now that the promise of fresh air and activity was so near, and perhaps because he found interacting with the younger members much less stressful than dealing with the older veterans, Hanzo discovered that speaking came more easily to him now. Hiking his bag on his shoulder, he placed a clawed hand lightly on the young scientist's shoulder, and said, "Mei?" She looked up at him with a fond smile while he attempted to formulate his thoughts. "Try not to do anything reckless while I'm gone." It wasn't precisely what he'd meant to express, but he hoped that she would understand.
And judging by the way her smile brightened and grew, she did.
A sharp tug on his ponytail showed what thought about his apparent lack of confidence in their ability to go three days without blowing something up in his absence, though he was actually more worried that Hana would take advantage of the opportunity to stream non-stop for 72 hours.
"Don't you worry your pretty little head about us, luvs." Tracer assured them with a quick jab at her chest before her arms outstretched and she managed to hook Mei, Lucio, and into a squeezing embrace, "We're professionals."
After disentangling himself from her spaghetti limbs with a chuckle, Lucio straightened up and added confidently, "Ain't no trouble we can get into that we can't get ourselves right back out of."
Through their combined efforts, their assurances did approximately nothing to lessen Hanzo's concerns. He turned to Genji for moral support, only to see his brother had shifted his body away from him in an ultimately fruitless attempt to conceal his amusement. Though a hand lay over his mask to conceal to the sound, Hanzo could tell that his shoulders were jumping slightly with the laughter he was trying to hide.
Another, gentler tug on his hair pulled his attention downwards, resulting in him coming face-to-face with Hana Song, who was wearing a surprisingly stern expression that didn't quite match her youthful features, "Watch your six out there." Then she released him, her eyes drifting to the outside where the helicopter awaited their boarding. "When you get back, you and I are going to have a girl's night. Your locks are in desperate need of some serious TLC."
It was the closest to a 'Come home safe' that Hanzo was going to get from her, and he nodded to show that he understood. When she finally stepped back to rejoin the others, her eyes were suspiciously wet. For someone so young, she was far too inured to the idea of losing the people she cared about, but neither of the Shimada brothers had any plans of dying. Not when there was a family waiting for their return.
As they made their way to their transport, Genji slipped effortlessly into their native language to say, "What happened to you? You've always had the conversational skills of a cardboard box, and now it's like you're Mr. Popular."
Hanzo grunted. "I fail to see how my social inequities have anything to do with paper goods."
It would be some time before they could effortlessly trade barbs again, yet it was only a second before Genji accused with a tone of naked disbelief, "You're messing with me."
A smirk tugging at his lips, Hanzo walked several steps ahead. "Perhaps."
It was good to know that some things didn't change.
Their transport was designed to take them from Gibraltar to an estimated 3 miles outside of Moscow so as to call as little attention to their arrival as possible. Normally, this would mean they would have to navigate the remaining distance, a task made only minutely more difficult since Russia was in the middle of its winter, but then again, when wasn't it?
Despite installing a self-heating feature in Genji herself to keep his fuel lines and joints from freezing in inclement weather, Angela had packed Genji a suitcase worth of coats and jackets, which were to be shared with his brother since no one knew how the alterations to his body would react to the extreme cold.
Not caring for his appearance when there was a chance of what little flesh he'd retained over the years getting frostbite, Genji pulled first McCree's jacket over his head, then Morrison's, and briefly debated wearing Reinhardt's coat before trying it on revealed that the garment hung to his knees.
He didn't take it off fast enough to keep Hanzo from noticing him wearing it. His golden eyes widened. "You look ridiculous."
"You look ridiculous," Genji retorted sulkily, but Hanzo just waved him off with a subdued exhalation that could have easily been misconstrued for a laugh.
Genji put his foot down when Hanzo tried to leave the transport without a jacket. Their heated debate had stopped just short of being an argument when Hanzo at last agreed to wear a coat that, as far as he could tell, hadn't belonged to any of the other members of Overwatch previously. It was navy blue with a silver trim, and filled with downy feathers that began to capture and store his escaping warmth the instant he put it on. Before he could ask about it, Genji said, "Angela noticed you didn't have any winter wear and bought that herself."
Hanzo shifted until the coat settled over his torso. It fit perfectly. "That's going above and beyond her duties as a medic, isn't it?"
"Perhaps," Genji allowed. "But you know as well as I that she is more than that."
