Chapter Summary: (OverRim au) In this alternate Pacific Rim and Overwatch au, the Shimadas join the Shatterdome crew after a sizable winning streak, but nothing lasts forever. Sometimes, the best way to hold onto something... is to let it go.
holding on
Pressing his lips together to suppress an exasperated groan, Morrison leaned over his desk, allowing the edge to dig into his chest as he began rubbing soothing circles into his temples, anything to stave off the threat of an oncoming migraine.
"We're not calling it the Sparrow," snapped Hanzo Shimada, the oldest of the Jaeger pilots from Japan. One would think that after a several hour flight across the Pacific, his long, nearly-waist length hair would not look so glossy, nor the dark eyeliner emphasizing the archs of his dark eyes to be so wholly unsmudged. Tuning out the squawked retort, "And why not?" from Genji, the younger brother and an entirely different animal, Morrison idly pondered what his secret was. Jack had a reputation to uphold, appearances to keep, and even he couldn't help climbing out of bed with the look of a man who'd crawled out of a laundry basket.
Sometimes, life wasn't fair.
The pilots had been alternating between English and their native tongue since their petty argument over the name of their Jaeger began, and the worst of it was, Morrison didn't actually think they were doing it to spite him. If anything, they seemed to have forgotten his very existence.
Hanzo, who'd thus far held his temper rather well, threw his hands up, "Because it only refers to you!"
"Yeah?" Genji frowned, his gaze narrowing as he flailed for an appropriate response. At the same, Morrison wondered if Gabe had raided his liquor cabinet again. There had better be some whiskey left or the man was going to buy him a goddamn bar. "Well, Lone Wolf is stupid!"
Settling back into his seat, Hanzo scoffed, "At least a wolf is a predator. If we name our Jaeger after a small bird, the kaiju will laugh themselves to death."
"See?" Genji gesticulated widely, nearly knocking over a paperweight and killing Jack's patience. "He's practically arguing my point for me!"
In Morrison's professional opinion, they were a pair of young punks. Rich kids from a wealthy background that, up until the day the kaiju tore through their home, had never had to deal with a real problem in their lives, not with their father funding their extravagant lifestyles, and still they'd been chosen for the Jaeger program. It didn't help that they'd achieved a solid victory from every battle they'd engaged in thus far.
As if he didn't have enough reckless hotshots on his team.
The boys were young – Genji had barely even been old enough to apply when he was accepted. Since Hanzo was in his early twenties, it made sense that he was generally more stoic and withdrawn than his sibling, which Jack had noticed as soon as they'd stepped off the helicopter. Unlike Genji, who'd immediately set to flitting about the base like a hummingbird on steroids, waving hello and making friends, Hanzo had been all business, asking only for the location of their quarters so that they could unpack their things. Beyond the most basic of formalities, he was a shut door, which made the ease with which Genji riled him up all the more surprising.
Fortunately, Morrison was here to train and deploy soldiers, not supervise children.
"It's already been christened the Shimada Dragon." He told them levelly, expecting some sort of protest from the pair. In the end, the pilots pulled faces that were nearly identical in their disdain, but refrained from voicing any complaints.
Feeling that headache coming on again, Morrison sighed. He bet Reyes never had to deal with this from the hardened pilots in the Blackwatch division. Well, with the exception of his latest recruit, but that boy was a special case.
Walking through the dome on their way to the loading deck, Hanzo could feel the eyes of the Jaeger engineers tracking them. It would be their first time working with this crew, most of whom he was sure couldn't speak his or Genji's native tongue, but they were fluent enough in English that he suspected it wouldn't be a problem.
For his part, Genji soaked up the attention like he'd been trapped under a rock for most of his life, which was ridiculous. Though they'd never been commissioned a Jaeger of their own until now, having instead piloted old or used Jaegers from either the few drifting pairs who'd retired or from those who'd left a salvageable Jaeger behind after their deaths. Unsurprisingly, both the latter and the former were few and far between.
Using those Jaegers had always felt like stepping into someone's shoes, and Hanzo knew that Genji was looking forward to piloting a mech customized to their drift, because he felt the same.
Idly, Hanzo watched him wave cheerfully at members of Shatterdome staff in their bright orange jumpsuits as they strode by. It seemed nothing, not even being woken in the middle of the night to fight a kaiju, could taper his boundless enthusiasm.
Back home, Genji always seemed to have his own gravitational pull, as he attracted fans across the globe with his odd hairstyle and charming personality. Talk show hosts tended to direct their questions to him more than his sullen older brother, which was just fine by Hanzo. He'd never coveted the crowds or the magazine covers, and honestly preferred to avoid public speaking if he could help it, but the constant drain of Genji's focus could be frustrating, as he never seemed to realize that their fame would last only so long as they kept winning. As nice as it was to be appreciated, none of it would matter if a city was decimated on their watch.
It often led to arguments between them. Arguments which had to be hashed out before they could drag them down in the drift. One of the main issues was that any training Hanzo received to hone his concentration and combat were instantly passed to Genji through the mental bridge formed upon their joining, which meant that, technically, Genji didn't need to do any of it himself, as he could simply siphon off of Hanzo's experience. And for the most part, Hanzo allowed it, though the end result was a stirring resentment which clung stubbornly to any knowledge shared between them.
Things were strained between them for a time, before Genji seemed to accepted the ill feelings as a part of the drift, and Hanzo learned to hold that part of himself back from the meld. It wasn't too hard to do. There were more important things to consider during a battle than such petty concerns.
See, Hanzo had never wanted fame, and what he did want, Genji couldn't give him. It was the way things were and he'd come to terms with that fact. So, no, he no longer envied his brother his free spirit. As long as the pair of them could survive this war, he would be satisfied. And if that meant shouldering the lion's share of the work so that Genji didn't get them killed, then so be it.
"…nzo?" Hanzo shook himself out of his reverie, and was unsurprised to see Genji leaning in closely to scrutinize him with his brows furrowed in concern. "If I didn't know any better," he said with a breezy flip of his wrist, "I'd think you were cheating on me with another drift partner, anija." When Hanzo didn't immediately reply with a snappy comeback, however, Genji made as though to check his forehead for fever, causing Hanzo to take a step back with a quick swipe to bat the offending palm away.
In the split second it took Hanzo to regain his bearings, a shadow flitted across Genji's expression, but before he could think much of it, Genji laughed. "Looks like you're fine." A siren wailed over the loudspeaker, resulting in an increase in worker activity, and a stream of orange bodies cut between them. Hanzo fought against the current, trying to keep up, but Genji merely smiled, giving a little salute as he continued on without him. "I'm going on ahead. See you in the cockpit!"
By the time the surge of staff had parted enough for Hanzo to squeeze through, he was gone, and Hanzo didn't know if he wanted to scream or tear his own hair out at the roots. There wasn't any point in Genji making his way up to the cockpit alone. He was going to have to wait for his arrival, anyway, so he might as well have helped him through.
For a moment, he stood still, seething, before taking the errant emotion and sealing it away with the others he'd deemed unworthy of the drift. A tingling sensation on the back of his neck told him he was being watched. Following the pull, he snapped his attention to a spot slightly above the Numbani Jaeger's front hoof. It was a vibrantly painted quadruped, with stripes of lime green circling the cuffs of its many limbs and metal horns, a barrel-shaped chassis, and the cartoonish head of a tree frog sprayed onto its torso. And there, behind its front knee, was a glimpse of tan fabric and a plaid patterned sleeve before the unwanted observer ducked out of sight.
Strange.
