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Hanzo has prepared for this his entire life. He has sat in meditation, purified his body, memorized the family histories. He has studied every theory every one of the family’s amateur philosophers generated about the dragons’ origins and nature. He is as ready as it is possible to be.
He is fourteen.
His arm feels as though someone has wrapped it in fire, so hot that it freezes. Delirious from the agony, his mind is unable to register the appropriate label for the sensation. When it is over, he will remember it as a fever dream — impossible to say what happened and what did not.
After all the pain, he thinks his arm should be covered in blisters, but the tattoo is beautiful, wrapping sinuously around smooth, unblemished skin.
It has been over a century since anyone wielded two dragons. It is an incredible honor, and a sign that the family will prosper for many generations to come.
His father smiles. Behind him, the elders smile too. He has exceeded their expectations. It is the happiest day of his short life.
The dragons move restlessly beneath his skin.
There are two competing theories. Anyone who claims to know the truth is vastly overstating their capabilities. One theory says the dragon spirits reflect the will of their masters. What the master feels, the dragons feel, perhaps even amplify. The other says that the dragons have their own will. They must be brought under control lest they rule in the master’s stead.
Hanzo believes the latter.
The first time he summons the dragons outside a ritual, he is seventeen. His father wishes to demonstrate their vast power to a rival family. This would be a vulgar display, if the family in question was not in need of something extraordinary to cow them.
The first person Hanzo notices among them is a young man, his own age or something near it. He looks terrified. He is the enemy, and he will be the first person Hanzo is commanded to kill. When the dragons erupt from within, all he can taste is blood.
He drops to his knees before it is over, overcome by the ferocity of the spirits he has invited into his body. No one helps him; no one is allowed. He must get to his feet on his own.
His father’s face is not as proud as it was after the ritual, but he looks grimly satisfied. It is enough, Hanzo thinks. He will be proud next time, when Hanzo can control himself.
He makes it to his own quarters before he retches, mouth flooded with the memory of blood. In the privacy of his room, he admits he’s afraid of his own dragons.
It takes years before he learns to keep his footing when he summons them. Genji never has this problem. His dragon moves like it is truly part of him. Genji has only one, and his is so much smaller. It must be easier to master.
Everything is easier for Genji, because he is not the firstborn nor blessed with the honor of two dragons. Duty is a gift, not a burden, and Genji has been given so much less.
Hanzo does not know why this fills him with such envy.
Genji lashes out over nothing. He’s angry at their father and at the family. Despite the immense privileges the family business provides, he is ungrateful. For every deal his easy charm helps strike, he ruins another. Genji sleeps around, picks fights at the bars, and he snorts, smokes or gambles all his money away. He impregnates the daughter of an associate. Worse, he pays to help her take care of the problem.
The elders want him punished; the child could have had its own dragon. If it were Hanzo’s, they would have stopped her by force. He might be in the midst of wedding preparations even now. But this is Genji. Father says nothing, and no one is punished where anyone else can see.
Privately, Hanzo thinks it is the first responsible thing his brother has done in his adult life. They have never shared secrets, but they share this one: their reasons were different, but they agreed it was necessary. It wasn’t Genji’s money that paid for the procedure. For three months, Hanzo knows what it is to have a relationship with his brother.
During that time, Hanzo sees what Genji’s friends and lovers and sycophants see. Genji is magnetic and charming. He makes Hanzo laugh, and he looks proud when he does. Hanzo is surprised to realize Genji cares what he thinks. He is Genji’s older brother, and he is gifted at so many things, and yet it never occurred to him that his brother might want something like approval from him.
Hanzo wonders what their life might have been if they spent it like this — if he tried to make Genji proud, rather than their father or the elders. His dragons seem to approve too, calmer beneath his skin than they’ve ever been.
It cannot last. Genji goes out, and Hanzo stays home. Genji chafes at any mention of familial duty while Hanzo works. Father says that Genji is less capable than he is — he does not share Hanzo’s gifts — and this is why Hanzo must work for them both. Genji is less capable, yet the punishment he endures suggests he is held accountable for the work he cannot do. Perhaps they believe he can still learn.
Genji complains about the life they lead and the things their family does, and when Hanzo finally rebuffs him, that’s the end of their peace. It will be many years before Hanzo understands that Genji’s complaints were a warning instead, and by then it will be too late.
Their father falls ill. His death comes swiftly.
Hanzo’s dragons are restless every day. They writhe when he takes over his father’s duties. They squeeze around his bones when he attends meetings with the elders. They glide slowly beneath the surface when he sits in private, grieving and uncertain.
Genji does not grieve. He only parties more. He disappears for days, and when he returns, he’s glassy-eyed and unpredictable. He insults their associates, jeopardizing every business meeting he can be bothered to attend. Father was the only one who could cow Genji, and even that was only half successful. Without Sojiro’s iron grip, he is impossible to contain.
