Reports from Hanamura flowed through Venice when Reaper and Sombra were giving Doomfist the results of Busan and Dublin respectively. Shimada castle had caught fire and burned to the ground, its occupants dead either by the flames or poisoned rice. Reaper was kicking himself in the ass for not staying with Sombra and Katsu, for not accompanying them to Dublin but he had been called away for other business. Looking back, Reaper had to admit his desire to avoid the rest of the MacLorcan clan may have played a part in how eager he left to deal with that other business; besides, it got him away from Katsu before Reaper would kill the little shit, and from what he heard happened said little shit would had been better off dead. Then there was the fact the castle had caught fire with the remaining clan inside, those not picked up by Interpol anyway, and the Shimada clan's assets have been hit for the past six months, either by Interpol, other Yakuza clans or someone else. Worse, the rest of the Yakuza had no love for Talon and refused to do business of any sort with the organization. It was indeed a setback, and Reaper suspected Hanzo may have played a part in what happened in Hanamura.

"This isn't good." Reaper said, looking at the note found in the remains of Shimada castle. It had been left, he knew it, in a fireproof tube. A piece of paper with Talon's logo drawn on the folds like a seal.

"Consider this an end to the Shimada's aid to Talon." The note said. It confirmed Reaper's belief Hanzo had something to do with the Shimada's destruction. Now there was no trace of the Shimada clan, not even a few foot soldiers, everything they had was destroyed.

"What else did Vialli order?" Doomfist asked him. He wasn't anymore pleased about the Shimada clan being purged than Reaper was, or of the Yakuza ostracizing Talon, but was taking it better. He sent Sombra out of the room to look into the microchip that was found in the letter.

"Elimination of Liam MacLorcan. I took care of that myself." Reaper said. Doomfist looked at him in surprise.

"You put down the Silver Wolf?"

"I did, and it turned out to be a mistake."

"Any regrets?"

"None. The backlash from Liam's death was more than we expected." Reaper had to explain about Ash, how she was her father's successor as a huntress and how she and her brother, the hacker, were hitting Talon trying to get to him since he killed Liam.

"A pity; he would have been a worthy opponent. But, from what you've said, the entire family is a force to be reckoned with."

"Ash and Solas are the more immediate threats. The others won't attack unless provoked." Doomfist nodded in agreement, and frowned when he saw something in Vialli's files. They were going through them after cleaning house, after Doomfist resumed his place on the inner council. Reaper looked over to see what Doomfist was looking at. Vialli was planning to put children through what was used to create Widowmaker, to make other agents like her, only younger. What would have made Reaper's blood run cold, if he had any blood still, were the names of five possible targets. "Shit..."

"MacLorcan." Doomfist said, frowning. He was not pleased at the direction Vialli was planning to take, and if he was the man now splattered all over the Venice canals, Reaper was glad of it.

"I thought you didn't have a problem with child soldiers." Reaper said.

"I don't, but we are better off recruiting from those already without families to care for them, without anyone looking for them. It makes the process of recruiting them more effective if they have no other loyalties, and it is not worth making any...selections without family; it brings too much attention towards us."

"Idiot probably wanted their gifts under our control, and that blinded him to everything else. I told Sombra not to look into them. I knew she'd be blocked or detected, likely both so I didn't push it; I told the others provoking that family, trying to obtain their gifts for us, however useful, would end bad for us—" They suddenly heard a scream from down the hall. Doomfist and Reaper raced and found Sombra with her usual purple tendrils in the microchip, which now glowed silver. "Hell..."

"You can't—how!?" Sombra said. There was no one else in the room, that Reaper or Doomfist could see. "Don't call me that! Hey, that wasn't personal, I was under higher orders! He's dead now, so what does it matter?! AUGH! What do you want?" There was a pause. "I can't make any promises. And if I don't? Yes. Yes, we understand each other!" Another pause followed, and Sombra saw both Reaper and Dooomfist looking at her.

"Solas?" Reaper asked. Sombra nodded, shaking. She had managed to disengage from the chip, or more likely, Solas or whatever program he set let her go.