Once that was done, they activated the transport's camouflage device and lowered the hanger door, after which the freezing temperatures slammed against their bodies like a physical blow.
Even with the extra layers, the cyborg's movements became stiff and slow not long after they entered the unprecedented blizzard, and Hanzo wasn't doing much better. He couldn't smell anything, couldn't see anything, had no way of knowing if they were even going in the right direction.
He felt as the cold seeped into him without resistance. He was so used to adapting well to the cold, as though he'd been born with his own internal heat source, that he'd only ever superficially considered the possibility that the experiments done on him might have changed that.
Despite the deadly chill sinking its fangs into him, his body didn't seize or shiver, his teeth didn't chatter. It was concerning to say the least, but as he could see that Genji was struggling as much as he was, if not more so, he opted to keep the information to himself.
"Did it not occur to Winston that there were agents better equipped to complete this mission?" Hanzo managed to grit out after a time. Everywhere he looked, all he could see was a neverending expanse of white.
"Well, you could say that surveillance missions are kind of our thing. And the blizzard was a surprise –" The ground beneath his feet groaned and creaked. They looked down to see a clear surface beneath the snow, something too thin to be ice. There were spider webs cutting through it, followed by a resounding crack, and the ground beneath Genji shattered, but Hanzo was already running towards him. He flung himself over the glass sheet to latch into his brother's limb before he could be sent hurtling dozens of feet to the bottom of whatever buried building they'd stumbled upon.
For once, Hanzo was grateful for his scales, as they kept the glass from cutting in his palm as he did his best to brace the frame with one hand and hold onto his brother with the other.
"This glass won't hold us for long. I'm going to swing you towards the wall. See if there is something you can grab onto."
Genji looked up at him, and Hanzo couldn't make out his expression past the green visor, but he wanted to, just to see if it were anywhere near as hopeless as his words, "Even for me, anija, the walls are too far to reach."
But this wasn't about Genji's strength or speed or agility – it was about Hanzo's. And Hanzo was stronger than he'd ever been. And so it was with a grunt and a roar that he launched the cyborg at the closest wall, where he could make out railings and different levels, the way there was in a shopping mall. He watched the cyborg arc through the air, only to land hard on the railing that he'd aimed for, hard enough to bruise but hopefully not hard enough to break any parts.
Hanzo allowed himself a sigh of relief before he felt the glass give and the snow-covered escalator below came rushing up to meet him. There was a shout, followed by a green streak of light, and he was plucked out of the air, carried in his brother's arms. Genji used the momentum he'd gained from pushing off of the second floor balcony to take them to the first, and from there, he guided them to the ground, where he quickly set Hanzo on his feet.
Letting his knees crumble, Hanzo collapsed to the tiled floor, and was soon joined by Genji, as they each tried to come to terms with how close they'd come to death on a simple and easy surveillance mission.
Once their breathing had evened out and the majority of the shakiness left by their rushing adrenaline had subsided, Genji managed to stand up to get a better grasp of their surroundings. It was a mall, like he'd suspected, and completely abandoned. There were broken windows and clothes littering the floor, as well as what appeared to be what remained of a frozen Omnic peeking out from the snow. Something told him that if he looked too closely, he would find more bodies of a similar nature, and possibly some human corpses as well.
Following his gaze, Hanzo growled at the deactivated automation, then dismissed it with a sniff, as it was hardly a concern at the moment. They managed to scavenge enough supplies to build a fire a good distance away from the hole they'd left in the ceiling, and decided to wait the storm out rather than risk getting lot again.
Though most of the food was either already taken or gone bad, Genji found some chips in a vending machine by the bathrooms and brought back an armful of the packaged goods for them to share around the crackling flames.
For a time they didn't speak, only stared vacantly at the ever shifting shapes of the fire chasing away the worst of the cold, then Hanzo cleared his throat to ask, "Do you think we would have been close?" Confused, Genji waited for him to explain what he meant, and Hanzo clarified that he was talking about what they might have been like if they'd never been born into the Shimada clan.
Scooting a little closer to his brother, who Genji now noticed was beginning to look a little pale, Genji said, "I mean, I would have hung out with you."
A disbelieving scoff escaped Hanzo's lips, but Genji insisted, "It's true! You were cool, Hanzo… Especially when you weren't trying to be who the Elders wanted you to be."
Allowing himself a moment to process that, Hanzo tipped back his head to stare up at the storm raging outside. "I doubt I would have hung out with you, though." When Genji made a small, offended noise, Hanzo hastily elaborated, "You always beat me in the arcade."
