Chapter Text
It had all started with a flash, and a dizzying, swirling sensation you had only placed about twice before in your life. It moved both with you and through you, carrying the you in entirety to wherever it wished for you to go. Last time it had taken you from Gibraltar to London, 1863. Tracer and Winston had worked a week overtime just trying to get you back, but they figured it out eventually. This time, you had no idea, given your eyes were still closed and you were busy trying not to throw up.
Oh fuck, I’m going to throw up. The panic burns through you, hot and sharp, the fear overriding any other sensations. You fight with as much strength you can muster, lying on hard ground and breathing as deep as you can. The nausea is almost overpowering, and more than once you contemplate just letting it happen, and getting the vomiting part of this over with, but the very idea of that makes you more terrified than anything else. So you stay put, rub the tips of your fingers in that familiar motion down the middle of your ribs, and breathe deep and easy.
After what could be fifteen minutes to an hour, you open your eyes and thank all holy gods that it is nighttime and there is no sunlight blasting inside your eyes. Blinking, you look around, finding that yes, you have been deposited in a very dirty alleyway. You stumble up to onto your knees, taking in everything around you.
You attempt to shake off the confusion and run through your mental list of things to have if a spacetimehop ever happened again. Keys, wallet, phone? You’ve only got your phone. Damnit. Dirty alley, check. Modern technology? Going by the car with hoverpads you can see at the very end of the alley, check. Used condom about five feet to your left? Fucking check.
Stumbling to your feet, you calm the last strings of hot scared puke fear fear and walk out of the alleyway as casually as you can, only stumbling a little bit. The first thing you notice is that there are strangers in this street, if you haven’t had enough stress today. The second thing is that you can’t read any of the signs around you, because they’re in what looks to be a written Asian language. Bright neon store signs flash out at you, calling to you with words you can’t understand. The smell of rich, broth-thick soup invades your mind, and it smells so good you almost forget you’re somewhere that you don’t know.
And the third thing that absolutely sends you from ‘calmly freaked out’ to ‘holy fucking shit’ is the familiar alien monster right above the noodle shop you spy across the street. Taking a few steps into the road also proves that yes, the arcade with all of Genji’s high scores is right behind you. And it’s buzzing with people instead of being an empty free-for-all for people to dick around in. Holy fuck.
Taking a few more measured breaths, you let your feet take you down the road, and you have to take a few more roads and turns than you remember. But eventually, you find yourself standing right outside the Shimada family castle gates. The red of the wood calls out to you, singing a song of familiarity, and you use it to truly ground yourself, running your fingers along the smooth posts and savoring the feeling of the wood underneath your fingertips.
During this time, you think back on how you ended up here. Waking up and going through your phone for a half an hour, getting out of your beautifully cleaned sheets, putting on your also freshly cleaned pajamas, and going on a morning walk to the cliffs of Gibraltar too look out at the sunrise. Next, that swirling, moving sensation, and waking up at what looks to be at least three in the morning in Hanamura, Japan. What next?
‘ Well, the next thing to do is to find out when am I. If I’m lucky enough, I’m in the rebirth era of Overwatch and I can just find my way to the nearest base, ’ you thought to yourself, and began formulating a plan on how to find out the time without, A. asking anyone, because you don’t know the language and have unnerving social anxiety, and B. looking like a freakshow.
As the gods may have it, you didn’t get any time to really formulate a plan before prior training taught you to hear the footsteps coming your way. You quickly slide into the shadows along the walls, taking out your phone and hopefully passing the part of human who was just leaning against this wall non-suspiciously. The footsteps get closer, falter for just half a second, and you look up to lay your eyes on one of the most gorgeous men you’ve ever seen. With bright green hair and an air of easy confidence resting around him, along with the ugliest orange scarf you’ve ever seen, there is no doubt about who he is and when you are. Because Genji has just climbed the gates over to his estate, and he glances over his shoulder and shoots you a wink before disappearing into the walls.
Double fuck.