Innocence

Hanzo's smoke begins to cloud Brakus' vision, and his senses become blurred like a newborn child when it first opens up its eyes.

His eyes became embers , and the sensation was nearly unbearable. But Brakus continues to attack the smoke; Hanzo is like a lion , playing with his prey and stalking just out of sight.

"Why can't you see that death has more purpose than your useless efforts—-" Hanzo prods at Brakus' ego.

"Daniel didn't deserve to die like t Brakus chokes as his words escape his lips. "--- His life meant more than anything you've done... ever will do!"

"Ironwell isn't the great protector that you believe it is," Hanzo retorts. "What peaceful country builds walls as tall as mountains , only permitting favorable people refuge? Ironwell lets people like me... like us die for nothing, we should burn it all to the ground!"

"And then millions of innocent people will die." Brakus lashes out, causing smoke to erupt in every direction.

"Shadow company will be grateful for their sacrifice. would you allow them to die in vain?" A hiss escapes Hanzo's throat from behind Brakus.

Brakus does a backwards kick, contacting with Hanzo's chest, then whips around, grabbing Hanzo's shoulders.

"I'll kill you, y-you monster!" Brakus begins to squeeze Hanzo as if he was attempting to crush an empty soda can. "My Dad would have never allowed someone like you to exist. He was a true hero!"

A twinge of amusement can be detected behind Hanzo' twisted expression, "Hmm, and who might your father be?"

Brakus burns his gaze into Hanzo's eyes "…. Diamond Bronze…."

Hanzo begins to chuckle at his response , "That bastard Diamond is your father? Killing you will be more entertaining than I thought—-". Hanzo dematerializes, escaping from Brakus' grip, "—- "Tsk! A hero? Don't make me laugh, Diamond Bronze was a traitor… My only regret is that I didn't kill him with my own hands."

Hanzo runs his sword through Brakus, he seemed delighted by how easily the blade slid through his prey. "And now your meaningless life has come to its exciting conclusion… Join him in the afterlife" , Hanzo twists the blade before tearing it out; he walks away as Brakus drops onto the cold earth right next to Daniel.

"I'm not impressed," Hanzo limps away, his shoulders are low, and his breathing is brisk and shallow.

[Just now: Haru's point of view]

"The sounds of fighting have stopped," Matthew whispers to Haru , who is scanning the area for signs of danger behind another tree a few feet away.

"And they didn't leave any tracks behind---" Haru smells the air, "--- it smells like blood, and by the thickness of the smoke in the air, we must be close."

Haru pauses for a second to light up a cigarette, "Daniel shouldn't have run off, I have an ominous feeling in these old bones."

The men move towards where the smoke is thickest. After a while,Matthew notices a red glow within the smoke. This had to be the source of the smoke.

As they push through the dense mist , the redness begins to intensify; eventually, Matthew breaks away into a clearing closely followed by Haru. They witness Hanzo limping away from two bodies lying in the dirt.

Haru stumbles as he puts together what just happened. Grief overtakes him,and he drops to one knee and buries his face into his open palms. He releases the pain-filled scream of a man who has lost too much.

"Is that—-" Matthew stammers, his eyes are wide with disbelief, and he can hardly put together words before he snaps, mindlessly sprinting at Hanzo with his weapon drawn.

He fires multiple shots at Hanzo, every shot misses except for the last one,which ripped through his hip; knocking away his deadly blade.

Haru sees this opening, and without wasting any time, he moves to kick the weapon away and put his sword to Hanzo's neck.

Hanzo ignores the cold blade touching his neck and stares coldly into Haru's eyes and smiles, "Why do you hesitate even though I killed those two? Maybe you hold the same sentiment as me… or would it be easier if I told you that they died because of you?"

He sweeps Haru's leg with a 'crack!' and slams his knee into his chest, removing the blade from his jugular; he struts towards the old man, who is struggling to regain his footing. Matthew's rounds phase through Hanzo before dropping to the ground.

Matthew pulls the trigger over and over until a click comes from the gun; realizing his gun is out, he charges him, unleashing a relentless flurry of combo's to no avail.

Hanzo lets out a brief sigh and punches him in the rib, instantly dropping him. He dusts his hands off and returns to Haru, "Now where were we…"

"Do you have the slightest idea of what is going on? You trust your powerful governing body too much, soldiers are left to die while their leaders sit comfortably on their lush couches. Surely, you understand that. "Hanzo continues speaking as he struts towards Haru, Haru grips his sword to face the impending threat. His eyes bounce around desperately, searching for something to even out the battlefield.

A dark aura begins to engulf the entire clearing; its darkness is thick and endless like the void of space. The trees begin to twist a contort as if being crushed by a giants hands, the ground beneath Hanzo's feet begins to rot and turn to dust. Brakus' body starts to shift. His appearance was contorted; although he was struck down recently, it looks like he has been dead for months.

"You should be dead. What is this?" Hanzo stumbles onto his back in a hopeless scramble. Haru watches in disbelief , his fear spikes as the Aura starts to overpower him.

Brakus's body begins to levitate. The darkness starts to retreat towards his body, which is continuing to levitate above the trees.