"I was the only one who could! Even now, you still can't-"
"Will you be okay in this weather?"
Due to his reeling a little from having his rant cut off before he could even properly get started – though it was such an old argument that Genji could have rehashed it in his sleep – Genji needed a minute to reorient himself. "I should be," he said steadily. "Raising my core temperature prevents any priority systems from freezing," he didn't miss the way his brother flinched at the reminder of how little remained of his original body, "though it also significantly drains my internal power source. I could minimize power consumption if I mediated, but…" He trailed off, unsure how to finish.
Hanzo merely shifted away from him with a tired sigh, "Do what you have to do, Genji. I'll keep watch."
Genji woke from his trance in darkness.
Judging by the lack of embers in the makeshift pile of flammable objects they'd gathered, the fire had gone out long ago, and curled up a few feet from it was Hanzo, his knees pulled to his chest in a desperate bid for warmth. Seeing his older brother sleeping when he should have been keeping an eye on their surroundings and maintaining the fire, Genji felt a spark of irritation light within him, though he quickly tamped it down, for he knew well how such emotions could blind one to the truth.
Once his mind was clear of the filter of the past that sometimes clouded his vision when he was with his brother, Genji realized that something was wrong. The rise and fall of Hanzo's chest, though visible, was too shallow to be natural, and the interval between them too long.
He scrambled over to him, fearing the worst, and began to shake him. "Hanzo? You need to wake up." Still nothing. Not even a twitch. Unsure of what to do, Genji put a little more force into the shakes,"Okinasai, nii-san!"
Finally, when Hanzo showed no sign of stirring, he sat back on his hind legs and rested his head in his hands. They should have suspected that something like this would happen. All of the reptilian features, the serpentine pupils – he'd thought Hanzo's stillness had meant he wasn't cold enough to shiver, that his internal temperature was keeping him in a healthy stasis. Not once had he suspected that there was no internal temperature, or that every second without an external heat source was leeching the very warmth from his blood.
Without any other recourse, since there was no way to contact Gibraltar with the storm still in full swing, Genji peeled off his addition layers, pulled them over Hanzo, and then increased the settings of his own internal heating system to as high as it could go without the risk of an immediate meltdown. He hoped that the additional clothing would allow for the warmth to seep through more gradually, as he didn't want to accidentally burn him.
Within ten minutes, Hanzo's eyelids began to flutter, revealing golden irises with a worrying bluish tinge. By that time, Genji was burning, yet he kept his voice level and free of strain as he asked his brother simple questions about who and where he was. Initially, Hanzo found it difficult to focus, and he nodded off several times before consciousness stuck, and with it, lucidity.
Golden eyes widened with panic upon recognizing the source of the heat penetrating his layers of clothing, because every joint, every inch of his cybernetic brother was spewing geisers of steam into the frigid air. After pulling away from Genji's grasp to get a better look at them, Hanzo muttered in horror, "What have you done?"
"Actually," Genji slurred with a punchiness that spelled trouble, "I'm pretty sure I'm well done."
"Turn it off," Hanzo hissed, grabbing him by the shoulders. "I am fine now." And then not even waiting for a response, he began coating his brother with snow in an attempt to force his mechanical body to cool. It was frustrating to watch how quickly it melted upon contact with the searing metal, but eventually it began to take longer stretches of time, and the plumes of steam began to falter, and the horrible whirring and grinding noises emanating from within him began to quiet.
Once they were both out of danger, they slumped against each other, too exhausted by the two-fold ordeal to move. After a while, Genji dragged a palm over his visor, before venting some of his frustration by tilting his head back to the ceiling and complaining loudly, "Who leaves a shopping mall buried under the snow, anyway?'
Thinking back to the Omnic parts they'd glimpsed within the stores, Hanzo guessed, "Perhaps someone who has no interest in unearthing a graveyard."
Not long after, a single ray of sunlight streamed through the glass above them, and they looked up to see that the storm had calmed considerably. Not wanting to risk another fall, through ice or glass or other, they strapped tennis rackets to their feet to help distribute their weight, though not before Hanzo attempted to force Genji to take McCree's and Morrison's jackets back. In the end, they compromised.
Hanzo kept McCree's jacket, as well as his own, while Genji wore Morrison's coat. Once they set out, it didn't take them long to regain their bearings and find the town, especially now that their vision wasn't being obscured by the blizzard. When they reached the warehouse, however, it appeared to be abandoned.
