4 The Fight, The After-Effects, and Being Recruited

Hearing those words broke my heart. This was my brother. A person I'd grown up with, ate with, played stupid video games with!

...And yet he wanted me and Genji dead.

I wasn't angry. I was feeling much too lethargic for such an emotion. I...I just felt hollow. It seems pretty stupid, doesn't it? To feel so badly about something you knew was going to happen, that is. But things hardly ever work out the way you think they will, even if you have foreknowledge of what's going to happen. The biggest point to this, is that human emotions are...well, they're always irrational. That's what I've learnt in these 18 years of having them back.

There are good times - bright times I'd look back on in my times of despair. Times like now.

I looked behind me to see Genji, his usually bright green eyes, dull and lifeless. He was looking up at me with a sad smile on his face, and I could see more than just self-deprecation in his smile - he was disgusted with himself for having lost and even more so for having to rely on his younger brother.

But I didn't care about such things. I remember how I'd always gone out with Genji to the arcades, how we'd eat an inhuman amount of Ramen and drink all the unhealthy sugary crap Genji loved...I remembered the two of us flirting with girls, being the wingman the other needed when the time came. I remembered how much my brother meant to me.

So I turned back to Hanzo, a hard and steel-like expression on my face. I gripped the blade he was using so tightly it sent cracks throughout the specially forged metal. I knew I'd have to do something and follow a plan I didn't want to follow.

Not because of the risk it would place on me, but what it would do to others after this had ended.

"Hanzo..." I started, breaking my oldest brother out of his stupor at the cracks running through his blade, "Tell mother that I'm sorry I couldn't stop you two from fighting...tell her that I'm sorry I failed her..." and with that, I purposely lowered my defenses in my muscles and let the blade pass through me and my heart. I had my Nanomachines patch up the wound as much as I could, just so I could stay alive, but for the most part, I let myself fall into a death-like state.

"NO!" Hanzo, knowing what I'd just done, screamed as looked between the blade through my heart and his hand which had thrust the blade. He let go of the blade and I fell to my knees, blood coming from my mouth to drive home the fact that I was 'dead'.

Genji, who was in a half-dead state of his own, saw this and I heard his Dragon Spirit roar a roar that was both filled with ferocity and sorrow, "HANZO!!" Genji screamed as I felt him burst onto his feet, ignoring his injuries as he jumped at Hanzo. I could hear the bones creaking and cracking as he pushed them further than they'd allow even if he were uninjured, let alone right now where his legs had been cut up and stabbed at horrendously.

Genji pulled a tanto blade from behind him and slashed down at Hanzo. Hanzo, not having anything to block with, grabbed the blade with his bare hands just like I had. But he didn't let the blade just slam into his palm - no, he gripped the flat of the blade with his fingers, stopping it's advance.

It was a very high-level technique from the Shimada Clan that required incredible finger strength and muscle control.

"That's our brother! Our little brother!" Genji screamed, pushing down with his uninjured hand while pushing against the back of the blade with his bloody stump, ignoring the pain and the blood spurting out of it, "How could you, HANZO?!" he roared, his sorrow and rage filling the courtyard as his Spirit Dragon entered the blade and made it give off a green glow.

Hanzo, seeing the attack, widened his eyes before letting go of the blade and jumping back. But even then, he was still too slow.

The tanto blade cut through the top of Hanzo's shoulder and across his torso, leaving a massive gash diagonally across his chest, down his abdomen and ending at his hips. But Hanzo barely winced at the pain, instead he looked angrily at Genji, his own Dragon Spirits roaring to life as he kicked up his bow that was in the mud next to his feet.

It hadn't been there before, but a quick look around with my glazed over eyes, and I saw some Elders standing above us and looking down from the roof of the compound buildings next to us.

Of course they'd be here. Old hermit bastards...I'll get you all for making this happen.

"How could I?" Hanzo said, seemingly calm, but his voice simmering with rage and venom that shook the ground as his spirits grew even larger before entering an arrow he pulled from his quiver, "If you'd have just accepted your responsibilities and worked for the clan, Akahiko wouldn't have had to have spoken up for you! Wouldn't have had to put himself on the line for his pathetic brother!" Hanzo's voice lost the calmness it had and he raged and roar at Genji as he pulled back his bow string, the cut across his chest opening up even further and spurting blood incessantly. But he paid no attention to it as the glowing blue arrow kept growing bigger as the dragons made energy constructs around it, making it more deadly.

"My fault?" Genji asked in disbelief, as even the blood dripping from his forehead couldn't make him blink, slowly making the whites of his eyes turn blood red as his green eyes shone with such splendor you'd almost forget to see the rage flooding them, "I'm not the one WHO STABBED OUR BROTHER!" Genji roared as he charged forward, faster than the human eye could so, his tanto blade glowing green and elongating into a long katana made of green energy.