He strode briskly into the elevator, then jammed the button to close the doors with more force than was strictly necessary. This was exactly the kind of stunts Genji had pulled when they were kids. It would appear that not even an apocalypse could force him to mature past the mindset of a spoiled child. Well, if it was freedom from the family he'd wanted, he'd gotten it. Japan had been decimated by the initial wave of attacks. Most of the islands weren't even habitable, anymore. It hadn't been a death knell for the clan, but it had certainly changed their priorities. Rather than dealing with extortion, they'd dedicated every ounce of their remaining wealth and manpower to rebuilding the nation, for what was the point of controlling a land of empty streets and rubble?
There was simply no time to worry about a reluctant second heir. Hanzo imagined that after the kaiju were at last defeated and the rift was closed, Genji would be free to go and do whatever pleased him. It would have been naïve of Hanzo to believe that the brewing sense of resentment in their drift was his alone.
Yes, if Genji so wished it, they would never have to see each other...
A soft sigh escaped as he placed his hand on the cool metal wall, rested his forehead against it, then slowly curled his fingers into a fist. Condensation crept over his distorted reflection.
Suddenly, the elevator jerked, jolting Hanzo to alertness, and the sight which greeted him stole his breath away. Through the glass, he saw their Jaeger being prepped for launch at the docking pad. It was already hooked into its harness, and it towered over the workers doing their last minute adjustments and checks with the ambivalence and majesty of a god.
Green and blue streaks painted in dramatic angles around its tinted black visor gave it the impression of a gaze narrowed in challenge, while its body, which was lighter than the Australian team's Jaeger, yet thicker and sturdier than the Numbani, gave the impression of armor styled in the garments of their ancestors. Though it pained him to admit it, there was no small part of him rejoicing at the thought of doing battle in such a marvel.
Tentatively, he reached for his brother's consciousness through the remnants of their previous drift. It was fluttering and erratic, spiking with excitement and nerves in equal measure. Drawing back, Hanzo allowed himself a small smile. It seemed that they could still agree on something, after all.
Hanzo hadn't set foot in the disk-shaped structure utilized as a control center for more than a second before a young Numbani girl waved to him from the other side of the room. In a blink she'd gone from standing beside Morrison with a solemn expression as she looked over the shoulders of technician he was talking with to monitor the seismic readings on the radar, to deftly navigating her way across the room. Not even her co-pilot had realized she'd moved until she was already halfway across, and in the next blink, she was standing right in front of a Hanzo, a welcoming smile on her youthful face as she reached out to shake his hand. "Hello, Mr. Shimada. It's very nice to finally meet you." Taking in her pale flight suit, Hanzo realized that the girl could only be Efi Oladele, the youngest pilot and engineer in the Jaeger Program. Either that, or Morrison was desperate enough to start recruiting from elementary schools. He sincerely hoped it was the former.
Bending down slightly to meet her at eye level, Hanzo shook her gloved hand. Her grip was sure and firm. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Oladele."
Somehow, her smile widened, and she leaned with a conspiratorial whisper, " I know you haven't been here long, but did you happen to see Orisa?" It was possible. He'd certainly seen a Jaeger with horns that perfectly matched the objects hanging from the hoops attached to her headpiece, and he doubted it was a coincidence.
"Orisa?" Hanzo asked aloud, causing the girl to beam with pride. "Is that the name of your Jaeger?"
"Actually, Orisa's not just her Jaeger." Her copilot, having finally tracked her down, rested a hand on her shoulder. "Efi helped create her. Four legs for added stability will make it extra hard for those fish monsters to take us down in a fight." For the entire time he'd spoken so highly of her, Efi had regarded him with a starstruck gaze, which was only broken when Lucio bent down to tug playfully on her braids. "She's a smart cookie this one."
She swatted him away, grinning, "And centaurs are the coolest!"
There was short pause. Then with the air of someone imparting great wisdom, Lucio nodded sagely, "That is also true."
It would have been nice to speak with him, but outside, standing on a platform that led into the Shimada Dragon's cockpit, Hanzo could see his brother being prepped with the artificial spinal column used to latch them into their harnesses. Despite his usual devil-may-care demeanor, he seemed anxious, as his gaze never seemed to settle on any one face for long.
After politely excusing himself from their company, Hanzo began to make his way over to the bridge. Upon spotting him, Genji relaxed. "Oh, there you are, brother," he greeted with false bravado, as though he hadn't been sweating his absence a moment before. Running his fingers through his green spikes, he added, "What took you so long? We were just about to start without you."
"No, you weren't," Morrison cut in. It seemed he'd briefly left his post to see them off. "The strain of piloting the Jaeger alone would kill you." A stout engineer with a curly red beard inserted Hanzo's artificial spine into his suit, causing him to stiffen with a wince as it synced with his nervous system. It didn't help that Morrison slapped both him and Genji on the back immediately after. "Get out there, take it down, and then get back here in one piece. That's an order, gentlemen."
While they waited on their final suit preparations, Genji watched without comment as Hanzo tugged a hairtie off his wrist, placed it between his teeth, gathered his long locks into a tight bun, and then deftly secured it with the band.
Eventually, he broke the silence with, "Morrison seems like a bit of a stick in the mud, doesn't he? Remind you of someone?" They were each handed their black helments, which they prompted shoved onto their heads. The pair took a deep, cleansing breath, allowing the pure oxygen to inflate their lungs. It would take some adjusting to, but certainly not so much as it had the first time.
For a moment, Hanzo debated dredging up his memory of Genji panicking on the bridge, but eventually decided against it. It was enough that one of them was exceedingly petty. "One would think," he ground out, though too late for the retort to retain its intended edge, "you would know better than to antagonize those whose thoughts you will soon be sharing."
So briefly that Hanzo could almost convince himself he imagined it, Genji's perpetual grin faltered. When he looked again, though, there it was, as infuriatingly smug as ever. "Hey, it's not like your opinion of me could get any lower, right?" Their shoulder pads scraped when the cockpit door swung open, allowing Genji to shove past him.
Shaking off his astonishment at the retort – there was a time and place for such things, after all - Hanzo moved silently to his stand, latched his feet to the pedals that would sync him to the Jaeger's limbs, then grabbed onto the cold metal handholds. Once they were both secure, the cockpit was dropped down a shaft. Combining the ConnPod with its Jaeger always felt a bit like having your stomach drop on a carnival attraction, but thanks to experience and foreknowledge, the pilots were able to remain mostly unflappable during the process.
While they got their circular holograms and radar online, Morrison gruffly gave them a brief description of the kaiju. Glimpses of it by helicopters and satellites seemed to suggest that the creature had wings, as well as inky markings around its eyes and a hooked beak. Officially, it was designated Otachi, but had unofficially been dubbed Shrike due to its avian qualities, which wasn't all that amusing on its own, except Hanzo could feel a thrill of trepidation filter through the drift at the appellation, and he glanced sideways to see a slight look of alarm cross Genji's face. Switching to their native tongue, Hanzo couldn't help but tease, "Do not tell me you're getting superstitious, little brother."
Though he still looked unsettled, Genji mentally flipped him off.
"Neural bridge initiating," a voice taut with apprehension announced over the comm, though the man, presumably a scientist, hid it remarkably well, "in 3…2…1"
The forming of the neural link always hit like a sucker punch to the gut, and this time was no different. Memories of birthdays he'd attended flashed behind his eyelids at a furious pace, blending together into images of beaming children he vaguely recalled from the village, laughing adolescents he'd never seen, the warmth of a father he'd never known, and an older brother that slowly grew colder and more detached with time, as the recollections themselves shifted from warm, earthy tones to a wash of blues and greys. Not for the first time, Hanzo bit down on his inner cheek to keep himself grounded. It was disorienting even for veterans, seeing life through another's eyes, yet studies postulated that siblings suffered a reduced amount of strain, since a majority of the memories were shared to begin with, and if he could just make it through the initial tumultuous wave, as he'd done before, Hanzo was certain that it would even out, become bearable. Tolerable.
