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Overhead, something burst apart with tremendous force. Genji felt the heat of it, felt it peppering his back with grapeshot and the pressure pushing down on him.
He didn't notice. He didn't care.
He adjusted his burden (not a burden, never a burden) as best he could with one arm. The other elbow was used to brace, but its corresponding fingers could not move from the omnic's side. Rather, they would not. Yes, metal digits were denser and stronger than flesh ones. But metal could not press and seam together like flesh could. It could not hold back a steady leak of slick pearly fluid like flesh could.
“Genji.”
“Hush,” he pleaded. Gunshot rang out from around the corner of one building. Not Overwatch standard arms, by what the report of the rifles told him. He had to get them around the block. Back to the team. “Hush, sensei. All will be well.”
He didn't hear himself say it. Just hoisted Zenyatta higher against his chest and kept moving, hugging the sides and the shadows of the buildings. With his hover module offline, Genji was forced to bear the omnic's full weight. This too he did not notice. Be calm, he hold himself. Be calm.
“You are so bright,” Zenyatta droned, in the same tone he'd use to describe a rainbow or a bird on a wire. “You have always been so bright, Genji.”
Genji staggered at this. He found a crook in the rubble of a wall to put his back into. Leaning on his heels, he put his forehead to his mentor's, noting the soft click of metal meeting metal. “Sensei, please... do not speak. I must get you back. I must, I... I will make things well.”
“So driven,” the Shambali marveled. Steeling himself, Genji set out once more, his body moving with renewed purpose. Just one more turn and they would be safe. One more and they would be back with the team.
He made the corner, and yes! There they all were! Pharah and 76, Winston and Mercy. Holding steady and defending the point, holding out as the terrorists destroyed the city around them. At the sight of Dr. Zeigler, Genji's hopes soared, but only to plateau and then sink. She would not be able to fix this; she could only heal metal if it were synced with flesh, as he was. She was not an engineer. But maybe-
He heard the whistle before he felt the explosion. Behind him, something hit the ground and ruptured, the shockwave bringing him to his knees and sending him skidding upright on his shins. The friction was excruciating, and Genji felt it in his bones and his struts, felt it singing through his tendons and the corresponding circuits. His knees created furrows in the pavement as they were ground down to the joint, but he held onto Zenyatta, shielding his head as best he could. When they finally came to a stop, his auditory and visual feeds were flickering, scrambled. Without them he was vulnerable. Out in the open, easy for anyone to pick off. But he did not think of himself.
His sensei. His poor, dear sensei.
“WINSTON!” When Genji screamed, the name ringing and piercing in the confines of his sealed visor, he realized how scared he was. The echo must have done something, because outside noises began to come back to him in clearer streams. The sound of a barrier being thrown down, armored knuckles and padded feet pounding the rubble-strewn street.
Genji and Zenyatta were engulfed and pulled along. When they stopped, Genji could only make out, through the hazy neon of his visor, the gorilla's canines. Those teeth had always done something to him, spoken to him in a way. Perhaps it was the human part of him recognizing their kinship, connecting the dots and tracing back to a time when their Miocene forebears shared similar DNA.
“Please,” he gasped. “Help him. Please.”
Winston grunted, patting them down, examining the extent of Zenyatta's injury. “I will do what I can.” He made to take the omnic from him, but Genji was not ready to relinquish his hold. “It's alright, Genji. Let go of his side, let me see him.”
It was good to have someone tell him what to do. He let go, and as his vision improved, he could see Winston cradle Zenyatta and set him against a tilted slab of pavement, supporting him. He crawled to his mentor's uninjured side, knees audibly squealing.
“Sensei,” he murmured, trying to reign in his emotions. He reached for Zenyatta, only to realize that his hand was dripping with the omnic's vital fluid. He wiped it on his thigh, on the pavement, the grit and ash of the day soaking it up and clinging to him.
Some mechanism moved inside Zenyatta's chassis, his torso expanding as if he were taking a breath. “Why do you weep, Genji?”