"He found out I was looking into his nieces and nephews, on Vialli's orders. He...madre y dios, I have no idea how, but he—he learned things, things we don't want getting out."

"What does he want?" Doomfist asked.

"Us to leave his family alone, at least the ones not hunting us, especially the children. Anything happens to them, or we try to find what he learned to destroy it, he'll screw us big time." Reaper shook his head. Solas must have managed to read her and found out her secrets, and is using them as leverage to protect his family. "He has something to say to whoever's in charge, who ordered me to look into his family."

"Obviously. I'll take the message."

"All right...you hear that Solas? Doomfist himself is gonna take your message. He won't order it—he don't recruit children from loving families, something about keeping their loyalties undivided or some other shit." The microchip glowed and out from it came what Reaper considered to be a hologram of a silver wolf. The wolf shone bright and every computer in the room began short-circuiting, except for Sombra's augments which took on a silver color and was generating some sort of feedback into the other systems. It hadn't reached Doomfist's gauntlet or prosthetic, it must have shielding it couldn't get through. After a few minutes, the wolf looked straight at them.

"Fuck with my family, you fuck with me." The wolf said in Solas' voice. "An' ye DON'T want ta fuck with me." The holographic wolf vanished, the chip now fully fried. Doomfist looked stunned, and Reaper was cursing.

"Check the systems." Reaper told Sombra. "Make sure he didn't leave anything he can use later." Sombra nodded, pale and still shaking.

"Incredible." Doomfist said. "You said they were gifted, that they had power..."

"I also said they had a temper, if provoked. Using the same process we used on Widowmaker on empaths—kinda defeats the purpose of obtaining their gifts."

"Agreed. So we leave the MacLorcan family be, except of course for Ash and Solas."

"Whatever they know, the others know as well—they're not the type to keep secrets from one another. What do you want to do about Shimada?"

"He could still be an asset. With his clan gone, he'll have no ties, and we could utilize him far better than his elders could dream."

"That goes without saying."

"Speaking of his elders...those captured by Interpol are dying. as are their heirs."

"They pissed off other clans in their ambitions; I wouldn't be surprised if they found a way to get to them. Katsu's pretty much useless to us, considering what happened in Dublin, and that would be true even without that. You're sure about Ash and Solas? They're not going to stop until we're dead, I'm dead or they're dead."

"Leave them, for now. As long as they do not get too close to our operations, they will prove to be very worthy opponents indeed."

"Fine." Reaper sulked off and let his mind wander back, to when he stumbled upon Jack and Liam talking in private; Jack had just been promoted to Strike Commander, Overwatch having just been made public and chosen to rebuild the world after the Crisis.

"I don't know, Liam." Jack had said. "Gabriel should be the one doing this." Liam just stayed quiet, he had refused to stay with Overwatch due to family obligations. But he wanted to wish everyone good-bye before he returned to his home village.

"I think ye'll be a fine leader, Jack." Liam said. "It's nothin' against Gabriel, but he's not the man fer the job the UN has fer ye all."

"But he's a senior officer, he led us against the Omnics, hell he taught me plenty of what I know."

"Which ye have learned well. Look, different times call fer different types of leaders—Gabriel is a war time leader, yer a peace time one, an' it's a peace time leader we need ta fill up the vaccums in the world left by the Crisis as we rebuild." Jack still looked doubtful. "I've seen how ye brought people together, encourage even the most stubborn arses ta work together fer the betterment of the world, an' that's what we need right now. Gabriel's just goin' have ta accept he's not what the world needs now, an' ye are."

Reaper let the memory float past him. That was then; now Talon planned to start a war to strengthen humanity, and they saw him as the commander he is, gave him the recognition he deserved. He hated to admit it, but Liam was right—he was a war time commander, and Talon was providing him with the opportunity to be such.

"Do they know?" Doomfist asked. "You said they were empathic."

"Everyone but Ash." Reaper said. "Solas read me, or tried to but I managed to block him from the important stuff."

"But he obtained some intel."

"As far as he's concerned, my involvement here is personal. He had to have read Sombra, why else would she be this frightened?"