They searched the entire perimeter without once exposing their presence, and yet there were no footprints in the snow, no tracks of machinery or indentations left behind by cargo. It was as though the place had never been inhabited to begin with.
His anxiety rising due to the eerie silence of the deserted building, Hanzo readjusted the slender practice bow he'd brought for the mission, feeling foolish even as he did so. He'd only brought it to appease Morrison, after all. He couldn't even nock an arrow without cutting the string with his claws.
Gesturing to the warehouse, Genji tilted his head, "Do you think we should go inside?" Technically, they'd already scouted the place, yet the mission wouldn't feel complete if they didn't make absolutely certain that this wasn't some ruse or elaborate cover-up. The probability of such was unlikely, but as the agents responsible for this mission, it was a matter of pride that they be absolutely sure.
Without a word, Hanzo strode over to the metallic shutters nailed to the sides of the warehouse and began to climb to the top. Genji followed, and soon they reached a small rectangular window just below the roof that they could slip into without drawing attention to themselves. Once they were in, they blended seamlessly among the rafters, with Genji making sure to dim his vibrant green lights…
And then they looked down.
And there was Reaper, standing in the very center of the building with his shotguns resting idly at his sides. Simultaneously, the brothers realized what should have been obvious before they'd even stepped foot on the grounds – there had never been a Russian mob in the warehouse. There had never been a criminal operation, or rumors, or anything of the sort.
There had only ever been Reaper waiting for them in an empty warehouse. This wasn't a mission. It was a trap, and they'd nearly lost their lives so that they could walk right into it.
"I know you're there, Shimadas," the wraith called up to the ceiling while the brothers sank further into the shadows. "I can practically taste your fear."
A low, subdued growl emanated from behind Genji. He glanced over his shoulder to see that Hanzo's eyes had gone glassy with remembrance, and his claws sank into the beams from which he braced himself. He was there, and yet, he wasn't. Some part of Hanzo was back in a cell, staring with hatred and dread at his captor. Reaching back, Genji attempted to give his hand a reassuring and grounding squeeze. "Stay with me, nii-san." Hearing his voice, Hanzo's gaze swiveled to find him, and beneath his visor, Genji smiled, "I need you here."
"What were you thinking, Shimada?" Reaper continued, ignorant of their brief exchange. "That you could escape and rejoin society while looking like a freak?" Without a word, Genji turned his attention back to the opponent below them, "After what they did to you, Talon's the only organization left in the world that could possibly want anything to do with you."
And Genji knew he was being baited, knew that the reason the wraith had chosen to confront them alone was because he was simply that confident in his ability to overtake them, but when he thought back to those first few weeks his brother had spent locked in a cell because he'd forgotten what it meant to be human, Genji realized he didn't care. After dropping from the rafters to land solidly on the earth with his fist planted in the ground, Genji's head snapped up to meet the hollow-eyed gaze of the wraith as he climbed stiffly to his feet, "That's enough, Reyes."
Twirling his weapons idly, Reaper glanced around, clearly anticipating another arrival, before finally settling his gaze on Genji."I was hoping for the real deal instead of the cheap cybernetic knock-off," he shrugged, "but I guess you'll just have to do."
And then there was a second presence beside Genji, this one almost more beast than man. With his fangs bared in a guttural snarl and his long ears pinned against his skull, there was no mistaking Hanzo's feelings on seeing his old warden again. Still, though he yearned to tear into the wraith's cloak with his claws, out of respect to his brother, he took a step back, and nocked an arrow instead, "You will not touch him."
Reaper laughed, the sound like bones scraping against stone, "The only threat to him here is you. Left to your own devices, one day you'll finish what you started."
Though Genji's katana was raised, the words of power that would call upon his dragon sitting heavily on his tongue, Hanzo lowered his bow, "Genji is not a child. If he asks me to leave, I shall." He glanced over at his brother. "I will not impose my presence where it is not wanted." Then aimed his arrow once more at the wraith's chest, and this time with a steely resolve he hadn't possessed before. "But it is not up to me to make his decisions for him."
At that, as if they'd rehearsed it, he and Genji split apart, Hanzo sprinting for a vantage point while Genji raced forward to get within Reaper's guard, and even as the mercenary fired off shells at the neon afterimage trailing his brother as he repeatedly struck with his blade, he mocked Hanzo for distancing himself from the battle, "Are you so cowardly that you would allow the man you nearly killed to fight for you?"