“I do not.” Beside them, Winston was unclipping a small toolkit from his side, examining the ragged tear in the omnic's side. Frowning. “I have confidence in your recovery, sensei.”
Zenyatta mulled over his student's words, rolling a contemplative sound around in his vocalizer. “Your optimism is refreshing, dearest Genji. But I believe myself to be in the hands of the Iris now.”
“Do not say that!” Genji hissed. He did not mean for his tone to be so vicious, and he recoiled slightly, ashamed. When he spoke again, he was more subdued. “...Please. You cannot say such things.”
Zenyatta chuckled. “Do you forget that the Iris embraces us all?”
“No. But it does not reach for you now, sensei. Not today.”
Winston began his work, and Zenyatta didn't even cringe. “I am not afraid of death, Genji.”
“Nor am I! But you must stop this talk, I beg you!”
”...Do you believe the Iris an unworthy place for my spirit to dwell?”
“No, but it cannot embrace you yet! I require your guidance still, the world requires it!”
Zenyatta hummed, one shoulder rolling with the sound. His orbs had fallen away when he had been injured, and without them he seemed... less. Smaller, weaker.
“Do you remember when you came to me, Genji?”
Something in his throat began to burn, and he held back a sob. “I was angry, lost. You guided me onto a better path.”
“No, I did... I did not guide. I merely suggested.” Zenyatta began to falter with his words. “You found the path on your own. You could not have noticed, but I saw.” The Shambali raised one thin arm. Gently, he placed his palm to the center of Genji's chest. When he spoke, his tone was hushed, reverent, as if seeing a sunrise for the first time.
“Dearest Genji. You do not realize how luminous you are. Perhaps it is because you are part human... human, yes. That may have something to do with it. You have passed through the Iris over again, more luminous than the time before. You could not have seen this. The sun, for all its brilliance, cannot fathom the shadows it throws. You were draped in shadow, my Genji... And you learned to turn your light outward.”
Now Genji truly was crying. The inside of his visor became impossibly humid, the tightness of his throat and the proximity of his sobs painful and straining. He reached back for the latches of the visor and he pulled it away from his face with a hiss, gasping. Breathing unfiltered air, seeing unfiltered colors. Noises were sharper; a stray bullet pounded a nearby column, and the sound it made could be compared to an apple being struck with a baseball bat.
And as always, Zenyatta was passive, tranquil, in love with the world and the people in. He gazed up at Genji like a proud father watching his child take their first wobbly pedals on a real bicycle. He was so full of love it pained Genji to think of it. “Do not weep. I have been blessed by the Iris to remain at your side, to revel in the light of your being.”
Beside them, Winston continued his work, ever collected. His massive hands were slick with the omnic's fluid, but his fingers were nimble as he worked. Steady, unfaltering.
But Zenyatta's motor functions were beginning to slow, his speech slur somewhat. His hand wavered on its place on Genji's chest, and so the youngest Shimada took it and pressed it reverently to his face, openly weeping. He was choking on the dirty air and the smoke of the skirmish stung his eyes, and he cried and he cried and he cried.
“I do not want this,” he admitted petulantly. “I do not...”
“Genji... Genji. I have told you of what happens after death... have I not?”
“You have.” But he needed to hear it again, and as if he hadn't heard the answer, Zenyatta began to monologue.
“The Iris will collect my spirit, and the Universe will claim my soul. And... the Universe will incorporate me into all. Every atom, every thought. I will be in the rain that falls, and in the clouds that deposit the rain... I. I will be in the mountains, hewn from the cradle of the earth, and in the soil that nurtures seeds and houses the trees. Trees... I will be in those trees. I will be in their leaves, drinking in the miracle of the sun. Your sun, your brilliance.” He had to pause, something in his side clicking unhappily. Straining, he tried to pick up the pieces of his failing train of thought. “Will... will you know me then, Genji?”
Heart breaking, face slippery with tears, Genji pressed his lips to the omnic's palm. A last act of worship, a final show of piety and love.
