CYOA 2 – To The Victor Go The Spoils – Chapter 32: The Aftermath (Patreon)

Last time: Hanzo decided to go the most outrageous route to try and make his brother see that he's not just a stick-in-the-mud. Cole was very happy to assist.

Warnings/content: Pokémon typical fighting

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The silence in the room had been thick enough to cut for the past five minutes. Hanzo had forced himself to greet his brother. Genji had grunted something that approximated a reply but most of all he had just stared at Hanzo with an expression that he could not even start to interpret.

He’s never seen Genji be so quiet for so long, that is for sure. There is no need to question whether he had indulged himself and listened in on his brother’s escapades. Hanzo forces himself to stoically stare back at him.

When the quiet stretches just a bit too far, Zenyatta suddenly appears in the doorframe with a plate full of their evening meal. It is not much but enough to quell the hunger.

He shuffles closer with a warm smile and sits down between the two brothers.

“So. Did you two have fun while I was gone?” he asks with a lilt in his voice that makes it clear that he knew something had happened. He glances between the both of them.

Hanzo is starting to seriously regret his little stunt.

Suddenly, Genji speaks while leaning forward and grabbing one of the small sandwiches Zenyatta had prepared.

“It was cool. Don’t worry so much.”

Hanzo has no idea who he is talking to. He glances to Zenyatta who glances back at him as if he isn’t quite sure as well.

When he looks back at his brother he can finally see it: the downright begrudging respect in his features just before he quickly looks down at his food. The tips of his ears are bright red.

After their meal when Hanzo has excused himself outside as fast as possible without quite seeming like he’s fleeing from something, he stands around a corner, just staring up at the sky. At the edge of the forest he can see Goomy… well… Sliggoo and Kikuri doing… something. He is not quite sure. If someone were to ask he would say that she is trying to talk the gentle giant into some kind of nefarious plot.

He’s no smoker but right now he wishes he had one of Cassidy’s cigarettes to suck on. Or that the lazy cowboy was here to begin with just so he could-

“It was a ballsy move.”

Hanzo inhales sharply at the voice of his brother suddenly coming from his right shoulder. He whirls around to see Genji standing there on the other side of the corner. The tips of his ears are still brick red, something they have in common, Hanzo is starting to find out. Which is weird. It is weird to find out things about your brother now after they’re adults and had spent their whole lifes living together.

Hanzo narrows his eyes and looks at him sharply, trying to find some insincerity in Genji’s expression… but all he sees is a begrudging kind of honesty that he just has to believe in.

Hanzo tries to play it cool and shrugs one shoulder, staring out toward his Pokémon like those two were the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Genji, obviously deciding to ignore that, observes with an almost cautiously joking tone: “At least now I know you don’t got a stick up your ass because it’s occupied by Cassidy’s fat-”

“Genji!” Hanzo hisses, heat bubbling in his stomach and threatening to crawl up into his face.

Genji is grinning at least; it’s the first time in a long time that he’s seen this expression on him. One that he had been carrying a lot when they were children. It somewhat sobers Hanzo as he carefully clears his throat and murmurs: “May I… ask you something?”

Genji’s grin quickly fades. There is a certain amount of distrust in the way his eyes flick to take Hanzo in quickly that kind of… hurts, if Hanzo is being honest. He wonders what he did to his little brother. Other than the two of them making each other’s lives a lot harder than they had to be.

“What is it?”

“...Where are your Pokémon? I haven’t seen any of them since coming here.”

Now it is his turn to shrug one shoulder and stare out into the surrounding forest. It looks a lot more ominous by night.

“Out there, I think. With your team probably. I’m not too sure, actually; they usually come if I call.”

Hanzo shifts a little from one foot to the other and asks in a more quiet voice, almost a whisper: “What about your dream of becoming the Champion?”

Genji scoffs and finally looks back at him, the distrust from before having suddenly turned into hostility. “Why are you asking? To report back to father? Get your duty done and grab a badge and be on your way?”

Hanzo sucks on his teeth but tries to quell his anger as he turns to properly face his brother for once.

“Would you believe me if I said that it’s just a genuine interest of your big brother?”