Ripples of confusion and frustration passed through the connection, along with the ever persistent ache of old, unhealed hurts, and the sharp sting of new ones. Forcing them together like this had been a mistake. The freedom Genji had craved his entire life had been snatched away from him the instant they'd proven to be drift compatible.
Sensing Genji's growing discomfort with the path his thoughts had taken him, Hanzo surreptitiously distanced himself from the topic, as though he'd simply decided to focus on the situation at hand. Their joining could so easily and effortlessly become an endless loop of negative thoughts feeding greedily off each other, if not for those small concessions. It's what allowed them to focus on the mission, on all the millions of lives that could be snuffed out if they were to fall now. No matter their hang-ups, failure was unthinkable, and on that, at least, they could always agree.
"The drift is steady and holding, Marshal."
They were separate and the same, parts of a whole. On their own, they were small, insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe, but in the Jaeger, they were giant. They commanded the sea and the lightning, and when the helicopters hooked their shoulders to lift them out of the hangar, the sky itself bowed to their will. There was nothing that was beyond them, no bonds that could hold them, and so when Genji threw his head back with an exhilarated yell, it was with an unchecked thrill that also ran through Hanzo, the rage and fury of a river bursting through the confines of a dam. He bared his teeth when the cords holding them aloft released, allowing them a brief taste of weightlessness before their legs plunged to the bottom of the sea with a jarring impact.
When they stabilized, Hanzo burst out with a raucous laugh, surprising both of them. Shifting in his harness, Genji flashed him a wide grin. "You ready to show this overgrown lump of sashimi what a pair of ninjas can do, anija?" Though he yelled over the howl of sirens and the reactor churning beneath them, it wasn't necessary in the slightest. With his words resounding within him, clear as fresh spring, Hanzo felt his own lips curl in wordless challenge, and saw Genji's do the same.
In perfect unison, they reached behind their backs to draw gleaming katanas from their sheathes and swung them forward, throwing colors from the pulsing illumination at their metallic edges over the ocean's roiling surface as they waited for their radar to pick up on the kaiju swimming below. "A location sooner rather than later would be preferred, guys," Genji called into the comm, his nerves drawn tight as the storm's deluge continued to hamper their vision. In an effort to help, and if not that, at least refrain from exasperating the issue, Hanzo inhaled deeply, calmly – steadying himself, and hopefully his brother, as well.
"It's close, Dragon." Morrison warned over the commlink. "Don't let it get the jump on you."
Taking into consideration that a creature capable of eating a bridge could come charging at them at any time, Genji understandably rolled his eyes.
Well, there goes our first plan.
Muscles tensed with anticipation, they scanned the roiling black water for any sign of the beast breaching the waves. It seemed like an insurmountable task with the roar of the engine and the relentless howl of the storm dulling their senses, until Hanzo caught sight of a growing amorphous shadow beneath the surf. A smile curved his lips as the drift dredged up a particularly fond memory with perfect clarity. "Do you remember," Hanzo called, "when Father took us spear fishing in the mountains?"
Genji laughed. "It's like you're in my head!"
Together, they shifted into the stance for a downward strike, and the Jaeger's limbs followed, as it brought the fluorescent blades together with a shriek of metal, then raised the swords which flashed like lightning against the clouds. With even breaths, they remained still, like a pillar impervious to its surroundings, as they waited patiently for the perfect opportunity. Finally, at the instant a translucent fin cut through the crest of a wave, they plunged the conjoined blades down into the dark waters, felt the brief resistance of flesh before the katana's heated tip burned through it, and the sky was rent with a gurgling screech. Around them, the sea seemed to boil.
Alarmed, the pilots leaned back, their arms straining with the effort of trying to free their weapon, which stubbornly refused to budge. It was lodged in the beast's sinuous body, entangled in its cartilage and muscle. They were still gripping the handle when a scaled back rose above the surface, causing them to rise with it. In fact, it was becoming increasingly apparent, as the still rising giant began to lift the Jaeger off the ocean floor, that they had severely underestimated its size. Wings with neon blue veins shot out from the waves, eclipsing the sky, and with a single powerful thrust, propelled itself out of the sea, taking the Jaeger with it.
Brows furrowed with concentration, Hanzo wrenched his grip free of the blade, hoping to send them into a short freefall that would be softened by the sea, but Genji clung on, his eyes screwed shut and his temples soaked with sweat. "Genji!" Hanzo screamed. "We have to let go!" If they did it now, there was still a chance that the resulting displacement caused by their fall wouldn't harm the shoreline. A look of pain crossed Genji's features. Hanzo caught glimpses of their home in ruins. It was why they'd joined the Jaeger program, to prevent such a tragedy from ever occurring again.
But homes could be rebuilt.
For a heartstopping second, Hanzo wondered if Genji wouldn't keep holding on, even as the creature took them higher and higher, the way a bird of prey might to crack a turtle shell, then the stress in his features eased a fraction, and they were plummeting, their legs bent and arms braced to soften the landing.
In the end, the sensation still bore an uncomfortably close resemblance to falling from a great height onto solid concrete, but the resulting wake, while tremendous in its height and berth, lost enough of its momentum and power in its journey to the mainland to do little more harm than sweep the majority of the beach away. It was doubtful that the citizens of New York would even mind its loss much until the summer months arrived.
When they were once again stable, though lacking a melee weapon now that their swords were stuck in the airborne beast's back, a siren sounded in their cockpit, and their comm, which had become strangely silent during their struggle, now surged furiously to life. "Disengage, Dragon!" The rapid tapping of the scientists and strategists trying to devise both an exit and a contingency plan could be heard in the background. "That thing is a Level 4. It's more than you can handle on your own." Genji stiffened.
The kaiju sailed through the wind currents, unable to hide thanks to the iridescent glow of their katana cutting through the gloom, before turning around in a large arc. The brothers hadn't thought the creatures capable of hatred before, yet the chill its bottomless gaze sent crawling up their spines was undeniable. Perhaps sensing their hesitation, Morrison shouted, "Disengage, Dragon, that's an order!"
Behind them, a city of lights glowed like a steady beacon in the dark. It was home to thousands, if not millions of people. Families. How many of them would perish if Otachi made it to the shore?
Hanzo saw Genji turn his head to face him. Then, quietly, "We can't leave."
Their eyes met, understanding passing silently between them. On that day, in that hour, a single nod was all it took to decide their fate. Disregarding their orders, they widened their stances with a backwards sweeping motion, curled their raised palms into claws, extended their left arms past their waist, while their remaining limb bent at the elbow. Genji's handhold changed, transforming into a floating disk with a bar running through its center. He gave the bar a yank, and the Jaeger's right hand folded in on itself to expose the Tesla Cannon built within. Its turbines whirred at such high velocity that the heat and tremors generated could be felt running through the entire appendage, as Genji distantly noted the growing warmth racing up his arm, the vibrations in his bones.
Almost the instant creature tipped its massive wingspan to circle around for a counterattack, it was upon them. But the kaiju was intelligent. It flew over them, keeping carefully out of range, then unhinged its jaw to pour gallons of acidic saliva on the hull. The smell of the cockpit began to foul even before the sizzle of melting reinforced glass was heard, as the corrosive rapidly consumed the material, causing breaches that allowed for rainwater and sea spray to spew from the newly opened gaps.
It arced in its flight pattern, intending to attack them once again from a distance, but emboldened by its triumph, it passed too closely this time, and Hanzo's arm shot out to grab the beast by its reptilian tail. Otachi howled at its capture, flashing bright blue fangs and a mottled purple tongue, and scratched at the fingers wrapped around its tail, clawing off pieces of metal exoskeleton and gnawing on the wiring.
