The depth behind Hanzo’s basic conversation was processed, but ultimately phased out as wrong. Perhaps it was an American way of thinking. Even with the Omnic crisis, even with the general regression of the American economy, at least in his area of the mid-west, there was still an ignorant decadence. And why wouldn’t there be? For the most part, his part of the world was untouched. For years, since he was a kid, since his father was a kid, there was the greatest navy to protect their shores.
The idea of war was patriotic, idealized. Soldiers were heroes, whether they died, or they were simply in-and-out with nothing but unremarkable patrols on their record. The ‘art’ of war died long ago, when wide lines were replaced with narrow chokes, when units of hundreds and armies of thousands faded, to replace handfuls of men who stormed cities, and destroyed them in the effort of territorial gains.
“Can agree with the winnin’ part. Else, you’re scrappy rebels, martyrs.”
Once more, he loaded his revolver, running slim on the ammunition he brought along for practice. This time, he raised the gun, sighted it in properly, and fired. Yet another robot, with a demolished lens, and glass falling against cement, splintering in to tens of pieces, joined by a goopy, light-blue chemical.
“Gotta say, it hasn’t been my experience. ‘War’ was done at home, taggin’ an’ baggin’.”
As if accentuating his point, he fired in to the rightmost robot, constantly trading between a few of them to keep his rapid aim on point. And, as lauded, it was. His persona was the ‘Six-Gun Killer’. The movies portrayed his marksmanship and speed as if he had the arms of Zenyatta, the focus of the Widowmaker, topped off with a cool, collected attitude. It used to be so loved, where the immature celebrities of follower-counts and one-upping was not.
But he’d accepted that his prime had gone in the wind. Anymore, he was in Overwatch because he had to be. Because it was the difference between killing terrorists, or rotting in a dank basement cell, chained to both walls, given no reprieve, no execution; the ultimate payback for somebody who ended so many lives and cost his country so much money.
“You see it like poetry like that back where I’m from, an’ partner, you’ve got a knife in your back from a kid with a knife, lookin’ for a quick buck.”
The next set of rounds depleted, yet more scrap phasing off of the ground. This time, he holstered the firearm. Once again, he offered Hanzo his full attention, not really catching the nuanced discomfort with such directness. The American way, after all…
“’Sides, I think it’s kinda naive, no offense. War’s nothin’ good. Always been about gain, this-or-that, some vendetta or ‘nother. Honor only went as far as your army didn’t. The stronger ya’ are, the more you can push, the more you can take. S’what humans want, whether they admit it or not.”
Once more, he politely listened as McCree offered his insight. War was ugly, he had not disagreed, but art could be ugly too. It didn’t negate the fact, one way or another.
Though he wondered if the showmanship was simply that, the rapid switching between idle targets, the cool flick of a wrist and twirl of a revolver before it was dropped, seamlessly, back into its holster. Almost as if it had never left. He was as fast and deadly as all of the stories claimed, gushed tales of a rugged cowboy with the lightning focus, men dying on two feet before he had even puffed his cigar. It was… A loud manner in which to carry yourself.
The archer felt no such need to show himself off, the range was merely a tool for him to unwind, to drown out his thoughts with repetitive, mechanical motion more suited to an Omnic than a living, breathing man. He sat his bow down, and if there had been an unspoken challenge, he refused it pointedly. To cause death was not a competition, but if it was, he would win.
“Perhaps for your armies,” he did not bite back at the comment of honour, but it was not without it’s venom either. There was honour in his work. His past, perhaps not. It was still all a big mess he was trying to reconcile, to untwist and disassociate, to pick the true honour from the mere puppetry. “Tacticians are revered for their study. There is artistry in balance, and you cannot balance a force without a sturdy grasp of what it takes to succeed in the fray. A hundred men can fell a thousand, if they know patience.” Hanzo rest his covered hand upon the railing, then, peering over the Western man with a slight tint of sourness in his expression.
“But the reason you fight, no. There is only honour where it is granted, and it is not offered hand in hand with greed for power, or resource. You carry yourself with certainty, for a man who understands little about the traditions of war from a place he does not know.”
He was agreeing, in a roundabout and confronting way.
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