“No,” comes the immediate reply before Genji pauses and the anger subsides somewhat. He looks thoughtful instead, rubbing his chin and looking Hanzo up and down again; slower and with a different set of eyes it feels like. “Though, coming from you… I guess I could believe it.”

Hanzo has no idea what that means so he just stays quiet and lifts his brows at the other until Genji sighs and his posture finally relaxes.

“Zen says that I got into bit of a crisis of faith or something. Like it felt like you poked a hole into me and all the air was streaming out and I couldn’t figure out where the leak was happening. And when I got here and my team got to roam around free I saw how much fun they were having, just playing and relaxing and I got to wonder ‘well maybe they don’t actually like fighting that much’. And I tried winning against Zen again and again and again but… it felt like I was just going through the motions. Like they were just going through the motions. So now I kind of… stopped.”

The silence after that is heavy. Hanzo feels… extremely uncomfortable with Genji’s surprising honesty.

He’s never heard him put so many coherent sentences together; and certainly not any that were so honest.

The brothers avoid looking at each other for a minute or two before Hanzo clears his throat.

“All that just because I finally won?” He murmurs.

Genji makes a disgusted sound but just jerks one shoulder in a sloppy shrug.

“Guess winning against you was the only thing that really mattered.”

Hanzo bristles. He throws Genji a sharp glare but he has already turned and is on his way to shuffle back into the little temple. Probably going to sink his bad mood into the pussy of his new boyfriend, Hanzo thinks uncharitably before a voice that sounds suspiciously like Lúcio tells him to ‘chill’.

He closes his eyes and inhales deeply. When he exhales, he feels the sudden burst of anger fall off of him like so much dirt. Before Genji can completely slip into the door, Hanzo calls quickly out for him: “Genji!”

His brother pauses and turns his head just enough to look at him from the corner of his eye. “What.”

“Will you contact father? I think he is truly worried.”

Once again Genji just gives a sloppy shrug. “I don’t feel like dealing with his nagging right now.” He hesitates visibly then says softly: “He’ll be disappointed that I stopped.”

Hanzo doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s pretty sure that Sojiro will blow a fuse if he hears it. But simply ignoring him won’t do as well.

“...Will you talk to him if I win my fight against Zenyatta tomorrow?”

Genji snorts and gives him the finger as he finally vanishes into the temple. His voice floats out to Hanzo: “You won’t win. So… sure.”

.oOo.

The atmosphere on the little battle arena behind the temple is quite different than what Hanzo is used to. It is calm. His heart is thumping in a steady, unhurried beat and King has his head lowered to the ground, his lip brushing against the sand, looking for a blade of grass.

It seems it has not quite occurred to him yet that they are about to fight. Hanzo can’t fault him for it; it really does not feel that way.

Genji is lounging in the shadow of the temple, leaning against its old walls. His Lycanroc has appeared from the forest and laid down next to him to relax with its head in the sun.

Zenyatta is on the other side of the battle ground, three Pokémon behind him: Medicham, Kadabra and Sawk.

They are puttering around with their own little things, building tiny structures in the sand or just looking into the air with vacant expressions.

Hanzo is not so daft as to assume that they are no threat – Genji having tried multiple times to best this man and his Pokémon certainly is attesting to that. He still feels like he is going in completely blind.

Zenyatta is standing there with his fingers steepled in front of his stomach. He has opted not to wear one of his thin shirt, instead letting the morning sun warm his slender shoulders. His aura of complete relaxation is practically radiating throughout the area. Hanzo can feel him from where he is standing.

The presence of this man is quite startling indeed.

Still, Hanzo needs to push onward. His hand is resting on the Pokéballs, wondering what to do against that team of his.

“Thank you for challenging me today,” Zenyatta says with a smile; as if he really is thankful. Hanzo bends lightly at the hip. “It is my honor.”

Zenyatta’s smile widens almost imperceptibly.

“May I tell you my rules?”

“Please do.”

