[ 竜 ] – Any humor that could be gleaned from the static facade of his mask was lost in the span of a few passing seconds. The air still hung so heavy and it was a weight that was hard to move under now that he had become aware of it all over again. It didn’t help that the awkwardness of the silence was settling in so nicely, if a bit perturbed that it had been batted away for even an instant.
Hanzo looks down while Genji looks away. They still refuse to look each other in the eye.
At least, Hanzo does. It’s not that Genji hasn’t tried to bare some form of sincerity. And usual, it was met with knives and walls. Soon, he began to respect it, even if the urge to push it was still there. As much as he would have loved and longed for it to fall so perfectly in place, it was a futile wish. Nothing ever came easy for them, did it? Not even with each other.
So they keep bleeding like this.
He begins to draw his sword once more, but the click at the mouth of the saya was the only thing to precede Hanzo’s words before Genji once more fell still.
A pause, another moment of quiet contemplation that seems to draw on longer than it actually does. It’s an honest enough question.
“Perhaps a better question would be where did I not go.” It leaves him a little more flat than he intended. “But all roads have some sort of end. Where they meet another, or there’s no place left to go. Sometimes, you stay there for a while, and go back the way you came.”
It’s only then that he pulls the blade from it’s home once more. He palms the tsuka with more concentration than he needs, shifting the weight from one hand to the other. Back and forth, back and forth.
“…Nepal. I wound up in Nepal.”
Idling hands grow tense & he prepares another arrow, the shaft sliding against its rest to sate the bow’s --- his own hunger. Even without his whole focus, the targets are easily found; muscle memory takes over, the result of daily practice here. The exercise becomes monotonous & its usefulness wears thin --- even the moving bots can only follow the path programmed into their system, predictable, more fitting of a beginner than a master.
But still, he lines up another shot. Now he simply needs a distraction. At least they can provide that.
❝ Of course --- where you met the OMNIC. ❞
He’d passed through Tibet more than once in his travels, seen the white, towering mountains that guard the border. Odd to think how close they might have been at one point or another --- closer then Hanzo thinks possible.
One thought leads to another, sharper, a thorn in his head. Potent enough for him to lower the bow & pause the mechanical movement to turn & stare, drink in all of the metal form that still moves fluidly as flesh ever did.
The words won’t come & he fears they’ll be bitter, enough to upset the calm they’ve kept against the odds --- it takes little to break a pond’s still surface. He lets the silence carry, takes another moment to reconsider, but he has to ask.
❝ ...How did you come to know about my visits to Hanamura? ❞
Another pause, stagnant as ever.
❝ Why wait to confront me? Why wait to REVEAL yourself until after the blows were struck? ❞
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