The Aura darts through Brakus, covering him in pitch black flames. The fire scorched his body; leaving nothing but a skeletal figure. The skeleton lets out a demonic wail. Haru could hear words beneath the screech.

It was saying, "You won't live long enough to hurt gramps, And you'll pay for what you did you bastard!!"

Haru cracks a huge smile, "At least the boy is still alive." He chuckles at the image of Hanzo frozen in awe, "It looks like you angered the wrong kid. I've never seen anything like it in all of my years."

Brakus's muscles and flesh start reforming around his bones, and the fire extinguishes itself. leaving behind a dark, twisted version of Brakus.

He explodes into the clearing and slams into Hanzo with unnatural speed; the impact sends debris flying everywhere. Haru gets knocked flat onto his back alongside Matthew, who is tinkering with something behind a rock. Haru calls out to him over the clanking noises from his work, "What are you up to?"

Without as much a taking and eye off of his work, Matthew replies, "Earlier, I hit him with a special round that I made. It's highly experimental, and it might not have been the greatest idea to use it. It contained micro-bots"

"And what are they for?"

"As we speak, they should be entering his bloodstream and leaving behind tiny explosives. His weakness has to be his insides. It doesn't make sense that he survived earlier, and you were certain that you killed him."

"So?" Haru replies with a puzzled expression

"So maybe the issue isn't that he can't die, but it's the way that you 'killed' him," Matthew replies, smiling as he reveals his device to Haru. It is some sort of controller with a small screen and a few buttons. There was a small antenna poking out of the left corner of the screen. Haru stares in amusement at the tiny device.

"What is that image?" He asks Matthew.

"Oh, that's the inside of Hanzo's bloodstream."

[In a nearby field:Brakus and Hanzo's POV]

"So you really are a monster just like me? Too bad you don't have the guts to kill me you little runt. Your precious little innocence means too much to you." Hanzo taunts Brakus

Brakus just chuckles and charges straight at him. He unleashes a flury on deadly attacks , every strike impales through Hanzo like a freshly sharpened spear. He hops and flips around Hanzo, cutting him all around with perfectly timed attacks. He grabs him by the arm and scrapes him across the field until his arm tears from its socket.

Hanzo screams out in agony , completely regrowing his arm. He stretches his new arm , cracking the joints perfectly into place"I take it back, I'm very impressed by you, if your brother is anything like you we'll be unstoppable!"

Brakus jolts into Hanzo, slamming him into the ground with his hand gripped tightly around his neck; the back of Hanzo's head grinds through the dirt.

"Why did you mention my brother? Did you do something to him? Where is he!?!" , Brakus punches him relentlessly as he interrogates him. "If you laid a single finger Brock there will be nothing left when I'm done with you."

Hanzo turns into red mist and slips from his grip , he rematerializes nearby and whistles. After a few moments, his blade comes careening towards the battlefields, landing perfectly in his hand. "Mwahahaha , I didn't touch him , but you won't be seeing him for a long long time—-" Hanzo plays with his sword with a grin then says, "Deaths Dream….It was nice knowing you, Brakus Bronze."

The red mist turns into a dark burgundy and starts to swirl around his sword. The sword changes into an all red blade with blood dripping from it. Hanzo lifts the blade up, admiring his handy work.

"Now, witness the pinnacle of my power and surrender to deaths embrace. Beautiful, isn't it?—-" Hanzo shows his teeth, and begins laughing maniacally; his teeth are sharp like fangs and emanating red mist, "—- Your innocence will fade away along with your life force!"

[Haru and Matthews POV]

Haru is standing over Matthew's shoulder smoking a cigarette, Matthew is dead focused on the control pad of his device. He is attempting to steer the microbots inside of Hanzo.

"Once the microbots reach the three major zones of attack, the Brain, the heart, and the lungs, I'll start the countdown. They're experimental so they have a 20 second countdown until the bombs activate and a additional 10 seconds for detonation", Matthew informs Haru.

"Good, I'm gonna go check Daniels body… I hope he isn't too far gone." , Haru grumbles to Matthew as he stumbles towards Daniels body.

The ground around Daniel is completely dried out and rotten, he is lying their completely still; his eyes are closed like he is sleeping peacefully. Haru shrinks back from the sight, letting out a single tear.

"You didn't deserve this brother , you were so young …. So much life left to live…. That bastard slaughtered you like an animal and tossed you aside" Haru loses his composure, letting the sadness completely overtake him. He chokes on his tears as he lifts Daniel up to carry him to where Matthew is sitting.

"I promise to take care of the boy and Matthew, you will be avenged. Your maintained your innocence until the end" He says, continuing the sorrowful walk.

[Hanzo and Brakus Pov]

Hanzo's blade meets with Brakus's fists in a brutal clash of metal and flesh. The sword begins to glow a deep red but Brakus ignores all of the pain and pushes through. The shockwaves of the clash push them away from each other and their eyes meet from across the field. They both smile before leaping straight back into battle.

Brakus lands a solid kick and follows it up with multiple successive blows piercing through Hanzo's stomach and chest.

(To be continued… The exciting battle concludes in the next chapter!!)