Despite wincing at the unpleasant sensation of his skin being picked off his bones, Hanzo refused to allow his resolve to weaken. He held the monster firmly in the Jaeger's grasp, giving Genji the opportunity to drive the Tesla Cannon into the kaiju's stomach. It shrieked at the top of its lungs as its flesh was torn into. Poisonous blood gushed from the wound, contaminating the water and killing most of the surrounding wildlife.
At the same time, the tension in the tail broke. It separated from the kaiju in a display that seemed oddly reminiscent of a lizard's self defense mechanism, then hung limply, a mass of misfiring nerve endings that hadn't yet realized the appendage was dead. Thinking little of it, Hanzo let the discarded tail fall into the sea.
A crushing pressure around the Jaeger's legs soon revealed his mistake. While the kaiju choked on its own corrosive blood, its tail climbed to twine around their carapace, then squeezed until the structure began to collapse in on itself. Screens flashed, showing the pilots exactly where they'd been damaged, though so did the growing ache in their ribs.
But the creature was nearly dead. They could still finish this.
With water pooling around their feet, Hanzo shouted to be heard over the dying kaiju's shrieks, "Genji, listen to me-" Genji turned to look at him with wide, frightened eyes at the same time that Otachi pitched forward, its jaws spilling its blood over their cockpit. It chewed through the resulting hole in a frenzy. Genji looked up into its leaking maw, and was torn from the cockpit. There was an entire side missing where his brother used to be, an ocean that went on with no end, and Hanzo could only stare, unable to comprehend the change.
The backlash from the drift hit him like a hot poker in his brain. Terror, agony, despair, and a call for help, repeated over and over, bouncing in his skull. They're not his thoughts, not his feelings, but he knows who they belong to and the knowledge alone is enough to make him wish he were dead.
As weak as it was, Otachi might have fallen into the ocean to drown, except the Jaeger halted its fall by burying its fingers into the creature's throat. Jagged bolts of white lightning cut through the storm, throwing the world into sharp relief just as Dragon raised it up by the loose tissue at its neck. Through the melted remains of the cockpit, Hanzo snarled at the dying creature, looking hardly human himself, and together they plunged the Tesla Cannon down its gullet, filling its chest with an expanding light until its ribs burst from trying to contain it.
Its delicate wing membrane shriveled in the resulting blast, its head vanished from existence. All that remained was its lowered half and its severed tail. The first sank beneath the waves in a flurry of billowing blue clouds, and the tail loosened its grip, as though realizing the battle was lost.
Even so, it was torn off and discarded for good measure.
Their swords had to be close now, somewhere beneath the waves, but Hanzo didn't think about that. He didn't think about much of anything, as he turned Dragon towards the shore.
Later, after the rescue team found him and extracted him from the Jaeger, people would ask, "How did you manage to pilot the Jaeger alone?"
And Hanzo would blink into the light, confused by the question.
For not once during the journey, not for a single step, had he ever been alone.
The neural burden of driving Dragon on his own never managed to pierce the veil of panic, fury, and eventually numbness which had fallen over him after the battle. Trekking through the polluted water lapping at the mechanical giant's limbs, he'd ignored the burn of a million dead-end signals firing in his brain.
He paid for it when he woke up in a white room he couldn't place with an IV sticking out his vein. Every additional sensation, sensory, auditory, textile, poured oil onto the flames in his mind. The world exploded with snippets of memory that danced around his own, blending and mixing until the lines between what belonged and what didn't blurred into a bewildering muddle.
He screamed for someone to tell him if his brother was alive, only to find himself repeatedly frustrated by the alarmed and uncomprehending glances his pleas garnered. He realized his mistake shortly before the Marshal was sent to talk some sense into him.
"Hanzo," Morrison told him in what was intended to be a soothing tone, "you have to calm down. The staff can't help you if they can't understand you."
"With all due respect," a dark-skinned man with a neatly trimmed beard and broad shoulders stepped through the doorway. "I think it's fairly obvious what he's saying, Jack."
Working his jaw, which felt about as soft and fragile as the rest of him, Hanzo tried, "教えてー" No, those weren't the right syllables. Not the right sounds. Not for here. For home, maybe. Not here. "Tell me, please." Something in their gazes sparked, telling him he had it right this time, so he forged ahead, even ignoring his wounds and sitting up in his eagerness. "Where is my little brother?" Morrison's professional exterior seemed to fracture, exposing through its cracks a truth that Hanzo may have never accepted from his mouth. Biting down on his lower lip to keep himself from – from… (he wasn't exactly sure what it was he was trying to contain, only that it couldn't be released), Hanzo stared at his lap, his nails digging into the fabric of his gown. He didn't want to ask. "Was he alive when I- when the kaiju…?" He couldn't even bring himself to finish.
The man with the beard took pity on him, if it could be called that. "The readings went offline immediately after he was ripped from the cockpit".
"No."
Morrison bowed his head. "I'm sorry." The apology wasn't wanted. "There's no way to know for sure."
They stood there for a time, waiting for him to react, to speak, to acknowledge them in some way, but Hanzo never lifted his head from the coarse hospital blankets and the horrid pattern on his gown. They made no move to touch him, no pats on the back or claps on the shoulder. Instead, they watched, waited for a change which never came. Eventually, Morrison sighed. Unfortunately, he didn't have the luxury of waiting an indeterminate amount of time to see if this once promising pilot could be deemed fit for active duty again. There was still a war to fight.
He excused himself, leaving Reyes behind when he made no move to follow. And then it was just the two of them, one intensely focused, as though on a math problem, the other blank. Empty.
It was debatable whether the kid could even hear what Reyes was saying at this point, but he'd be kicking himself if he didn't at least try. "I'm not going to tell you not to beat yourself up about this, but…" Something flitted behind the Shimada's glassy, unblinking stare. "The honest truth is you couldn't have saved him." The young man flinched. Reyes felt his fingers curl into fists as something inside him condensed into a icy ball, then released the tension with a sigh. Deliberately taking his eyes off the grieving pilot, he reached for the door handle, pulled it, paused, "Someday, that'll mean something to you," then stepped out into the hallway, allowing the door to fall softly shut behind him.
When they were gone, Hanzo counted to a hundred. He waited what felt like hours for them to return, or for a nurse, a doctor, but the door remained shut.
He counted again. One. Two. Three. Ichi. Ni. San.
Then, when it became clear that there would be no further visitations, he slowly reached behind his head, dragged the pillow over his eyes, and mourned.
The following days passed in silence.
While he didn't bear the nursing staff any ill will, he spent his remaining time in the hospital wing unmoved and unmoving, transfixed by the scene playing out on repeat in his mind.
Genji, listen to me-
What had he been planning to say? Would it have changed anything? Whatever it was, it'd been shattered when the kaiju breached the ConnPod, obliterated by the jarring sounds of his own name screamed into the drift long after the connection should have been severed.
He vaguely recalled the other pilots coming to visit, Efi and Lucio more than once, but he had never acknowledged them. The very sight of them was like an accusation of weakness. How dare he remain in bed like this when his body was still intact? If he didn't get back in a Jaeger, if he tried to leave the program, run as far from the sea as his feet could take him until his ears stopped ringing with his brother's last cries, it was the young engineer and her copilot that would be forced to pick up his slack.
He couldn't run.
A strangled sound escaped his firmly pressed lips. Afraid that the nurses would hear, Hanzo clapped a hand over his mouth, ignoring the now familiar burn at the corners of his eyes.
He pushed off the mattress, forcing himself into a sitting position that tugged unpleasantly at the rows of ugly black staples lining his arms and torso. Burns discolored his skin on the majority of his body, though the most eye catching had to be the angry spiral of raw flesh circling his legs and stomach. It was raised and uneven, the worst of it covered with ointment and bandages.