“I will know you, sensei,” he promised. And because he could not say the words aloud in fear of his grief being too strong, his heart promised: I will know you. I will know you in the youth of morning, and in the completion of evening. I will know you within the movement of birds on the wing, the movements of water and fire and stars. I will know you in shadow, between gravity and singularities, when my light has gone out and I am grasping for you. You will whisper to me through the Universe, and I will hear, and I will know you.
As if he had heard his heart's confession, Zenyatta sighed, visibly sagging. He had enough strength left to curl his fingers, drawing them over the plush mesh of Genji's lower lip.
“Truly, I am blessed.”
And just like that, the Shambali went limp, the light of his nine optical sensors cutting out.
At first, Genji could not understand what had happened. Keeping Zenyatta's hand in one of his own, he cautiously, gently, patted the omnic's cheek with the other.
“Sensei?”
And then, when a response did not come: “Sensei. Genji is here with you. Sensei, it is I.”
Nothing.
The affirmation of death was one thing, but the arrival of it was a completely different thing. Genji felt a stillness settle into every part of him, organic and otherwise. Time did not move, the planets did not orbit, and the Universe had stopped its endless march across the cosmos. There was no light within him, not anymore. It had been snuffed out with the omnic's passing, and just as swiftly. Genji had no more energy for tears, and without them his grief began to build, concentrating, putting pressure on his ribs, seeping into his circuits. He wanted to scream, but the action would have been too complicated.
What good remained now? Everything pure and beautiful had died with Zenyatta, and in some far corner of his mind Genji lamented for the world. He cradled the limp hand and stroked the still face, repeating the name of his sensei over and over and over. Zenyatta. Zenyatta. Zenyatta.
“There. He should be stable now.”
The baritone voice had the same effect on Genji as a pebble thrown into still water; the air and matter around him rippled, and he was aware of the massive shape of Winston beside him. At first he was confused, repulsed by this person who had come to disturb him in his mourning. But within his chest, something had begun to kindle.
“What?”
“Listen for a sparkbeat. I can't bend down that far, hurry now.”
Genji obeyed, disassociated and utterly confused. His auditory feed pressed against the omnic's chassis, but the sounds of battle were too close, too much, and he was unable to pick up any subtleties.
Be calm. Be calm.
The tension eased from his spine. His heart stilled. The world fell away.
There. Faint, delicate, unmistakably kinetic. Something chimed.
Genji's astonishment must have been obvious on his exposed face, because Winston pumped one massive fist in the air and hollered. Simultaneously, the sky fell down on them.
He only vaguely understood the steady thwock-thwock-thwock of the transport's rotors, understood even less when the massive gunmetal behemoth settled down among them. Winston, big as he was, lifted Zenyatta away from Genji and carefully carried him in one huge fist to the transport's opening bay doors. He began to panic, reaching, his useless legs twitching beneath him. Do not leave me, do not separate us- But then the sinewy strength of 76 was towing him along, the old man's grumbling loud enough to be heard over the engine.
The team threw themselves inside, pressed low against the inner walls on each side of the doors as bullets peppered the outside of the transport. But the enemy was out of heavy artillery, and they were home free. The bay doors shut, the engines roared, and the ground was speeding further and further away from them.
Someone was draping a blanket over his shoulders, someone was asking about his visor. He answered them with small dismissive sounds. Winston had drawn a medical berth out of the wall and laid Zenyatta atop it, hooking this or that bit of machinery into the wiring in the crook of the omnic's elbows. Genji reached, and the old soldier helped him over, despite a furrow in his shoulder where a bullet had grazed him.
Room was made, and he slowly slid himself into the berth against the omnic's side. He didn't feel the oxygen mask strapped around his face, hardly noticed the cocktail of clean air he breathed in. His audials went to Zenyatta's chassis, and he listened, enrapt, to the gyration of his sensei's soul.
The Universe would continue to expand. The planets would spin and things would continue as they had for eons and eons. But nothing else existed for Genji outside of this moment; this berth was their island in the ocean of the cosmos, and he and Zenyatta were the only living beings present.
The omnic's soul spoke, reaching out to Genji with adoration and joy. And like spark being set to kindling, Genji felt the light inside of him swell and ignite.