Work Text:
Remedy
noun.
a successful way of curing an illness or dealing with a problem or difficulty
Perhaps redemption can wait. A remedy, however, would do today.
----
Sweat nearly blinded Kawano Mizuki.
He raised a hand, pushing his soaked bangs back off his forehead, rubbing at eyes stinging from dripping sweat. His cheeks still burned from the training session that had just ended.
He looked around — Overwatch's temporary command center, a training room in the base beneath the Lindholm family's house. Besides Mizuki, no one else was here.
Sweden — a country that, just some time ago, Kawano Mizuki would have thought existed only in some distant legend.
Winter here was far less forgiving than in Tokyo. The frequent blizzards seemed to swallow everything around the base whole. Mizuki still couldn't quite understand why Overwatch had chosen a place with such miserable weather to settle down, but the base itself was safe enough, as long as they didn't run into a Talon attack — or so Brigitte had told him, at least.
A few months ago, Mizuki had arrived at this house: on the surface, a warm, inventive family of three, but in reality home to the command center — and part of the base — of the most famous peacekeeping organization in the world.
"Rookie," Vivian Chase had said, praising the judgment and skill Mizuki had shown during the Tokyo operation, expressing regret over how things had soured between him and the Yokai Squad, but — "Unfortunately, we don't have time for you to feel sorry for yourself. I know you're skilled, but this is a peacekeeping unit, not a gang or a vigilante crew. Your training starts tomorrow."
"Wow, real warm welcome. I could start today, ma'am." Mizuki shrugged, the picture of someone ready for whatever came next. There wasn't much left for him to hold onto anyway.
"Ha, good. I like your attitude." Sojourn's optical sensor clicked and rotated, the electronic indicator glowing a faint blue, as if trying to catch something beneath his expression and words.
Then the commander smiled. "You know, rookie — things will get better."
"...Sorry?"
"They will."
----
He looked around the training room — yes, by now Kawano Mizuki knew the layout of the Lindholm base well. This room was several times the size of the one they'd used back at the Yokai Squad's hideout, and the practice bots here were generations ahead of poor old Zaza.
There weren't many melee weapons here, though. So besides working through his standard Overwatch recruit training, he sometimes practiced with the kunai that had stayed with him since his Hashimoto days.
Ever since Uncle Toshiro had handed him that cursed sickle, Mizuki had rarely used kunai as weapons anymore. But — swords, guns, kunai — Shion had made sure he trained with all of them, plenty. He was confident his kunai work wasn't far behind Kamori Kiriko's.
Oh. Kiriko.
Mizuki took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the cool training-room air, then slowly letting it out—
They hadn't spoken since.
He'd come to accept Kiriko's decision faster than he'd expected. Or rather — whatever decision Kiriko made, Mizuki would bear it fully, if that was the price of facing his own demons head-on.
Still, this was hardly the first time in the last few months that thoughts of Kiriko had surfaced. Her name kept landing in him like a stone dropped into a well, sending ripples out before sinking deeper and deeper, disappearing from sight.
He thought of Kiriko far too often.
Here, he'd heard plenty of stories about Genji, and found himself instinctively thinking Kiriko might want to hear them too. The Lindholms' kitchen always had food stocked full, donuts included.
He'd gotten to know the other young recruits Overwatch had brought in — Anran's flashy fire tricks, the strange water baton Wuyang carried, Juno Zhang Ming, who called herself a Martian, and of course the Lindholms' daughter, Brigitte.
...And the jetpack-equipped cat named Feka that had startled Mizuki badly the first time he saw it.
Kiriko would probably think the cat was adorable, would want to rub it half to death. They both liked cats, though he preferred black ones. Just picturing that scene, the corner of Mizuki's mouth would tug upward — quietly, before folding into something more like a wry, tired smile, and finally dissolving away like sand through fingers.
But he had to start living as "Kawano Mizuki" now — not a "Hashimoto enforcer," not "the cursed demon child," not any version of himself defined by the Yokai Squad. Mizuki was just Mizuki.
If he wanted to choose his own fate, this was a step he had to take.
He understood that.
----
*Beep beep—*
Just as Mizuki was about to leave the training room, the communicator he carried started ringing.
For some reason, he didn't reach for it right away.
He stood there, letting the leftover heat from training slowly drain out of his body, as if he were waiting for something, or being held back by something —
After a few more rings, the light on the communicator faded out. As if some spell had broken, Mizuki started walking toward the door again.
*Beep beep—*
But before his hand could reach the door, the communicator rang again.
"...Yo."
Her voice came through, slightly warped by static.
Hearing Kamori Kiriko's voice again after months apart, Mizuki could clearly feel the rhythm of his own heartbeat — not pounding as hard as he might have imagined, but unmistakably there. That was Kiriko.
For a second, he wondered how she'd even gotten this number.
"Yeah. Yo."
"Busy? Couldn't get through earlier."
"Not too busy. You're still up?"
"Not yet asleep." Her words were short, her tone carrying none of its usual range as it came through the communicator. "What about you? How's Overwatch?"
"I'm good. The place Genji used to be is pretty nice. I'm training." The past few months compressed into a flicker of images across his mind, including plenty of moments that reminded him of a fox — but in the end, all of it condensed into one ordinary answer, delivered calmly across a signal spanning continents.
"Mm. Ryota planned a mission solo today. Didn't get caught. Went well."
"That's great. He's getting more careful."
"He said if it were you, that's what you'd have done."
"Mm."
"...Are you still not sleeping well?" Her next line had almost nothing to do with the one before it, drifting without direction. As always, Mizuki tried to catch the thread of what she was saying — even after all this time apart, the way they talked together still slipped naturally into this same rhythm. Unfamiliar, yet familiar.