With this said, and seeing Genji charging him, Hanzo let go of the bow string, letting the glowing blue arrow shoot toward Genji as two energy dragons spiraled out of the arrow, hoping to mince Genji to nothing.

Genji...didn't even let out his dragon and just went through the storm of energy. Even as the energy ripped at his skin and blood poured from the cuts, he pushed through, a grim determination practically dripping from his figure. His blade only glowed brighter and brighter, growing in intensity as he got closer to Hanzo. Even as the arrow Hanzo had fired pierced through his chest, he just kept going.

The stump on his arm where his hand used to be had gotten even bigger, or shorter depending on perspective, as the energy ate away at his flesh and bone there. He'd lost his entire forearm before he arrived in front of Hanzo.

But he didn't even seem to notice as he roared and thrust forth his energy coated blade, piercing it toward Hanzo so quickly and with so much power that the rain actively moved out of the way of his blade. At this moment, during a life and death fight between two brothers...Genji showed his immense talent with the sword. A talent he'd squandered...but a talent that was so high that it didn't matter. Given enough motivation to improve, he'd improve.

And what better motivation than supposed revenge?

But...Hanzo still had more experience. He held his bow in front of the energy blade, which only took a second to cut through...but a second was more than enough time for Hanzo to move his body out of the way of the thrust and to the outside of Genji's arm.

The blade scrape across his chest but all it did was make a thin cut that barely did anything to Hanzo.

Hanzo, however, didn't just stand there.

He grabbed Genji's wrist before sending a palm strike to Genji's elbow joint while pulling back his wrist. The strike collided with a crunch and Genji's arm was suddenly bending the wrong way. Bringing his palm, which was still settled against Genji's elbow, up to his other hand which was on Genji's wrist, Hanzo deftly disarmed Genji before spinning the blade around and then burying it in Genji's stomach.

Almost on instinct, Hanzo corrected his position and appeared in front of Genji's frozen figure. He spun around and planted his foot against the bottom of the tanto blade's hilt, forcing the blade further and with a definite crack, I could tell for definite that the blade had gone through Genji's spine.

The force of this maneuver sent Genji flying back and he skid across the now wet and slick ground, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. Coincidentally, Genji had ended up just before me, his once again dull-green eyes looking up at my bent over and kneeling figure.

He reached up with a bloodied hand, silent tears, stained red by the blood in his eyes and on his face, fell from his eyes as he stroked my face a little.

"Sorry, little Red...I couldn't avenge you..." he finished with a cough, blood pooling out of his mouth and over his face and his hand dropped from my face and down to his side, limp and unmoving. To anyone who didn't have superhuman hearing like me, you'd think he was dead but he was definitely still breathing and his heart was still beating, albeit both of them were very weak and quiet.

Hanzo, finally realizing what he'd just done, had gone pale and his body was subtly shaking as he looked down at his hands which were covered in blood. Both his own and Genji's. Maybe a little bit of mine was on there as well.

He shakily went to step towards us but the Elders watching had jumped down and all had grim looks on their faces - though I could see the joy in their eyes.

"Clan Head, we'll take care of the bodies...you will need to tell your mother of what's happened here," the Elder 'regretfully' said as multiple Elders came and took me and Genji away, jumping back onto the roof and charging off, not letting Hanzo say anything. But not before someone I didn't want to see me like this saw both me and Genji getting carried off.

"Genji?! Akahiko!?" my mother's screaming voice entered my ears and it took everything I could to not heal myself fully and kill all the Elders carrying Genji and I. It took everything to not go and comfort my mother...but I had to do this. Genji and I would be stifled in the clan. This was the easiest way to escape without them knowing exactly where we went. But...I'd come back for you, mom, and no matter how many people are here in the Shimada Castle...I'll take you away from all this hassle.

Just you wait. I promise.

. . .

"Are you sure we should leave them here?" one of the Elders asked, "Isn't this too open? What if someone finds them?"

Hearing the short Elder's worried tone, a taller, more muscular Elder snorted, "And what if they do? The police know better than to come to blows against our Clan," the man said before spitting on the ground next to us, "Anyway, these two are delinquents. They've pissed off more people than I can count with their stupid antics. Nobody will care if they're dead, so let's go," he said before flashing away in a burst of smoke, followed quickly by the other remaining Elders.

"Thank god they left already..." I hoarsely spoke as I rubbed at my chest where the blade had been roughly removed. I felt my Nanomachines patching me up and I realized they're truly amazing. They're factories, hospitals, and repair shops all in one.

My heart was healed in no time and despite some slight itching inside my chest cavity - the nanites working on making sure everything was 100% - I was back to full health.

