Chapter Text
Blood stained his fingertips; stained each of their fingertips, pooling at his feet. His yumi clattered to the floor as he sank to his knees, awe and disgust dancing in his pupils.
Hanzo attempted to speak, but he found that no words came from his throat apart from a strange, choked cry, a sort of sound he found to be rather animalistic upon later reflection on the matter.
He did not weep, however.
“It is your duty, Hanzo.”
He twitched, swiveling around on the balls of his feet to face the clan elders once more. Hanzo remained silent as they spoke.
A collective look of pity—was it condescension? — was given to the elder Shimada son. “Your.. brother.. Is out of control. You must correct his ways, or…”
Or.. as in else?” Now Hanzo spoke up. There was an icy edge to his words as he stared unblinking in their wrinkled faces. “Or else what?”
A solemn nod from the centermost. “You already know.”
Repulsive.
Despicable.
That he would stoop so low as to commit fratricide, in order to appease his clansmen? Were the words of his father meaningless to him? Hanzo contemplated this over a bottle of brew, Western by the looks of it. Decidedly bland.
It was coming on to ten years after the fact, and Hanzo was little more than an aging vagabond at this point. Tired lines decorated his sharply-cut face, gray hair somewhat-prematurely forming at his temples and peppering his beard. He supposed it was a byproduct of stress, but Hanzo ultimately thought little on the activities of his hair follicles.
It was approaching sunrise, he noted from the way the sky was slowly becoming purple, the first rays of sunlight due to peek out from behind the clouds in little over an hour’s time. He’d have thought it quite beautiful had it not been for his long-anticipated headache finally showing itself.
He cursed and took another swig of his drink. Swill, more like. How he had gotten to this, this dive , was beyond him; Hanzo Shimada, son of Saizo Shimada, in a dark and decrepit tavern that smelled of piss and stale beer, wasting away next to people that were more likely to be violent criminals and overall unsavory individuals than men merely down on their luck.
As if you aren’t one of them.
One thing was clear to Hanzo in that moment, and it was that he had to leave.
Many a time had he contemplated running himself through, and it was an idea that was certainly prominent in his thoughts at the moment, but he supposed that that method of departure must be ruled out.
No, he had to truly find his peace. Monks of the Shambali monastery were rumored to be arriving in Hanamura in the coming days. Hanzo, however, wasn’t planning on forgoing his already-limited worldly pleasures in favor of enlightenment. At least, not anytime soon.
It was then that he set down his glass and all but flung coins at the bartender as payment before stalking out of the establishment, the chilly night air eliciting a shiver from the ronin. Perhaps it had been the wrong choice to wear a robe baring half of his chest.
The streets, predictably, were void of any life save for a rather odd-looking old man fiddling with his thumbs. Or.. were they even his thumbs? Hanzo didn’t know what kind of neighborhood this was, and resolved to turn around and head in the opposite direction. The smell of the sea greeted him as he came closer to the harbor, the shipyard slowly coming alive as the sky advanced to a red-tinted array of clouds.
“Excuse me? Sir?”
Hanzo was shaken out of his contemplative reverie by a shrill-voiced young man, a foreigner from the looks of it. Probably a Spaniard, judging from his accent. Hanzo coughed, slightly embarrassed. He hoped that his cheeks didn’t show it. “Yes. I am.. This sir.”
The Spaniard looked confused. “R-right… what’s your business here?”
“I am merely going for a walk,” Hanzo replied curtly, finally managing to salvage his normally cool demeanor. “There is no problem with this, correct?”
“Well, no, but..” The foreigner scratched the back of his head. He had red hair. Fascinating. “There’s going to be a crowd here soon. A very big crowd. You might want to leave before they get here.”
This served to pique the ronin’s interest. Normally, he wasn’t so talkative, but the alcohol in his system appeared to be doing its job. “A crowd? A crowd for what?”
“There’s a boat leaving, sir. To America.”
“America..”
It wasn’t like his kind was welcomed here, anymore. Welcomed anywhere, really. He was a relic. A practitioner of a dying art.
The foreigner nodded. “Yes, sir, America. California to be precise. Are you familiar with— “
“Is there space on this boat?”
A look of surprise had came over the foreigner’s face, though it soon became a smile.“Well, of course there is! For a price.”
“I’ll take it.”
The smile melted into a look of pure glee. He stuck out his hand to Hanzo, though returned it after the ronin merely stared at his wiggling fingers. “Heh.. we leave in two hours. Make sure you have all your belongings, alright, Mister…?”
Hanzo did not answer, choosing instead to sit on a nearby bench, hands folded together. The Spaniard looked at him curiously before sighing and returning to his post. Samurai.
Hanzo made himself comfortable in his cabin, which he thankfully did not have to share with anyone. He didn’t know what he would have done if the screeching infant a few cabins down had been in his room.
Sighing, he removed the ribbon securing his hair and let it fall to his shoulders, leaning back into his bunk.
It would be a long voyage. He supposed he should rest.