A full-length mirror in the corner of the room flickered with movement, and Hanzo stilled, suddenly unsure. He studied himself - the matted hair, the sickly pallor, the contracted pupils.
After a short pause, he continued his descent by first lowering his legs to the floor. They shook and trembled under the slightest amount of weight, threatening to collapse beneath him. He clutched at the railing of his cot until the tremors eased, then gradually began shifting more and more weight from the bars to his limbs. By the time he stood on his own, he was drenched with sweat and breathing harshly with exertion.
Once his heartrate was under control, he arranged his pillows to approximate his size and width, pulled the covers over them, then slid soundlessly out the exit, sticking to the shadows with his old instincts taking the reins.
There was no access to the outdoors from his room, and therefore no way to be sure of the time, which made stealth the suitable option, since a patient walking alone at night would be spotted and apprehended regardless of how purposefully they walked, while an undetected presence would always go unmolested. It wasn't until he slipped out into the nigh empty hall, lit by overly bright ceiling lights and whatever illumination spilled from the other patients' shuttered windows, that he was certain the majority of the Shatterdome's occupants had retired to their quarters. Despite being armed with this new knowledge, however, he was still exceedingly careful to avoid the cameras, as there was always a team of nightshift nurses watching the monitors.
The elevator would draw attention, he knew, so he searched the signs labeling each of the entrances he passed until finding the one with the stick figure walking down the staircase. After first checking to make sure pushing its bar wouldn't trigger an alarm, he nudged it open, then ghosted into the stairwell.
Damp air tickled his back and legs as his bare feet padded down the concrete steps, yet stealing a set of casual clothes from the laundry room on base simply didn't occur to him. It was unnerving, being so vulnerable, though the feeling was too distant to factor into his judgment.
Through luck, skill, or some combination of the two, he managed to scale the staircase without cutting the soles of his feet on any metal shards, cross the Shatterdome whilst avoiding detection from staff or cameras, and then make the leap from the railing to the scaffolding built around Dragon's ruined metallic cranium without spraining an ankle. For a terrifying heartbeat, when his fingers scraped at the wooden bars without purchase, gravity took hold, but a desperate lunge allowed him to hook an elbow through the loop of a safety harness hanging from a wooden stake, and he heaved himself onto the platform with his stomach residing firmly in his throat. From where he rested, he could see the equipment on the ground, chairs and ladders and trolleys, all of which appeared no larger than the furniture fitted for a doll's house.
Falling would have been a quick death, at least.
The repairs worked on Dragon were immense, if not complete. While the head would require weeks of restoration before it could once again be viable for battle, the drift system, which had been torn apart and gutted, presently appeared pristine and undamaged in the exposed ConnPod. Once he dropped into the cockpit, Hanzo stared at the innocuous-looking machinery. He didn't need to wear the helmet to hear the crashing waves, the roars that shook the earth.
The other half of the cockpit ended with, not a wall, but an abrupt drop into nothing. There was no second platform. It seemed they hadn't gotten around to rebuilding the Jaeger's right hemisphere, an observation which shouldn't have hurt because, of course, these things took time, yet that came with its own undeniable sting, nonetheless.
For better or worse, however, Hanzo hadn't come there to pay his respects to a ghost. Instead, he gently placed the helmet on his head, then squeezed his eyes shut, imagining the sensation of the neural bridge connecting, crossing the distance, except everytime he tried to imagine his brother on the other end, a yawning abyss took his place. Thoughts and feelings poured out with zero reciprocity, flowing into the echo of the drift Hanzo had conjured up until the output became input again, in an endless loop of his own compounding senses.
A tug from the drift demanded still more, and in spite of the young man's willingness to give, Hanzo felt an inkling of fear kindled within him at its insistence. He resisted for a time, but lacked an anchor to keep him grounded in the present, a reason to cling to reality. That being the case, the stubborn pull eventually succeeded in its temptation, in its silent promise. Inside the ConnPod, the scent of burned wiring and melted steel hung heavily in the air, but within the drift, the smell of buttered popcorn clung to the carpeting and walls of a retro-style arcade.
Now finding himself standing next to a galaxy-themed pinball machine that played obnoxiously cheerful music while a list of highscores flashed on its headboard, Hanzo took his time in analyzing his surroundings. It was his memory, so it didn't take long to identify the location. It was one of Genji's favorite haunts. He would skip school sometimes to play there with his friends, and they happened to make a name for themselves as competitive gamers around the area. It was a classic case of big fish in a small pond, but even so, Hanzo couldn't help feeling a spark of pride when he'd first noticed his little brother's username climbing the top ranks.
Unlike those instances when he had to fetch Genji to drag him off to class or training, however, the arcade was empty, the carpet clean of stains and wrappers from careless children and adolescents. Though the games continuously emitted a cacophony of catchy jingles and cartoonish sound effects, only one seemed to be actively engaging a customer. They were standing on the other side of a row of first-person shooters, their elbows sticking out at their sides, and Hanzo stared at the familiar black band on their wrist, his chest constricting with a pressure that threatened to crush him.
After a brief moment of hesitation, he dashed to the other side, breathless, to find Genji focusing intently on the screen, his palms curled around the controllers while an ape-like creature jumped repeatedly over a barrel. The end of a stick of pocky poked out from between his teeth, seesawing as he chewed.
"Oh, hey!" He waved cheerfully when he saw Hanzo, his eyes bright. "You're back."
Hanzo approached Genji's side silently, his voice stuck in his throat. He coughed to free it, though the end result still came out sounding more strained than he would have liked, "What are you playing?" And Genji proceeded to regale him with a tale of a Monkey King who did not travel on a journey to the West to protect the heavenly scriptures, but stayed in his jungle and tossed bananas at his enemies.
When at last he trailed off, either finished with the tale or convinced that his older brother wasn't actually listening, it was to find Hanzo regarding the pixelated graphics with the unwavering concentration usually reserved for his studies.
"Sounds interesting." He looked up, meeting Genji's curious gaze. They were close enough now that Hanzo could smell the chocolate on his breath, the acrid tang of his styling gel. Meanwhile, the ape-king idled on a log bridge built, perhaps incautiously, over a waterfall. "Care if I join you?"
Wordlessly, Genji scooted over, allowing Hanzo room to maneuver the second set of controls, before exiting the round to restart the game on multiplayer.
Wakefulness announced itself with the subtly and grace of a crowbar prying itself between Hanzo's eyelids. For a time, he sat at the bottom of the ConnPod, staring up at the Shatterdome's ceiling through the gaping hole in Dragon's roof. It took a while for him to register that he wasn't chilled, despite his lack of forethought when it came to procuring casual clothes before he set off to find his way back to the drift, and he twisted to catch a glimpse of the crimson fabric clinging to his shoulders. The cloth appeared to be a blanket of some kind, and was obviously well cared for, as slight discolorations in the stitching suggested frequent repairs implemented with various levels of skill.
Keeping that in mind, he folded the garment up neatly, then laid it on his Drive platform. As grateful as he was for the gesture, he had no desire to meet his mysterious benefactor, so if they wished to retrieve their belonging, they would only have to return to the ConnPod during his absence.
Morning shifts in the Shatterdome started at around 0700, and since Hanzo had been set on a routine of beginning his daily exercises at least an hour beforehand, much to the eternal chagrin of his nocturnal sibling, it meant that he had at least enough time to return to the hospital wing before his absence was noted, as long as none of the nurses had seen fit to conduct an impromptu check on the patients at some point during the night.
Similar to the maneuvers he'd utilized the previous night, he climbed onto the Dragon's highest point, a remnant of its visor then - careful not to slice the bare soles of his feet on the melted or jagged bits - made the leap from the reinforced glass to the railing, which thankfully proved its worth once again as a marvel of modern engineering. The dome had been created from scratch within weeks, an international rush job if there ever was one, but it would seem that the Swedish team tasked with its construction, as well as the manufacture and continuing upkeep of the Jaegers, was somewhat versed in the business of miracles.
