ur pocket ninja is here

Her eyes dart up to Hanzo, unshed tears tightening up her expression. She feels like a kid all over again, chasing after him and Genji in those bygone days that seem like forever ago. She doesn't know where to start, how to break this open and pick up the pieces, so she clutches onto the line Hanzo offers in the dialogue and ignores the way a hurt sniffle pads out her voice.

"with all that was at stake, it would be dishonest to say otherwise... he may have lied, but had he been found out, the hashimoto would have surely killed him," he says, while reasoning to her that it is with those same lies that allowed shion's plans to fail.

"it seems he made the right choice even when it was the hardest - and because of that..." he furrows his brows, flashbacks of genji bleeding out against the floorboards still so vivid in his mind. hanzo knows firsthand how all this could have ended; he has lived it. mizuki could have succumbed to his duty to the clan as hanzo had all those years ago... yet, he found the strength to choose his own fate.

what a world of difference having a friend makes.

"you are safe, kiriko," hanzo says, trying hard to keep a steady voice.

kiriko's hands are warm when he cups his own over them, a mix of grief and pride etched into his expression. he does not know what he would have done if he'd lost her - he can't believe he'd ever left her in the first place.

"I know," It sucks how thick her voice is right now, saying those two syllables. "I know it could have been so much worse, and Mizuki could have been so much worse and—" Her fingers tighten again into Hanzo's hand, emotions throttling the pace of her words to some blur on the breath. She drags her free hand through her hair, gaze falling back onto tatami mats, "And maybe if he had been, it'd make this break cleaner... But now I don't know what to think anymore."

he redirects his urge to reach out to her by taking hold of the teapot instead. he fills kirikos cup first, then his own; his pour is steady, and in the quiet of the moment, his voice is just the same.

"it must have been very hard for him to do so," hanzo says, careful in the way he sets the teapot back on the tray, and in the way he glances back over to her.

Her eyes dart up to Hanzo, unshed tears tightening up her expression. She feels like a kid all over again, chasing after him and Genji in those bygone days that seem like forever ago. She doesn't know where to start, how to break this open and pick up the pieces, so she clutches onto the line Hanzo offers in the dialogue and ignores the way a hurt sniffle pads out her voice.