A shotgun blast caught Genji squarely on the chest at the same time that Hanzo fired off a scatter arrow. The blow lifted him from the ground, and as though in slow motion, Hanzo watched in horror as he was propelled backwards and slammed against the wall with enough force to rattle it. When he dropped to the ground, he made no move to get up again.
Rushing from the shadows, Hanzo fired off several explosive arrows at the wraith, each of them aimed for the Talon agent's torso. Though the first passed through the mercenary without harming him, the second he tried to catch, and it exploded in his face. While he cursed and snarled, Hanzo placed himself firmly between the mercenary and his brother, knowing that he would die to protect him if it came to it, but also that he was no longer the only person in his life whom he wished to protect. There were people waiting for him to return safely, and he was going to do absolutely everything in his power not to disappoint them.
The wraith turned to smoke that swirled and twisted without form, and Hanzo tracked its path, his lips curled and a deep growl reverberating within his chest. It wasn't enough, though, because without warning, he felt the bow plucked from his grasp, "Why do you try so hard to fight like a man?" In a desperate bid, Hanzo ducked within the wraith's guard to retrieve the bow, only to watch helplessly as the mercenary's legs dissolved into mist, allowing him to effortlessly drift out of his range. His next move was to slam the bow over his knee, cracking it and rendering it useless.
Enraged, Hanzo made to swipe at him. The reaper laughed at him. As though reading his thoughts, he sneered, "Who can you protect with those deformed limbs of yours?"
And Hanzo didn't know. He was fighting a ghost, running on fumes, and he didn't know. But he couldn't stop, couldn't rest. There was no telling what would happen to Genji if he did. A groan from behind him let him know that Genji was at least waking up. Seeing that his attention was divided, Reaper followed his gaze to the cyborg, then asked with a deceptive nonchalance, "Tell me something, Shimada, if his blood were to fall on your hands again, could you survive it?"
Snarls ripped from Hanzo's throat at the threat. He lifted his clawed hands, fully intending to tear the wraith to pieces with them.
"Get away from him!"
The wraith glanced at Genji where he still laid horizontal, though he was struggling to sit up, then with a malice dripping from his words that sent shivers crawling up Hanzo's spine, he confessed, "I don't think you could." And a smoke bomb fell from Reaper's cloak, allowing him to dissolve seamlessly within the billowing gas. Hanzo whipped his head around wildly, listening for anything that could give away the wraith's presence. There was movement and a flash and his claws went out-
And the smoke screen part to reveal Genji impaled on his hands.
Hanzo froze, his mind going utterly blank.
"You see?" The reaper intoned while Genji groped clumsily at his fingers in an attempt to free himself. Circling them, the wraith continued, "You belong with us, Hanzo. You were made to destroy."
"…no."
Did Hanzo say that? He wasn't sure. There was a buzzing in his head, so loud he couldn't think, and there's blood on his hands, drenching his gi. It dripped from his blade no matter how much he cleaned it, until he was forced by guilt and ghosts to put it away and never pick it up again.
He was a monster.
Seeing something in Hanzo's expression that frightened him, Genji redoubled his effots to free himself, begging, "Don't listen to him, Hanzo!"
But though Hanzo set him down gently and pulled his claws from his torso, there was no sign that he'd heard him call his name, no recognition. It was as though he couldn't see Genji at all.
He sidestepped Genji, who had a hand pressed against his stomach in an effect to stem the flow of the cooling agent within him, and tossed his quiver aside to join the discarded bow on the floor. Gradually, a subtle azure glow illuminated his tattoo, and though there was nothing left for him to channel the dragons with, the light traveled from his wrist to his arm, until finally the dragon's entire body was luminous and vivid, just waiting to come alive. A blue sheen spread over Hanzo's golden eyes, causing them to glow as well, and then he charged forward, his mouth snapping as he lunged for the reaper's throat, only for his jaws to close on fabric that dissolved to smoke between his teeth.
He slashed ferociously, forcing the wraith backwards, and when finally a scaled claw with a bluish aura curled around its tip caught the reaper's mask, it knocked the porcelain owl's head off the man, and revealed the reaper's true face.
Standing in a black and ragged cloak, was a man with tendons and muscles exposed at his jawline, and too many scarlet, unblinking eyes. In that moment, Genji had never been more convinced that Gabriel Reyes, former Commander of Blackwatch, truly was dead. After all, the man had been undeniably human, and this creature standing before them now… it wasn't.