"He hacked her as well?"

"It would explain the program's being able to hit our systems. He's not bluffing—whatever he has on Sombra, he'll use it if his family's harmed. Especially the children. So unless you have another hacker with her skills in our organization..."

"We would be better off heeding his threat. It also maintains the illusion that Sombra is clever."

"Exactly. Except it's not a threat. That family does not make threats." They made promises, Reaper remembered. Sombra came back later to report that every computer that was in the room was completely fried. She was still shaken by what had happened, and no doubt if pushed Solas would not hesitate to end her. He could have ended her there, but he wasn't a killer—what he sent was a warning to Talon, and more importantly, to her.

The MacLorcans made promises, for good or ill; promises Reaper knew were kept.

The winds blew cold in the mountains of the Shambali Monastery. Genji let the wind caress his unmasked face as he meditated. He found such things relaxing, had since he met Zenyatta. It was like this, holding his mother's treasure box, that Zenyatta found him and asked if he was all right.

"I am fine, Master." Genji said. "I am merely reflecting on the past few months."

"When you left, it was to attempt to reconcile with your brother." Zenyatta said. "How have you fared?"

"Better than I could have hoped. But the circumstances...they could have been better."

"How so?" Genji showed him the box.

"After we fought and I revealed myself, I left him to think on my words. I had stayed at the castle to retrieve this when I heard a commotion in the courtyard." Genj continued on about how he found Hanzo, who had been captured by the elders and had broken from his bindings, slaughtering his captors in rage. Zenyatta listened as Genji told him what he had learned the elders intended for his brother, his attempt to bring him to Nepal only to land in Busan where they helped Mercy, the doctor who saved Genji's physical life, and others in protecting the city from Talon and his cousin. Genji talked about how his brother dealt with the fact he was almost raped and how an act from the Shimada landed him in a situation where he now informs for Interpol, and how the two of them decided to purge the clan from the world once and for all.

"He knew of a self-destruct system." Genji continued. "In the castle, he knew of it and used it, destroying everything beyond any hope of salvage. Everything, everyone regarding the Shimada clan, is gone."

"And how do you feel about that?" Zenyatta asked.

"Conflicted. I regret that my carelessness and selfishness had contributed to the clan's decline, to the elders' ambitions being more than the welfare of the clan and to the actions Hanzo had to take and endure. But at the same time, I am glad he chose not to rebuild and to purge what remained, because now they can not harm him anymore and any future generations that come from us will not be harmed by the past."

"All of this...because of a simple box."

"My mother's treasure box. She kept what was most precious to her in here." He opened it as Hanzo showed him and Zenyatta saw that the contents were few, but no less precious.

"Is that glass? No...crystal." Genji saw what he meant, the crystal tops to a pair of silver hairsticks.

"These belonged to my grandmother, who had passed them and the book to my mother when she married my father. They were a family heirloom, meant to be passed down from mother to daughter, and Grandmother had no daughters of her own; she passed these to the daughter her son provided." He unscrewed the crystal tops and showed the hairsticks were durable but hollow down to the tip; they were meant to hold and disperse poison through a switch on the base of the sticks, where the crystal tops met.

"You mentioned a book came with this."

"It did." Genji next brought out a small black book wrapped in a white cloth. "Family cookbook, holding poisons and counters. The cloth is used to clean the hairsticks after use." He then brought out a metal fan, and Zenyatta saw the end of it was sharp.

"An effective weapon for a lady."

"Indeed. This was a wedding present from Father, something proper and worthy of a lady of the Shimada." He then brought out two items, one a ball, the other a ring.

"Is that a princess ball?" Zenyatta asked.

"It is. Mother had started making it when she learned she was pregnant." Zenyatta took hold of the ball and looked at Genji. "To be fair, they were expecting a girl for the second pregnancy. Things might have been different if they were right."

"Perhaps. And the ring?"

"Father commissioned that at the same time Mother started the ball." Genji showed him the ring, made of jade and set with a pink diamond.

"Fascinating. Was there a similar ring for when Hanzo was conceived?" Genji nodded.

