Chapter Text
Her golden fingers trembled as she pushed the shard into its place without hesitation. Was the emotion swirling within her breast anger, or despair? The two always seemed so closely intertwined when it came to him. She stared down listlessly at her brother’s face, at the face of the man she once admired and loved twice as much. He clung to her with the desperation of a rejected child that helplessly grasped for acceptance from its mother, and she clung back just as tightly, wishing that everything was different.
His eyes fluttered shut and he let out a breathy whine at the sensation. Inserting a shard created a warmth that tingled throughout the scalp, a frisson that mimicked a lover whispering gently into your ear. She hated the feeling; it always felt something closer to being violated than comforting. Her brother, on the other hand, had always yearned for any simulacrum of intimacy, chasing it in parts - in women, causes, beliefs - across Japan. But never at home. Not after he left for the first time, anyways.
She remembered the long, bygone days of summer. They never climbed trees nor felt tall grasses against their knees, but with the imagination only children could draw from the universe, they found their own joy in the sterile prison of the Arasaka compound. Days filled with endless tutors, formal dinners, and great expectations were interspersed with the mischief of a stolen bokken or a misplaced tea set.
Then it all changed, that one fateful day. He never told her exactly what happened, but he left home that very night without a goodbye. She had cried for days, scared and confused. As she grew she resented his absence and the chaos his rebellion brought to the family, to their father. Only later did she begin to understand her brother’s righteous fury, delayed by their father’s attempts to shield her from the truth.
It hurt to see him now. She’d seen him enraged, triumphant, vengeful - and even after decades of futilely fighting the system, she thought he would never give up. Now, he looked utterly defeated. It was such a foreign, unwelcome set to his features that she shook him without thinking, making sure that he was not dead.
He opened his eyes and she cupped his cheek, somehow knowing that it would be the last time she could grant him absolution. “Is this how it ends?” His voice cracked from the dryness in his throat, his normally smooth voice only a croak. He must have run a diagnostic on the inserted shard. “Hanako.”
“Yes, nii-san,” she murmured comfortingly, her hand now smoothing down his crown of jet-black hair. Of course it would be her to bring retribution to the wayward son. No matter how many years she tried to avoid it, she had always known it would come down to her. “Father will guide you well.”
“Please, let me die instead.” His plea cut into her heart so deep that she could swear she could feel it bleed, and she glanced down involuntarily at her chest to see if it was stained red. It was still covered in the unsullied white of her dress, only covered with the scent of sweat and gunpowder. The carnage in that once perfectly humid jungle-scape replayed in her mind. She steeled herself.
“Family comes first,” she reminded him harshly. Her voice was as even as it always was, but she could feel herself begin to lose herself bit by bit to the rage. “And you turned your back on our family.”
You turned your back on me, she wanted to say.
His hand shot up to grip her wrist, his thumb caressing the exposed skin, and for a heartbeat, she panicked. She had ordered Oda to stand guard outside the room because this moment was too private, too familial; but her brother could still physically overpower her at any moment. How droll it would be for both father and daughter to fall to the same fate.
Her brother must have felt her tense, because he let her go one finger at a time and inched his hand away from her, dropping it back next to his limp limbs on the ground. Shame briefly washed over her. Fear was beneath her; her brother may have murdered their father, but she was always his weakness. “One day you will realize that all I ever did was for our family. And when you do, I hope you do not regret this.” The words should have sounded like a threat, but her brother was tired. He could only muster resignation. “You happily send me to a fate worse than death.”
If she had any more tears to shed for him, she knew those words would have heralded their arrival. “Not happily, nii-san. Never happily.”
“And yet the end result is the same.”
“Yes,” she admitted in a broken whisper. She clutched him tighter, just for a moment. There was nothing else left to say.
“Goodbye, Hanako.” His dark eyes gazed into hers and she saw no fear. He had never accepted the Arasaka cybernetics with their characteristic blue-grey hue. She was so proud of him then, her fearless, principled brother. He was brave enough to do what she never could, but he had failed. And now he had to accept his punishment.
It was time. Her cybernetic eyes heated up as she initiated the hack against his system, slowly frying every synapse in his neural network. He slipped off of her lap then, screaming in intense pain as she destroyed him piece by piece. He writhed on the floor like the koi on his well-pressed dress shirt, like a fish out of water. She continued through his agony, numb with grief.
A door opened in the distance, and she threw up her arm as a signal for the intruder to stop. The sound of footsteps ceased immediately. When her brother finally stilled, embraced by the merciful hands of death, she looked up to see Takemura standing in the doorway like Judgement himself, the light from the hallway leaking into the room and shrouding him in darkness.
“Hanako-sama,” she heard him breathe out in shock. He sounded more rattled than she had ever heard him. “Did he harm you? What happened?”
Her first thought that Takemura was actually more concerned about the thief that had scuttled away than the tragedy unfolding in front of him, and for a moment, she wanted to reach out and end his pitiful life. But she forced her anger to recede, knowing that she was being unkind. Takemura was what her father made him, wrapping himself in honor and codes to justify the way he was broken. There was no use getting worked up over her father’s favorite tool. It was like being upset at a sword for being sharp. She ignored him instead, kneeling next to the unmoving form of her brother as she waited in silence.
“Hanako-sama?” She heard Takemura edge closer cautiously, his heels connecting loudly to the floor.
Suddenly, her brother’s eyes shot open, bloodshot and wild, and he stared over her shoulder. “No. No, no, no!” He scrambled backwards, until his back hit the screen wall that displayed a map of the world, staring at Takemura like he was death come reaping. Dots representing cities with Arasaka towers blinked above him like fading stars. It was fitting, she mused, for her brother to be punished under their watchful gaze.
Hanako knew what her brother was really seeing, but Takemura stood rooted in place, paralyzed in his confusion. She kept her eyes on her brother, continuing her silence.
Her brother’s mouth twisted into a multitude of shapes, as if at war with himself. He contorted like a man possessed, his limbs twitching and shuddering as he fought against his internal assailant. In the end, he went slack for a moment before a chillingly familiar expression settled onto his face. He slowly staggered upwards onto his feet, swaying momentarily before he gained full control of his limbs. Despite her assault on the body, he pushed through the fatigue admirably, giving off the impression as if he was in the peak of health. His hands folded behind his back and his shoulders straightened. Yorinobu no longer stood before her, but another man entirely.
Takemura took in a sudden, sharp inhale, and she knew that he understood.
“My dearest daughter,” her father intoned with her brother’s voice, with his face. “You have done well.”
She bowed lowly to him. “Father.” She heard the low rumble of Takemura’s voice and the rustle of his clothes as he followed suit.
It is now, she thought as she clasped her hands in front of herself, staring down at the marble floors, that my heart is truly broken. Memories of halcyon summer days drifted through her mind once again. An outstretched hand to lift her up from the ground whenever she fell. A message in an encrypted channel on the net, encouraging her to stay the course and thrive where she could. A flickering light of hope in the almost all-encompassing darkness. She had grasped every memory from her seventy-nine years and crushed them all. A quick glance at her fingers did not reveal the blood that she expected to drip from her golden claws. What was family anymore, with her precious brother imprisoned within his own mind, his own father his jailor?
She closed her eyes and thought of the gilded peace their father promised her. No more hunger, no more fear. A beautiful world where no children need suffer like Sandayu once did. She held faith, and pushed all thoughts of her brother away. Her work had only just begun.
Goodbye, nii-san.