Keeping his gait elongated, Hanzo quickly burned off any residual stiffness through his sprint to the hospital wing, in the hopes of making up for any diminishment of stealth in the morning hours with reckless speed. In the end, he managed to slip into his room without drawing any attention, and barely broke a sweat in the process. With the exception of a sprinkle of color in his cheeks, there was little to suggest that he hadn't spent the night in his cot.
Bright crimson caught his eye when he moved to slip under the sheets, and he narrowed his eyes at the folded plaid shirt and jeans sitting on the seat beside his mattress. It would seem that his benefactor expected him to abscond on his medical confinement once more. Weighing his options, Hanzo eventually decided that wearing the gaudy outfit would, at the very least, save him from making a trip back to his own quarters, and so he stowed it in the closet, waited patiently for his daily visitors to come and go, then in the middle of the shift change from evening to night, slipped into the slightly oversized clothes and stole out into corridor.
This became akin to a routine, forcing him to find snatches of fitful sleep between physical therapy sessions, mental evaluations, visitation hours, and spending time with Genji in the ghost drift. The fact that he was burning the majority of his energy reserves in reliving past interactions with his brother should have worried him more than it did, especially when, impossibly, Genji seemed to take note of his worsening state. Silences stretched longer, filled with the weight of an unspoken concern which Hanzo bore as best he could – by pretending it wasn't there. He didn't address the increasing frequency of Genji's unhappy frowns, or the confusion evident in the dip of his pronounced brow. Once, when they were sitting in a ramen shop in Hanamura village, Hanzo was surprised to receive a double helping of Udon soup. He'd silently questioned Genji about it, who'd been digging into his yakisoba at the time, yet if there was ever an explanation, it wasn't given before consciousness dragged him from the drift once more.
Another time, when they were laying beneath a sakura on a hill overlooking the village, Genji asked almost casually why he kept returning. Didn't he have someplace he needed to be?
But there was no such place, and Hanzo told him as much.
Lying on his back with his arms folded behind his head and his gaze locked firmly on the sky, Genji had smiled sadly, but said nothing.
It was decided that Jesse McCree was to be his new partner.
Aside from brief glimpses of him in the cafeteria after he was released from medical, there was essentially no wealth of experiences with the man to draw an impression off of. They were strangers, plain and simple, yet Hanzo hated him with a vehemence that startled even him. It wasn't the young pilot's drawl, or his garish belt buckle, or even the wide-brimmed hat he wore over a messy head of brown hair. No, it was just that, with his being returned to active duty, Hanzo would no longer have the luxury to sneak into the ghost drift, not without his partner's knowledge of the act.
Though he'd already erased his pilot override from the Jaeger entry database more than once, there was no keeping such a secret from someone with access to his innermost thoughts. Even knowing that it wasn't Jesse McCree's fault, that he couldn't possibly have known the effects this development would have, and likely had been given no say in the decision, didn't completely exonerate him in Hanzo's eyes.
"He's a boorish, intolerable brute of a man," he'd complained to Genji after several painfully awkward interactions with the cowboy. They were standing in the middle of the arcade again, each of them wielding the plastic handguns from a shooting game with engrained ease, comfortable with their mirrored stances even if the weapons themselves were fake and the enemies were ravenous undead.
Glancing curiously at his brother, Genji expressed surprise that Hanzo would even speak to him about it, "Hey, is everything okay?"
"Of course," Hanzo said immediately, wincing when the zombie he missed with his next shot lunged at his side of the splitscreen, causing it to flash red. "Why do you ask?"
The graphics abruptly stopped when Genji paused the game. He leaned against the stand, his arms folded against his chest with a slight frown on his face. "It's just that you don't usually confide in me with these things." After wracking his brain for a response that wouldn't seem out of place, Hanzo remained silent. Genji waited a minute more for him to speak, then turned back to the controllers with a sigh. "It sounds to me like he wants to be your friend, and he is making an effort. Why not give him a chance?"
Because he was worried about what McCree would see if he peered into his head. But rather than refer to people and events that the Genji of this time wouldn't (thankfully) recognize, he chose instead to insist, "I am perfectly capable of surviving on my own."
He didn't expect to be pinned by a long, measuring stare.
"Is that why you keep coming here?"
In spite of Hanzo's prickly attitude, McCree continuously attempted to get close to him, even joining the Numbani and Brazilian pilot when they gathered around him for lunch. While fatigue lent itself towards Hanzo's dour attitude and moody silence, the pair's unceasing energy had a tendency of breaking through his haze, if only because he personally felt they deserved better company than a human-shaped cardboard cut-out, and liked to think that he was at least capable of surfacing from the depths of his melancholy long enough to give them that. If those moments of forced activity and interest had any impact on the cowboy, however, Hanzo couldn't say. Unfortunately, that much attention was beyond him, but some distant part of him couldn't help wondering if McCree wasn't markedly kinder after those meals.
It could have been his imagination. He was too tired to care.
Their first simulation was, against all expectations, a complete success.
Why was it so surprising? Because Hanzo brought as little to the drift as he did to their conversations. He kept his feelings locked away, safe, and the exercise should have ended right there, with his adamant refusal to share, except McCree let him in. Where he was closed, Jesse was open, and Hanzo saw in the grainy sepia of old remembrance a house barely large enough for one fitting four, a refrigerator empty more often than not, and a boy with his ribs poking against his skin and fingerprint bruises on his arms. The boy left his mother to find a family that could care for him when she couldn't, anything to lighten her burden, to put food in the mouths of his siblings, but his new family put a gun in his hand, and with it the final bullet in his innocence.
Jesse McCree's life had ended long before the kaiju had ever made landfall, but where there was bleakness and despair, there was also hope. For when the dust settled, he was offered a choice – to use the skills he'd never wanted to make the world better for others, to find out what it was like to be one of the good guys.
It was Gabriel Reyes who'd extended the invitation to join the Jaeger Program, Ana Amari who trained him. Respect mixed with affection to humanize the 1st Generation legends, causing Hanzo to see their imposing figures and his own previous run-ins with the Marshal's trusted second in a new light.
An understanding formed between them. While Jesse was willing to bare his soul, he would not ask the same of his drift partner, not unless he was ready to do the same. There was no pity tainting their connection, only tamped down curiosity, a yearning to get to know him, though Hanzo could recall having done nothing to warrant it, as he tended to spend daylight hours wandering the halls listlessly, often reacting with snapped, curt responses to any who dared try to lure him into conversation.
Then he saw himself sprinting through the dome in the dark, himself curled up on his side, shivering in a hospital gown, and the identity of his benefactor became clear. It should have angered him, to know that he'd been secretly watched during his more vulnerable moments, but the spark of fire within him burned quick, fierce, and then was gone.
When their neural bridge stabilized, allowing them to coexist in harmony and balance, which they proved by moving in sync to shift Dragon into an intimidating offensive stance, it was decided by the higher-ups that they would be deployed in the next assault.
And as he'd done when their simulation was announced, Reyes argued against it. They were too green as a team, and one of them was still recovering. But Reyes didn't have the power or the influence to stop what had been set in motion, and for the undue stress this caused him, Hanzo couldn't help feeling an urge to apologize. After all, though neither of them had desired such an outcome, as it was, Jesse's life currently resided in his hands.
Promise me you'll bring him back alive.
...I cannot.