"Better than before. Dr. Ziegler put me on a new pain management plan, it's been working. At least I'm not sleeping at the control console anymore, or in the training room."
The small talk continued.
"Yeah, you used to do that a lot."
"Yeah. You remember."
"...Of course I remember."
Her voice, like the trailing light of a falling star, suddenly dropped low, sinking toward some distant place Mizuki couldn't reach.
Mizuki didn't respond right away, taking another deep breath, as if steadying himself again.
Silence spread through the call in the wake of his quiet. She seemed to be somewhere alone; the usual noisy chatter of the Yokai Squad was nowhere to be heard.
There had been so many moments between them where neither of them said a word, and it still felt safe. Even now, that same silence held a kind of understanding — except now, with the shell of trust stripped away, what showed underneath was a wounded core.
"Mizuki... I..."
She spoke again slowly, as if choosing her words carefully. Mizuki could remember almost every way she'd ever said his name — stern, teasing; concerned, excited; murmured softly, or thrown at him in disappointed confrontation.
The way those syllables came out of her mouth was like a short, quiet song.
"...I really did trust you, once."
"I'm sorry. I know."
"I still haven't found—"
"—No, you don't have to." He knew what she meant. Finding the courage to forgive wasn't something that came easily, on command. Somewhere inside him, if he said he didn't want to see Kiriko smile at him again, that would be a lie — but the truth in front of him had to be accepted as it was.
"You know, I don't... I'm not expecting that from you."
He forced the words out through gritted teeth.
"—I might not be able to. Every time I see Dad, look at the lines on his face, his hands... after all these years... I know I still can't."
"Mm."
"He's... he's gotten so much older."
Kiriko paused, as if searching for the right words. Some emotion was pooling on the tip of her tongue. Even though her features were still so vivid in his memory, Mizuki couldn't quite picture her expression right now — but Uncle Toshiro's hands, he knew, had gained more lines over these last dozen-plus years, at least in Mizuki's memory; the last time that arm had rested on his shoulder, it hadn't carried the same strength it once had.
Right now, Mizuki thought, he wanted more than anything to hold Uncle Toshiro's hands in his.
"How's Uncle Toshiro doing?"
"Dad's doing okay. He brings you up sometimes. Says you looked out for him, back during the Hashimoto days."
Even so, that could never make up for the time Kiriko and her father should have gotten to spend together.
The person on the other end of the line paused.
"I— I don't know why. I just... think about Mizuki more often than I expected to."
Kiriko thought about him often.
Mizuki realized that, somewhere between the long silence and building a new life, thinking of someone could be such a simple thing — such a frequent, ordinary thing. If he had to name the one reason why, it was that he also thought about Kamori Kiriko often, and so he understood, quickly, exactly what she meant.
Thinking of someone, letting their shape pass through the tide of your memory — you only had to endure a few seconds, wait for them to pass through you, and then time and the world would keep rolling forward.
"...Kiriko."
After a long moment, he called her name too.
"Honestly, I don't know what this means." The voice on the other end kept flowing: "I just... think about Mizuki a lot. Wondering if you're getting a little closer to whatever it is you're looking for..."
Mizuki lifted his head again — his body had gone cold from standing still for so long, and something inside him started moving again.
In the days ahead, there might be a lot of things more important than earning Kamori Kiriko's forgiveness. Whatever Genji called redemption, Mizuki couldn't see it clearly on the horizon yet — but when it came to Kiriko's question, the answer was yes.
Yes, Kiriko. He thought. I'm getting closer.
And she thought of him too. Just that one line — and, hazily, he thought he could see a small spring shoot suddenly breaking through the long, brutal Nordic winter.
Am I hallucinating right now?
Mizuki wondered.
----
"Hey — Mizuki!" "Mizuki — you in there?"
Just beyond the door, voices called out for him. Even with a communicator pressed to one ear, Mizuki recognized the siblings' voices without hesitation — no question, both of them were loud.
"Oh — I'm here—"
Mizuki reached out on instinct. His metal prosthetic let out a faint click as it landed on the doorknob. He'd meant to call back loudly to his new teammates, then realized the call hadn't ended yet.
"Heh... sounds like someone's waiting for you. Go on."
He couldn't see her, but he knew Kiriko was smiling softly — and whatever had started moving again inside him made him smile too, without meaning to. Was that relief? He wasn't sure. The shape of that spring shoot might only become clear, slowly, over the long days ahead.
"—Mizuki! Whoever loses the sparring match this afternoon buys Anran hot chocolate!"
"Wuyang! Don't make promises like that! She got here after you and she's already better than you!!"
The siblings' bickering outside the door grew louder. Mizuki realized that if he didn't show up soon, the veteran agents' noise complaints about the rookies would probably be sitting on the commander's desk before long.
"Wait, Kiriko—"
Yet he called out softly to the person on the other end of the line. Maybe he had no right to, had never imagined he'd one day say something like this to Kamori Kiriko, across such distance and time difference — but the urge to say it came out anyway.
"Mm?"
"...Let's meet on the other side."
"...Okay. See you on the other side, Mizuki."
Mizuki could almost see her nodding.
He still missed those chestnut-brown eyes so much.
Then he pushed the training room door open. The hallway light filled his vision at once — the Ye siblings bickering just a few steps away, and hurrying over from the other end of the hall, the Martian and the young engineer.
"Oh, Mizuki, so you were in here... not bad, look at you sweating, extra training on your own?"
"Ugh... sis, way to guilt-trip people every single day... Mizuki, don't let her pressure you, it's fine if you don't feel like training..."
"...You two are so loud."
Mizuki said, stepping out, grumbling.
[end]