Dance of Two Colors (Genji x Reader)

Chapter Fifty

GENJI'S POV

I awoke to a pounding in my head. Instinctively, I reached to feel the outside of my helmet, but instead my steel-clad fingers met with my own bare skin.

A little startled, I sat up and realized that I was somewhere else; it wasn't the parking lot, but a dark and damp cell. Chipped cement walls surrounded me, and there was one source of light: the steel bars on my left side.

I turned and made eye contact with none other than (y/n), sitting on a wooden chair with her legs crossed. The first thing I noticed was the lack of a mask. She was sitting plainly with her face openly exposed.

She looked up from the knife she was polishing, and immediately narrowed her eyebrows.

"You're finally awake."

"Yes, ma'am. No mask?" I gasped theatrically. "Are we on face-showing basis now? My, we're moving fast..."

She seemed hardly amused. That familiar expression of annoyance was almost too much for me to bear. "You already know what I look like. Hardly any point of wearing one here."

I nodded. "Where are we, Guantanamo Bay?"

"I... do you ever take anything seriously?" she hissed. "And honestly, it might as well be. Escape is impossible."

"I wouldn't want to escape from you."

She was pretty.

I had almost forgotten how pretty she was. Even with the low light, scarring on her cheeks, deep dark circles, she was still drop-dead gorgeous.

But there was a colder glint in her eye. A corpse-like shade beneath her skin. She was (y/n), but... not the way she used to be. I remembered suddenly the aggression she had showed against me earlier. The way she had swung her knives with killing intent.

Seemingly bothered by my unwavering gaze, she flicked the end of her knife. "Good. Anyway. You had plenty to say earlier. Aren't you gonna ask why you're still alive?"

"To be honest, it doesn't come as a surprise. You were always a pretty curious person. That kind of thing doesn't go away, no matter how much a person is brainwashed."

"Brainwashed. Maybe that's what it seems like to you. But I was saved."

"Come on. If you really believed that, then I wouldn't be here."

I approached the bars. She seemed to be on her guard, sitting up straighter, her eyes not looking away from me for a second. But there was only so much I could do from inside a cell. I sat civilly, with my hands folded neatly in my lap. "Now that you see my face..." I began. "Do you remember anything?"

I couldn't hide the desperation in my voice. I searched her eyes for a spark of recognition, though the low light made it hard to see properly.

She sighed. "Not now, I don't. But earlier... I think maybe I did remember something." She struggled with her words, as if she couldn't find the right way to express what she was feeling. "I couldn't kill you. That, I know. So I want to ask you. Who am I... really? "

I stayed quiet for a moment. So Talon hadn't been successful at erasing everything about her past, after all. I was angry in an instant, thinking about how much they had taken away from her. But I diffused myself. Perhaps years ago, I would have let my anger get the best of me. But since I had met with someone as wise as Zenyatta, I learned that anger usually made things worse.

Look where it got us. If I had listened to her and turned down Hanzo's challenge, none of this would have happened.

I took in a deep breath. Could she handle everything all at once?