"Ivory with a blue diamond." It was the one thing Hanzo bothered to take from the treasure box; he had no use for the rest, he had memorized the cookbook and the jade ring was by all rights Genji's.

"Something still troubles you, my student."

"While in Busan, I learned Hanzo tried to save me after our fight, had sought to fake my death to get me out of Hanamura, protect me from the clan. He brought me to that hospital I was found at, and when he thought I was dead for real, he couldn't handle it. He did not intend to kill me that night, and had in fact tried to take steps to ensure I lived. Looking back, all things considered, he did save me."

"It stuns you, after years of thinking he had chosen the clan over you, of thinking he intended to kill you."

"He could have let me die, he could have checked my body and finished what he started but he didn't. He tried to keep us both, and for a time lost us both. Then I survived, resenting him and thinking he would do anything for power, even slaughter his own blood."

"It stuns you, even though you have come to forgive him."

"It does, Master. I only pray now that he can forgive himself, or at least start the process. I like to think he started in Busan, after what happened to him."

"I find your elders' desire to hurt him the way they planned, of trying to produce a child through such a horrible measure, appalling. It astounds me how humans could hurt each other on such a level."

"They saw themselves as being superior, and were willing to do anything to maintain that illusion. They sought to lie to themselves about their situation, the clan's place in the world and to have a weapon in the form of a child of ours who would inherit our gifts. They would partake in such a depravity, all to keep up appearances."

"Rape is about power, Genji, obtained through much discord. About using what humans see and know to be a form of physical pleasure, a way to procreate, and twisting it as a weapon against others. There is no pleasure in this, in the sexual or violent aspects of the act except as a conquest over another."

"That fits the elders. They would do anything for power and they had power over Hanzo since I can remember. Still, I never thought they would go this far when Hanzo, finally, broke away from them."

"From what you have told me, it had been a long time coming."

"I only wish I could help him more." Zenyatta put a hand on Genji's shoulder.

"You are there for him when you can be. But there comes a point where we have to help ourselves, and that is what Hanzo is doing—helping himself."

"A valid point, Master."

He put the treasures back in the box, and thought Hanzo seemed unburdened after the burning of Shimada castle. It was as though, after all these years, he had finally freed himself from the claws the elders had dug into him, and maybe from the past. He was glad of that, even if he could regret the price of that freedom. But then, life wasn't fair, or Hanzo wouldn't have been hit by Interpol thanks to the elders' manipulations. Still, an informant was better than...other things, and at least he wasn't arrested. Genji wondered, after receiving the recall signal from Overwatch, how Hanzo being Interpol's informant would play out if he accepted returning to Overwatch, which was now illegal thanks to the PETRAS Act forbidding its existence. He understood the act's purpose—to keep Overwatch from being active again on their own without the UN's oversight, not that it did them any good the first time. Genji had to wonder how much of that was the world's decision, and how much Talon influenced that decision. Either way, they could no longer stand idly by while the world burned around them. Besides, the PETRAS Act was said to "forbid Overwatch activities", without any regard to what that really meant-they were ways around this idiot act.

If there was one thing Genji was good at, it was getting around things, and this was something a child could get around.

The shadows hid him as they have many times. Hanzo found them useful as he notched his arrow. His targets were expecting a shipment, and he was ready to deliver death to his prey. He had spent the weeks after purging Hanamura of the Shimada wandering; he still did mercenary work, but found himself being more selective than usual. He garbed himself in black, all the better to meld in shadows and used a mask that covered his entire face when on this particular hunt. Even his arrows were black, from fletching to head, and he had some new ones prepared in this case. He couldn't afford anyone recognizing his style, and ultimately him. Not until the moment of their death, anyway, and even then that moment had to guarantee to happen. He watched as his targets, three of them, stood aside for a large truck to approach. The moment it parked, he shot an arrow hitting the driver, another hit the passenger next to him. Then he swiftly moved to take out the three at the back of the truck, slitting their throats with a knife—it had been long past time he had equipped a secondary weapon for close ranged attacks. The sound of sirens in the distance distracted him for a moment, the authorities had come sooner than anticipated. Perhaps there was still hope for this world.