“I would like to do a ‘best out of three’.” Zenyatta explains. It does not surprise Hanzo; the three Pokémon behind Zenyatta have been telling in and off themselves. “And we do not switch them out. The fight lasts until one opponent gives up or is unable to fight. A Pokémon may only be chosen once to compete, so please take a moment to think about it before sending one of your team out.”

Hanzo nods slowly. It is nothing outlandish after the matches he has already had.

“I understand.”

“Very good. Are you ready, then?”

“...Yes.”

.oOo.

Hanzo inhales sharply as he sees the Kadabra’s spoon starting to glow. His eyes snap toward Sliggoo in the middle of the field; a sitting duck for yet another attack. He had been fighting with a lot more gumption than Hanzo had even hoped for, but he still has a lot more training to do before he can be sent into a gym leader battle.

“I concede the round!” Hanzo barks out before Kadabra can finish powering up the attack.

Zenyatta nods. He does not say anything but his Pokémon stops the attack more than happily and turns to hop back toward him. It is eerie. The whole match has been that way; the gym leader has not uttered a single word since they begun and yet somehow his Pokémon are moving as if they were directed by him in minute detail.

While King had been able to push through the strange silence during the first match against the Medicham, Sliggoo had visibly struggled, unable to predict what his opponent might be about to do next and getting pummeled by attack after attack because of it.

As Hanzo calls Sliggoo back into his Pokéball to let him rest, a small noise makes him look over to the side of the battle field where Genji is resting. He can feel his hackles rising as he sees the wide, lazy grin on his little brother’s face. He does not have to say anything, his posture tells it all: he is more than happy with Zenyatta’s performance… and obviously not surprised in the least.

He thinks he got that whole thing in the bag; that Hanzo has to retreat with his tail clenched between his legs and having to deal with their father alone for the foreseeable future.

Anger bubbling up inside him, Hanzo puts his hand on Maddox’ Pokéball. Zenyatta’s last Pokémon, Sawk, has already taken up position and is going through some kind of movement routine that looks weirdly threatening.

He pauses, hesitating with his fingers on the Pokéball. While he thinks Maddox would fight with absolute ferocity, he does have to take the type disadvantage into account. Maybe Zeus was the better choice even given the fact that he would not be able to react as fast as he could with the lack of water…

Just as his fingers slide over toward Zeus’ Pokéball, he hears another opening with a pop. His insides freeze up, lungs spasming briefly as a single thought wafts through his head: not again.

As Kikuri appears on the battlefield, he can’t help the new wave of anger washing through him, staring at her small stature.

Anger at her for still being such a brat and never listening – and anger at himself for not yet having trained the disobedience out of her.

He refuses to admit the faux-pas in front of his brother, though. Genji’s gloating is like a hot iron poker behind him, egging him on. Hanzo slowly lets his hand slide from his belt, pretending like he had this planned all along while Kikuri’s tail is swishing back-and-forth.

The ensuing fight is… well, it is more brutal than anything he had done before; and not because of his suddenly bad mood. Kikuri is vicious in her attacks, jumping up from being hit and shaking it off as if the Sawk’s hits were nothing to her.

Zenyatta still does not issue any orders to his Pokémon – not that Hanzo can hear – but his posture seems definitely more tense, his smooth forehead now in wrinkles as he watches the Salandit fighting with more and more aggression.

At one point, the Sawk manages to pin Kikuri down to the ground by her neck and while Hanzo can tell that the Pokémon is not actually choking her, she screeches bloody murder and wildly claws at its arm until the Sawk has no option but to let her go again, dancing out of the way of her uncoordinated, furious swipes with a concerned expression on its face.

More than once, she blatantly ignores his orders, though he does not get the feeling that she is doing it because she once again thinks she knows best – he more gets the feeling that she genuinely is too deep in her frenzy to hear him.

When Zenyatta suddenly lifts his hand and mildly declares: “I give up. You win.” It feels more like a loss than anything Hanzo had witnessed yet.

He nods, mutely staring at Kikuri who is standing on trembling legs, visibly panting. She looks like she is waiting for something and when she doesn’t turn to come to him after he calls for her the third time, he slowly moves over to where she is.

“Kikuri,” he says quietly once he is squatting next to her. “The fight is over. You can come back now.”