Looking over at Genji, I quickly got to stabilizing him. I controlled millions upon millions of nanomachines and had them burst through my finger, creating a small mist of grey-silver, which quickly flowed down and entered Genji's body as per my command. I quickly spread them throughout his body, healing what needed to be healed.

I'd discovered that I could control nanomachines outside of my body years ago, and it was immensely helpful for both healing people and hacking technology.

Anyway, I first repaired Genji's cut blood vessels and any organs that had been cut by the sword being thrust into his stomach. This was an easy enough fix as each of the nanomachines I'd sent into him was chock full of supplies for healing - I had a perfected diet for max efficiency when it came to healing, with everything I needed to heal my body up to full no matter what.

He soon stopped bleeding, and the stump where his forearm used to be had also stopped bleeding profusely because I put a tourniquet just above the stump.

I couldn't re-make an arm - there was a limit to what I could heal for another person. Why? Because my Nanomachines were made for me, and me personally. They were calibrated for my body. I could work around it if I took conscious control to heal someone but I couldn't heal missing limbs.

And right now, I had something else to focus on:

His spine.

His legs were already in terrible states before his spine had been stabbed and snapped, but even then, he'd still be able to have cybernetic enhancements put in his legs to allow him to walk. His spine, however? That's a weakness I didn't want my brother to have. Especially with someone like Sombra in this world. Cybernetics just complicated things, honestly.

If he trained hard enough, Genji wouldn't need the cybernetics. If anything, they'd hold him back.

Wincing as I looked at the state of his spine, I quickly got to doing emergency repairs, binding the spinal cord back together before repairing the bone and fusing it properly. This required my full attention, yet I had full confidence in myself to fix my brother. If anything, I was improving him at the same time. Any imperfections in his body? I'd already wiped them out. I'd upped his muscle and bone density while I was at it.

Why? So his body could keep up with his cybernetics, of course. With how I'd healed him, much less of his body would be changed, meaning his body would be unbalanced even if he did train again. By upping his density, he'd be much more balanced. Not perfect, but leagues better than what it would be.

If I didn't do this, he'd be lop-sided, is how I'd put it. One robotic limb with above-human strength and one limb with peak-human strength? He'd be weaker on one side of his body than the other. Never a good thing for a fighter, honestly. It leaves you predictable and weak to certain attacks. Like I said, I'm not willing to allow that to happen to my brother.

The fusing of his bones went fine, but before I could start on his legs - to see what I could do - I heard someone approaching.

"Well...We thought you were dead, Akahiko Shimada," a voice spoke in heavily-accented Japanese, but it was clear enough that they thought they had me by the balls, "Now, could you possibly explain how you survived a sword through the heart?"

I looked up to see a tall, dark-skinned man walking toward us. He was shorter than me, but still pretty tall at around 6'1", and he was of a muscular build. He had black hair, cut short around the back and sides. Looking up at his gaze, I saw that he had dark brown eyes, and the eyes were looking down at me and Genji with a gaze that spoke of an intent to use us.

"And if it isn't an Overwatch Operative," I shot back, narrowing my eyes and smirking, "Why are you here? Been spying on the Shimada family again? Guess some things never change," I said before standing up and brushing off my school uniform. The rain had stopped by now, yet my clothes were still wet and the dirt and dust on the ground clung to me, so dusting it off was necessary to not look like a tramp.

...Even if I was in a bloodied white school uniform shirt.

The man in front of me looked shocked, his steps towards us stopping as he started to take me a bit more seriously, "How did you...?" he muttered before shaking his head and smiling as he came toward me, his hand outstretched, "Well played, Shimada-san. My name is Gabriel Reyes, and I'd like to ask if you'd be interested in joining Overwatch? We'd even heal your brother to tip-top condition if you both join," he smiled and I took his hand, returning the smile as he carried on, "I don't know if you've heard but we've got the famous Dr. Ziegler as the Head of Medicine - her technology could definitely help your brother."

He seemed to think he was leveraging me. Using my brothers injured state to win me over and making me indebted to him because of it.

Smiling to myself about something the infamous yet-to-be Reaper didn't know, I gave a nod and a toothy smile, "If you can save my brother, of course I'll join. I was gonna see if I could join anyway - I feel like everyone has to chip in if we're gonna deal with those Omnics, you know?" I laughed and Gabriel joined in, thinking he'd just gained some powerful allies.

And while he wasn't wrong...He'd also just like a fox into the hen house.

Oh, and do I need to mention that I knew this was gonna happen, so it's well within my plans? Joining Overwatch gives me access to everything I'd need to sow good karma in this world.

With this situation to bury my hollowness over Hanzo's actions, I felt myself get superficially happy.