Hanzo bowed his head at the memory, grinding his teeth as the final adjustments on his new white Drive suit were completed so they could enter the Jaeger and provide much needed support to Efi, Lucio, and the Australian pilots. Jamison had weakened the gigantic shark-like kaiju by lobbing explosives at it from a distance, which may have seared its flesh, but such measures were quickly rendered unwise when the beast charged, overtaking them and sinking its fangs into the steel of Junkhog's chestplate.
When they fell, Efi and her partner would be next. Meanwhile, their attempts to distract the creature from the Australians or immobilize it were proving to be ineffective, as it adapted to the blasts of their weaponized sound waves by countering the frequency with an earsplitting screech.
This was not the time to dwell on regrets, only action.
At last the crew deemed them fit for battle, and they moved in unconscious unison to their stations. "Something wrong, Shimada?" Already strapped in, Hanzo tossed a questioning, borderline impatient glance at the cowboy, who awkwardly scratched the base of his neck at the attention while the neural bridge booted up in the background. "Just thought you seemed tense, is all."
A light, heady feeling attacked Hanzo's brain at McCree's obvious, clueless concern. Now that the drift was activating, he could feel his anxiety, along with his frustration at Hanzo's own lack of response, and discovered its cause- a dissonant smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Then the neural bridge initialized, hitting them simultaneously like lightning poured into their veins and a punch to the gut, bringing to fruition a link tinged by worry and burgeoning hysteria, filling their mouths with the acrid tang of shame. McCree stared at him through the drift, and saw a golden light shining from the cracks in his partner's carefully constructed mask.
After that glimpse, however, Hanzo stuffed it all inside, and the light faded, dimming to a murky gray. When it was done, he frowned at the still starstruck McCree, resulting in his copilot scrambling for composure. Hanzo was glad for that, at least. They'd wasted enough time, already.
Once they were deployed into the Hong Kong bay, their comm burst to life with the sound of Efi's screams, Jamison's colorful expletives, and Lucio's desperate attempts to keep his head. An incoherent roar drowned them all as a chain burst from the Australian's Jaeger to wrap around Knifehead's throat. Claws scratched at the chains, tearing at the flesh beneath them, yet the chain's grip merely tightened, becoming crushing as its larynx caved under the pressure.
For a moment, it seemed that Dragon's assistance was unneeded, after all. Then the kaiju curled its fists in the chain and yanked, dragging Junkhog through the crashing waves and into range of a lethal strike. Knifehead raked its claws over their torso, exposing the inner mechanics to the sea. Scalding steam billowed forth from the compromised core, enveloping the kaiju, and the injured beast reared back, its snout shiny with burns.
Understanding that the kaiju would now stop at nothing to rend the Australians from existence, the Dragon pilots lunged between it and its incapacitated target, then broke the chain with their blade, thus drawing the beast's ire onto themselves, as well as allowing Jamison and Mako to gain some distance. Despite the close quarters, McCree triggered one of the newest addition to Dragon's repertoire, a gun barrel which erupted from the open palm on his side. "I can't miss," he muttered under his breath, then jammed the barrel into one of the creature's swiveling eyes.
And fired.
Flames rushed from the socket with the sound and fury of a hundred fireworks, their tongues reflecting crimson in the black water's surface, yet still it struggled, shrieking and writhing even as its mind was consumed by the heat. Knifehead pried itself from the barrel melted to its skin like a fish wiggling off a hook, then made the single best decision of its life, and ran. It dove for deep water, perhaps to regroup, maybe even to circle around and beset them with an underwater assault, but they would never find out, because after the barrel returned to the hollow compartment in Dragon's limb, the katana Hanzo wielded began to emanate a pulsing azure glow.
"Care to explain what's going on?" Ignoring him, Hanzo imagined gripping the light between his fingertips, pictured drawing it back to his shoulders. Somehow, the Jaeger seemed cognizant of his wishes, because despite belonging to an entirely different hemisphere, the right limb responded to his unspoken commands. "You listening to me, Shimada?" Something brushed against the edges of his consciousness, warm and familiar. "Oi. Hanzo!"
He paused to shoot McCree an irritated glare. "Shut up and watch." Then released the tension, sending a bolt speeding forward in a high arc that plunged into the sea, drawn by the energy signature of the bullet residing within the kaiju's skull. The second projectile joined the first, splitting the bone and boiling the liquid within, leaving behind a corpse the size of a barge that floated to the surface.
With the exception of Dragon, none of the other Jaegers were able to make it to the base under their own power. Lucio and Efi tried, but the damage to their eardrums hindered their balance. Orisa made it several stumbling strides before collapsing onto it knees. They were extricated by helicopter, shouting at the top of their lungs and high on post-battle adrenaline. Though Hanzo shook his head at their enthusiasm, as neither had seen it fit to shut down their comms, the affection in the gesture was unmistakable.
At his side, McCree chuckled under his breath. Though they hadn't spoken much since their victory, the atmosphere in the ConnPod wasn't uncomfortable, but rather the result of neither having felt the need to fill what had become a companionable silence.
When they were docked once more in the dome, reports came in on Jamison and Mako's status. While their Jaeger had received the brunt of the damages, having had its carapace literally ripped open, it seemed the pair had suffered only minimal injuries. Oh, they were soaked from head to toe, chilled and shivering with the beginning stages of hypothermia, but that didn't keep Jamison from complaining loudly the instant he could keep his teeth still long enough to do so.
Even his tracking water through the base and ceaseless bellyaching elicited relieved smiles from the crew teams and engineers, however, since such energy could hardly be expected from someone knocking on death's door.
In short, what the pilots had achieved that day – a victory with no casualties - was nothing short of a miracle.
Buoyed by their success, Hanzo delayed removing his helmet, the feeling of the drift still alive beneath his skin, and in it, a waiting ghost. The instant he lost focus, or more accurately, redirected it, the connection grew tense with alarm. A soft smile graced Hanzo's lips, for as his mind delved deeper, chasing a RABIT that was impatient to caught, thoughts brushed against his, filled with worry and confusion. He'd been followed, just as Hanzo had anticipated. Even though they barely knew each other, even though they'd only drifted twice, the cowboy would risk everything to save him.
It was the kind of man McCree was, which was fortunate, because if he were anything less, Hanzo doubted that he would have ever found the resolve to truly share what, until now, had been a private source of both grief and solace.
The experience passed without fanfare, unknown to the rest of world. Hanzo pried his eyes open to see Jesse gaping at him, rendered speechless by the influx of information he'd been entrusted with, and then came the real shocker.
Hey there! A chipper voice called out of the drift. Meanwhile, Hanzo watched anxiously as the cowboy's brows shot up to his hairline. My brother's told me a lot about you.
"Holy shit!" A wry snort echoed through the link at the cowboy's reaction.
He's as eloquent as you said, Hanzo.
It felt oddly conspiratorial, despite the audience. In fact, Hanzo nearly forgot that there even was an audience, until a gruff, deceptively calm message reached them from over the comm,"Everything okay in there, Jesse?" It seemed that time had indeed passed for them outside the drift as well. Hanzo glanced at his partner, relieved to see that he'd managed to reach some semblance of calm. Though it was at least partially a ruse, Jaeger pilots tended to have an advantage when it came to seeing through masks.
Eager to distract him, Hanzo wordlessly reiterated, Jesse?
Amusement filtered through the link, not all of it his own. Sensing that, McCree casually shrugged, "We're sleeping together."
There was a beat of deafening silence, then, "WHAT GODDAMN BALD-FACED LIES ARE YOU SPEWING IN THAT COCKPIT, INGRATE?!"
Once the celebrations had wound down to a few stragglers, McCree and Hanzo made their way to the rec room, where there was a cotton couch, sunken with age, a television set, and an abandoned, most likely stale bowl of popcorn. McCree flopped heavily onto the cushions, reached over for the popcorn, placed the bowl on his chest, then popped a fistful into his mouth. Biting back a derisive comment on the cowboy's eating habits, Hanzo carefully arranged himself on the couch's armrest, where he remained as he waited for the man to speak. "So – Ugh!" a hacking cough interrupted McCree when a kernel went down the wrong pipe. He started again, his eyes watering, "What's the ghost of your little brother doing in my head, Han?"