The expression on her face is… difficult to read. He can watch in real time as she slowly seems to come back to herself, her eyes flitting about to look at her surroundings before peering down at herself.

Hanzo frowns but Genji’s voice floating to him distracts him from the disappointment on Kikuri’s face.

“Well that was fucking disappointing. And weird. The Hell was up with your Mon? Did you give it drugs or something?”

He comes to stand next to Hanzo, looking down on Kikuri with an annoyed expression. Zenyatta is coming close as well, his hands folded behind his back and a mild smile on his features.

When he stops next to them, he reaches into the pocket of his comfortable looking pants and pulls out the badge which he offers Hanzo on an open palm.

“Thank you for the fight.”

Hanzo briefly considers not accepting it and requesting a proper rematch, but then mentally kicks himself and grabs the shining little plaque, looking down on the little temple that it shows.

“I have to thank you,” he murmurs and slips the badge into his pocket while ordering Kikuri back into her Pokéball. There is a moment of complete silence before Hanzo turns to Genji.

“Will you contact father now?”

Genji throws his arms into the air and his head back with a shout of: “Oh my God! What is your obsession with that man? Can’t you just let me live my goddamn life for one second?!”

Hanzo’s mouth presses into a fine line but he can see how much Zenyatta is amused by Genji, so he tries to incite the same benevolent attitude. They did come a little closer, after all.

“A bet is a bet. Maybe do your own dirty work next time instead of pushing it off on others. Not that you’d win, but you know… it’s the honorable thing to do.”

Genji glares at him. He steps uncomfortably close, his finger drilling painfully into Hanzo’s chest.

“You won’t have the last laugh on this, mister ‘I finally get laid and suddenly become popular’. I’ll get you eventually.”

Hanzo narrows his eyes and tries to step back but before he can do so, Genji suddenly grabs him by the front of his shirt and pulls him even closer. He can hear his brother’s breath in his ear before Genji whispers: “You know, the gym leader grapevine even extends to this little spot out in the boondocks.”

Hanzo’s breath hitches, dread slowly sliding down his back and leaving him cold as he listens to his brother’s next words: “I know all about your little escapades with the other leaders. Maybe you should keep that in mind the next time you decide to be a little slut and then go around pretending to dad that you’re such a saint and perfect little heir, hm?”

Hanzo does not know what to say to that… but the ominous sting of Genji’s words is softened considerably when he suddenly pushes Hanzo away again and claps both hands onto his shoulders, grinning into his face.

“You know what? I think this is worth a celebration, huh? My big brother finally pulled out the stick in his ass and got more badges than me. It’s a momentous occasion. So lets drink some before I kick you out.”

.oOo.

Hanzo and Zenyatta sit huddled together, watching the complete mayhem that unfolds before them.

The sun has already started to go down but apparently that had just been the incentive Genji and a newly arrived Lúcio had needed to get out the alcohol and loudspeakers to have a small impromptu party.

It’s not what Hanzo has had in mind when Lúcio had arrived around lunch time to finally meet up again and continue their journey together – but from the twinkle in Genji’s eyes and the big grin stretching on his face, he could definitely have anticipated it.

He peers over to Zenyatta who, while not taking part in the wild dancing going on between two humans and a whole bunch of Pokémon, does look anything but turned off by it. There it a serene expression on his face as he watches the goings on. Hanzo tries to imagine what is going on inside his head but can’t quite do so.

In many ways, Zenyatta is as much a mystery to him as Genji has been their whole lifes. Maybe that is why they work together so well?

He does not really want to think about it.

The Pokémon around Genji and Lúcio are a mix of their own Pokémon as well as Zenyatta’s and Hanzo’s.

Hanzo’s gaze keeps moving toward King who prances around in a circle and throws his head. He looks quite majestic indeed.

“A beautiful Pokémon. It is your first, yes?”

Hanzo startles slightly and peers toward Zenyatta. He feels weirdly seen by those intelligent eyes.

“How do you figure?” He asks slowly.

“Well… Genji did tell me about it – but the bond between you two is the strongest. I can practically see it.”