The elders take Hanzo aside, and they tell him they doubt his ability to lead. He is young and their family has just lost one of its dragons. Genji is more than an embarrassment; he is a symbol of the family’s weakness to external threats. He’s a liability. If Hanzo does not want a war from without or a schism within, Genji must be brought to heel.
It is a task that no one could succeed at, but Hanzo tries. He gives Genji more responsibility, an honored position at his side. He offers deals for his cooperation. He cuts off Genji’s supply of money and drugs. He tries everything he can think of, and every effort pushes his brother farther away.
Then he receives the intel. Overwatch has eyes on them, and someone has been leaking information. There is only one person who makes sense.
With all the fervor of someone with something to hide, Genji accuses Hanzo of distrusting him. He says Hanzo is just like their father. Genji calls him the family lapdog. He laughs an unhinged laugh, and he spits at Hanzo’s feet. The dragons rage, a storm barely contained by sinew and bone.
Hanzo knows then that his brother will never fall in line. He believes his duty is a cage from which he must escape, and he will betray them all if it means his freedom. Then he spins, gesturing with arms spread wide at their home, the home of hundreds of Shimada before them, the site of their accumulated wealth and knowledge and power, and he declares that none of it is worth the cost. With his back to Hanzo, Genji announces that he is leaving.
It means he doesn’t see the first strike coming. Genji staggers, and Hanzo’s blade comes away with a wet sound. He turns, eyes wide and disbelieving, hands belatedly clasping over his wound.
Genji is many things, but he isn’t a coward. His hands are slick with his own blood, but his grip on his sword is sure, even if his footing is not.
Hanzo’s dragons won’t come. The tempest rises, lightning arcing down his nerves, but still they will not come. It is one more thing he must do alone.
Genji doesn’t have the same problem. He gleams in the lamplight, protected by his dragon. It should be a mortal wound, and yet he stands, fire in his eyes. Hatred, Hanzo thinks, because what else could it be?
They fight until Hanzo’s palms slip on the grip of his blade, until Hanzo bleeds and his vision blurs. The storm winds howl within him, and when Genji snarls his name through the blood bubbling on his lips, Hanzo digs deep and seizes control. Only one dragon answers his call, but it answers, and one is enough to finish the deed.
He calls the elders in before he leaves. They will want proof. Let them clean up the mess.
Hanzo has aimed for perfection his entire life. He’s wanted nothing but to serve his family, and then to lead them. He has done everything they asked, from the minuscule to the grand. They have dictated his friendships, his business partnerships, his romantic dalliances. They have decided his hobbies and his education; they even chose his diet for him.
None of it has ever been enough. Sacrificing Genji is not enough either. Hanzo gives until he is empty.
Numbness seeps into the hollow vessel of his body, leaving room for little else. Neither dragon will obey his summons any more, and he cannot bring himself to care.
He tries to leave in the middle of the night. He does not know what he wants. Time alone, perhaps. Time to grieve. Time to make a choice that doesn’t belong to his family. They send a handful of men to stop him. They think he is abandoning them. They might be right, although he doesn’t realize it until the confrontation has already begun.
He has shed Shimada blood before. Killing these men is easy after Genji.
There is no returning now. They send the first of many assassins after him, and when he reaches out, the dragons come at once. Both of them, ready to obey him again. He is still afraid of them, afraid of the wildness they bring, but for the first time, he feels something more. He feels their fury as his own. He thinks they may be more a part of him than he realized.
He never truly grows comfortable with his dragons — it would be stupid to forget they are not human — but they reach an accord. For many years, they want the things he wants. They do as they are told. They protect him, even against his own family.
Once a year, he returns home. One of his cousins leads at first, but he is replaced by one of the elders’ daughters, who is replaced in turn by another cousin. The guards’ faces become unrecognizable, the assassins sent after him no longer familiar. His family home barely houses his family any longer.
It should be his. His and Genji’s, he thinks, and the dragons stir with a sensation he cannot name. It’s the one that accompanies only thoughts of Genji.
On the tenth year, he meets his brother again. The dragons must know before he does, because they never warn him his assailant is coming. He has to rely only on his natural senses.
He is certain he will die, and certain he deserves it. He accepts it.
Genji refuses to allow him the easy way out. Genji offers him a choice instead. This new way forward is as overwhelming as the dragons ever were.
Genji leaves him to decide his own fate. It is a horrifying prospect. Yet through the terror and the uncertainty and the shock, the dragons remain calm. When Hanzo finally makes his choice, they feel warm, like glowing embers within him. He’s never felt it before, but he thinks he knows how to ensure it stays.