Unable to look at the cowboy directly, Hanzo kept his gaze trained on the burn scars marring the backs of his hands. "I am… not sure." Genji died when they were in the drift together. What else was there to say?
McCree shifted, one arm holding the popcorn awkwardly as he slipped an elbow beneath his head. "I never really got the chance to talk him, before… you know." It was true that Hanzo was aware of what he was referring to, which made him all the more reluctant to speak. And yet, he'd known that such a topic would be unavoidable. "Mind telling me about him?"
Even so, "It is late, McCree. Surely, you must be tired," he tried.
McCree stared up at him with a frown. "It's worth losing some sleep to know more about who I've gone and let into my head."
So it was, and once Hanzo got started, he found it was difficult to stop. He spoke for what felt like hours, about the village of their birth, and the legacy that would have determined their futures if the kaiju hadn't dragged it all into the sea. From there, he moved onto Genji when he was a child, at a time when the diminutive their father had bestowed upon him represented nothing besides the affection of a parent. Later, it would be used to refer to his flighty nature, his inability to take his responsibilities seriously. But he was still a boy when the castle fell, and Genji had risen above the expectations of their family, eventually proving himself the best of them. In light of that, how could Hanzo ever hope to compare?
The simple truth was he couldn't. The most he could hope for was to stay with the Jaeger program, to battle the monsters that threatened humanity, and pray that what he accomplished could somehow serve to respect his brother's memory, even as he carried forth with the knowledge that it would never be enough.
After all, it'd been Genji's idea to join the program.
"Now that's a story I'd like to hear." Hanzo blinked, nonplussed. He hadn't realized he was still speaking. The cowboy waited patiently for him to regain his bearings, for which he was undeniably grateful.
Joining the program hadn't been about revenge for Genji. Oh, the destruction infuriated him, made his blood boil in his veins, but what was done was done and killing the creatures wouldn't change that. No, he volunteered so that they could rescue others from a similar fate. Additionally, he'd grown up enchanted by stories of heroes, so the idea of piloting a mechanized behemoth to combat monsters appealed to the child in him, as well.
His older brother, on the other hand, merely followed his lead. His future, which had been mapped out for him since his conception, had vanished in a matter of hours, and the clan's efforts to rebuild their empire on the sunken islands were the result of a pipe dream, which meant there was little to prevent him from signing up alongside Genji, if only to keep an eye on him. Plus, it seemed that he would have little chance of being accepted without a sibling or close relative to enter the drift with.
Their acceptance should have been a forgone conclusion, the way most things were in their lives, yet they almost blew it in their first simulation, when Hanzo briefly lost focus, inadvertently dredging up an image of the mother Genji had never known, and Genji had chased the RABIT. Their careers as pilots had nearly ended before they'd even begun, and Hanzo would have been entirely to blame.
However, if they'd each been expelled that day, then perhaps Genji would still be alive to resent him for it.
When the cowboy spoke again, his words came as though from a distance, in spite of their proximity. "Can't say I wouldn't have done the same in your brother's shoes, given the chance." The former heir twisted sharply to regard him as the present rushed to engulf him with a razor-sharp clarity.
"It was reckless," Hanzo bit out through a clenched jaw, though the majority of his ire was directly inwards. "He could have been lost."
McCree sucked in his cheeks, a slight dip in his brow the only sign that he was considering his answer. "Nah." He shook his head with a rueful grin. "Something tells me he knew well and good you'd never let that happen."
Torn between shock and anger, Hanzo stood up quickly, ignoring the cowboy's startled protests when he left without a word.
The fallout of that disastrous conversation could be felt around the base for days, though few understood what could have caused it. They kept their distance from each other, against the advice of their superiors, since the war was not over and such friction could easily lead to discord in the drift. Separately, they were advised to talk out their differences, yet every attempt to do so seemed to break down into an argument.
Then they were strapped into Dragon with orders to collapse the Rift from the inside, and none of it seemed to matter. They resolved their differences through an unspoken agreement that the mission was more important than themselves, which was luckily enough for them to form the foundation of a stable neural bridge on. McCree fought carrying the weight of Hanzo's grief on his back, aware that the ninja would carry the burden of his brother's life to a watery grave if he could, something which he could sense from spikes of distress in the drift that didn't belong to him or his partner would only upset Genji.
And Hanzo was right to say McCree didn't know him, but he didn't have to. He'd caught glimpses of it in Hanzo's memories, a spritely youth with a toothy grin and an indomitable spark of mischief in his spirit. A young man, uncertain of his place, searching for a purpose, for guidance, for direction. Unknowingly, Hanzo had set him on the path to finding everything he'd been searching for when he'd agreed to apply to the Jaeger program with him. However, when it came right down to it, the answer was obvious. Thrumming through the different, inaudible but louder than a thunderstorm was a single, ardent wish.
Live.
It pounded in McCree's head when they plunged into the Rift with the largest kaiju either of them had ever seen, its corpse split down the middle by their superheated katana, becoming nigh unbearable when he was suffocating thanks to the leak in his oxygen hose. Genji's shouts made him struggle feebly against the strong arms that pushed him into an escape pod, but it wasn't enough, and Jesse furiously cursed Hanzo's name for being so immensely stupid.
Anguish flooded through the ghost drift, staggering Hanzo's steps as he clung to consciousness. Blindly, he followed the pull to the manual activation lever for Dragon's self-destruct sequence, and through it all, thought he could feel someone supporting him, keeping his weak, oxygen-starved legs from crumbling in the flooded cockpit. He'd resolved to stay, to accept his death with grace and honor, yet his ears rang with his little brother's desperate urgings for him to keep moving, leaving Hanzo with little choice but to listen.
Mechanically, he strapped himself into the sole remaining escape pod, but lacked the strength to activate its ejection. The world blurred into a wash of sights and sounds, confusing his senses although he could no longer differentiate between reality and the drift. The Jaeger screen flickered to life, counting down the self-destruct, followed by the machine seemingly deciding by its own volition to eject its last escape pod.
As he swam to consciousness, adrift in the sea with McCree kneeling at his side, his gaze soft with relief, the scent of buttered popcorn tickled Hanzo's nose, along with cherry blossoms, and freshly cooked ramen noodles. Through the remnants of the ghost drift, he heard his brother's laugh, and briefly felt his hand in his, as real as though he were sitting on the raft.
A whisper traveled on the wind, quiet, gentle, and bittersweet.
Sorry, anija. Hanzo squeezed his eyes shut. Something told him that it would be the last he would feel of Genji in the drift for quite some time, yet strangely, the thought didn't bring with it the expected pain. I'd love to spend a little more time with you, but I'm afraid I'm late to a previous engagement.
Exhaustion swept over him as he wondered at the sudden ache of absence in his heart. Ever since Genji's death, he had never been alone, and yet, even now, that truth still stood. He glanced down at his hand to find it wasn't empty, but instead enveloped in the loose grip of a tan and calloused palm. Reflexively, his fingers tightened around those of his copilot, partner, and friend, who promptly returned the pressure. Neither of them commented on the streaks running down his cheeks, instead opting to wait in a silence of quiet comfort and understanding until the helicopters arrived to take them home.
A/N: Say, have you ever heard of Neon Genesis Evangelion?
I've decided to affectionately call this OverRim, and the other au, Pacific Watch.
Dragunz: Thanks so much for your feedback on the last chapter! It's true that his piercings are a bit impractical, especially considering how often he's in combat, though I suppose he could always take them out?