Hanzo does not debate the point; he can feel that there are powers inside Zenyatta that none of them have. He peers back at King, his hand loosely wrapped around his phone. He hasn’t been using it all day but it feels like some kind of… good luck charm. The only connection he has to Cole.

“Yes, he was the first. My father gave him to me freshly born.”

“I see… that is quite the honor. And a burden.”

Hanzo almost scoffs before the last part registers to him, so he remains quiet. He feels like he heard that somewhere before; someone telling him about the trust his father must have in his capabilities to send him off with a baby Pokémon as his starter.

It is new that someone recognizes the difficulty that comes with it, though…

“You know what?” Hanzo says slowly as his thumb drags along the edge of his phone; a new habit that he found calms him down quite a bit. “It was difficult. But I don’t think it ever was burdening me. King is… very special in more ways than just the superficial.” He can’t help a small smile. “I thoroughly enjoy being his trainer.”

Zenyatta does not reply but when Hanzo chances a little glance toward him, he looks as satisfied as a cat.

.oOo.

“I don’t get what you people suddenly see in him now all of a sudden, but… more power to you, I guess. Maybe you’ll rub some coolness off on him.”

“Oh, I plan on rubbing off on him alright.”

“...Disgusting. Stay in touch, alright?”

Hanzo can feel his annoyance reaching all new limits as he overhears the little conversation between Lúcio and his brother while they get ready to leave the plateau.

“Are you ready to go, Lúcio?”

Lúcio is laughing while hitting Genji on the shoulder with a fist but he turns to Hanzo with a bright grin now. “Sure thing! You got a destination in mind?”

“I do. Yes.”

He turns toward Zenyatta standing a bit to the side and bows at the hip. “Thank you for your hospitality and the match. And your patience with my brother.”

Zenyatta’s ever present smile widens and he bows in turn. “It was my pleasure. Please have save travels.”

Hanzo briefly considers to simply leave without acknowledging his brother, but he turns to him at the last possible moment.

“You will contact father, yes?”

“Oh my God… kiss my ass, Hanzo.”

They stare at each other in exasperation but after a moment, Genji suddenly throws out his hand for a shake.

“Just do your thing and I’ll do mine.”

“...indeed.”

They shake hands, not quite looking at each other… but it is a start, at least.

.oOo.

Lúcio and Hanzo had been traveling for a good day, conversation ebbing and flowing idly between them, their Pokémon trotting along or flitting off into the woods at the side of the road to play with something-or-other.

Suddenly, Lúcio touches Hanzo’s wrist, and, when he has his attention, jerks his chin toward Kikuri riding on Sliggoo.

“So what do you think was her problem this time?”

Hanzo squints at her, hesitating to immediately answer: “Well… I have my suspicions. But I want to keep them for myself for now.”

“Hmmn… you’ll have to address it sooner or later, though, right? I mean you can’t waltz into the Elite 4 with a disobedient Pokémon.” He is quiet for a moment, thinking about it before suddenly saying: “You know… I hope her problem isn’t that you’re… like… a dude? I know they got some problems with the patriarchy.”

That makes Hanzo laugh despite himself; a dry little sound he tries to muffle into his fist.

“I mean… it could play into the whole issue?” he replies, feeling elated to have Lúcio back on his travels for now. He did ensure that it would not take the other from more pressing duties regarding his career; Lúcio said that word-of-mouth and the internet would have to do the work for now and he could stay on the road as long as he had some internet access to check the goings-on.

Hanzo does not know about how successful the strategy is but he trusts Lúcio to know what he is doing.

“So… we’re on our way back to daddy dearest? That’s cool. I’ve never been to Hanamura before. I heard the gym is gorgeous.”

“It is,” Hanzo replies quietly, feeling an odd fondness in his chest. “We… might stop somewhere before that, though. It is on the way.”

“Oh? Where?”

“...Lavaridge. I’d like to ask someone there for advice.”

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Next time: Hanzo and Lúcio arrive at Lavaridge, a short reprieve before they'll meet with the 7th gym leader on Hanzo's journey. But how relaxing will it be?