Cursing under his breath, the wraith dissolved once more into smoke and fled into the rafters, leaving Genji with his brother, who had yet to calm down. There was no outlet for his rage now, no release for his power, and one look at the feral snarl distorting his features caused Genji's heart to sink, because it was the same look he'd worn when they'd first rescued him from Talon.
Somewhere, a window shattered, and before Genji so much as shout a warning, a needle had lodged itself in his brother's shoulder.
He fell.
A few hours later, Genji and Morrison stood outside the infirmary with their arms crossed over their chests, though for different reasons. For his part, Genji was understandably upset. He'd seen Hanzo injected with a dart, and assumed the worst. He certainly hadn't expected to see the solider stride into the warehouse with his pulse rifle drawn shortly afterward. "Did you have to carry tranquilizers with you?" He muttered, annoyance leaking in his tone despite his best efforts.
The solider shifted slightly to look at him, "Could you imagine if I hadn't?"
It wasn't that Genji wasn't grateful for the outcome, but the question was why Morrison had thought it necessary to bring them in the first place. Instead of mentioning that, though, he chose instead to apologize for the mission's failure.
Morrison listened without comment until he was finished, then let loose a heavy sigh. What others would age in years, he aged in seconds. "It wasn't your fault. Reaper had the mission sabotaged from the start. I should have known he wouldn't give up on retrieving the heir to a once powerful criminal organization without a fight."
And suddenly, the pieces shifted into place. "But you did know, didn't you? That's why you followed us."
The silence stretched for a while, neither of them willing to back down, before the tension finally drained from the soldier's posture, and he gestured to the clinic "Go check on your brother, Shimada. I'm worried that with this whole ordeal, we'll find we've taken one step forward and two steps back with him."
Their conversation wasn't over, not by a long shot, but what Jack had said struck a cord in the ninja, as he'd come to a similar conclusion on the flight home. After bidding the soldier a curt farewell, he stepped into the infirmary to see Dr. Ziegler working at her desk while Lena, Lucio, and Mei occupied the guest seats around his brother's cot, and sat partially on the mattress with her slender fingers entrenched in his brother's hair, twisting the locks into a neat braid.
They glanced up guiltily at his arrival, probably because he'd waited outside as Dr. Ziegler had asked instead of sneaking his way inside, but he was an adult and holding grudges was beneath them, so he filed the information away to use only in the case of emergencies, such as when he wanted a cup of coffee and didn't want to get up to prepare it himself. "Do you guys think I could have a moment to speak with Hanzo?"
Thankfully, Lucio understood the need for privacy and herded the rest outside, though Hana glared at the untied end of Hanzo's braid as though daring it to come undone in her absence.
Once they were out of earshot, Genji blurted, "I am sorry, anija. I did not expect-"
But Hanzo cut him off, "How are your injuries?"
With a hint of exasperation – because, honestly, which of them was sitting in the infirmary? – Genji replied, "They are fine, nii-san. It looked worse than it was."
And Hanzo instantly relaxed. "That is good to hear." A lull followed, during which neither of them spoke, but it wasn't uncomfortable like so many before it, only quiet. A slight change occurred in Hanzo's bearing during the duration. His claws hooked into his sheets, and his gaze found the window, and still, Genji said nothing, until at last, Hanzo told him something he'd thought he might never hear again, "Tomorrow, I would like to train with you."
"With your bow?" Genji said, just to be sure.
Hanzo nodded. "When I saw him, it was as though I had never left that place." His expression hardening, he finished, "I never want to be so helpless again."
Placing a hand lightly over Hanzo's, Genji scoffed playfully at the idea of him being anything even resembling helpless, because when had such a descriptor truly fit either of them? "And even if you believe it to be true, that is why you are a part of a team. Being around those you care for, and who care for you in return, has a way of turning your weaknesses into strengths." It had been true for him, and if the four waiting outside to resume their visit were any indication, then it was true for Hanzo, as well. "Talon may have changed your body, brother, but they have not changed your soul."
Glancing away and coughing in an effort to conceal the wetness in his eyes and voice, Hanzo asked, "When did you become so wise?"
"When I started listening to the wisdom of others." And to show the extent of his sincerity, Genji removed his visor, so that his brother could see the sincere warmth and gentle amusement wrinkling the corners of his eyes.
In truth, he'd never been prouder of his brother.