He opened the truck's cargo area, and engaged in combat with the guard he knew would be inside with the shipment. He made quick work of the guard in question, then barely managed to hide when police cruisers came onto the scene. They saw the bodies of Hanzo's targets...and the dozens of people those creatures would have sold into sexual slavery. Hanzo noted most of them were girls, young women, and the few males were boys; there were no men among them, this time. But he had seen men as victims, it didn't dimish their masculinity, but the young tugged at his heart more than he cared to admit. As Coriander once told him, it was worse when they were children. He stayed to watch the victims unloaded and medical teams tending them, and he overheard some of the officers talking about this being the latest hit and how the latest targets avoided the fate of others of their kind, which had been found emasculated before death.

"Gentleman Avenger", they called him. A vigilante who hunted sexual predators and delivered the justice they should have gotten. He turned to leave and hitched a ride on a crate that was loaded onto a cargo ship. Hanzo noted, with irony, that the ship was headed for Ireland. The ship docked in a village south of Ennis and Hanzo took the opportunity to slip out. He had changed from his vigilante garb into brown pants, a shirt and a brown leather jacket. His quiver was hung on his shoulder and he blended into the crowd carrying a large suitcase holding his bow and clothes. He found a small inn to spend the night and spent the next day walking around the marketplace. It was snow covered and Hanzo noted the crowds were larger than usual, a result of it being a few days before Christmas.

"Hanzo?" A voice said. Hanzo turned to the voice, tense, and saw it was Ash. She wasn't in her usual huntress' garb, but in a more conservative dress than he was accustomed to seeing her in and a coat down to her thighs. A knitted cap was perched on her head and she was carrying several bags.

"Ash-san." Hanzo said. "What are you doing far from home?"

"Shoppin' fer Yule, our version of Christmas, by Aesun I almost didn't recognize you!"

Hanzo had to admit that was true—he had changed his looks after Hanamura, in part to elude those who would hunt him but more, to give himself a look he wanted for himself as opposed to what others thought he should look like. He had gotten an undercut that rid him of the two "wings" on the sides of his head, which emphasized his age. The top portion of his head had gotten longer, and he had it in a top knot. He also had the bridge of his nose and his ear lobes pierced. Before, he would never have considered it because such piercings made him look like a punk; now he didn't care and found he liked the look. Ash teased him about the piercings and asked him if he also had a Prince Albert done.

"Absolutely not!" Hanzo said, laughing. "Nothing will have me consent to having any sharp impliment anywhere near that area of my body."

"Ah well. It looks good on ye. Oddly enough, it suits ye."

"It does. Is Evander-san with you?"

"He is. Doin' his own shoppin', I'm meetin' him at a cafe."

"Quite the collection of gifts you have bought."

"I've five nieces and nephews ta shop for, not to mention their parents. Believe me, the kids are easier to shop for. Have ye any plans at the moment?"

"None. I have noticed since Dublin, you have been less active."

"Keepin' close ta family. Evander sent his warnin', but neither of us are takin' chances. No worries, I'll be resumin' the hunt once the new year begins, or after Bri has her babe." They kept walking, and Hanzo noted they stopped in front of a small cafe. Looking through the window, he spied Evander, dressed as casually as his sister and waving at them both on seeing them. Ash pulled Hanzo inside and they sat with Evander, who had his own parcels around him and looking better than when Hanzo last saw him in Dublin.

"Well look what came in!" Evander said. "Come, sit, sit!" They both sat. Hanzo found it unusual to be out in the open like this, in a casual setting, but part of him found he liked it.

"You look well, Evander-san." Hanzo said. "Your holiday shopping is going well?"

"Aye, as well as can be. I've got fer about everyone but Angie, who is impossible to shop fer at the best of times, an' will be spendin' her holidays in the desert. I tell ye, the lass works too hard, sometimes I wonder if drownin' herself in humanatarian acts is how she's coped wit' Overwatch shuttin' down. So, how goes informin' fer Interpol?"

"It is going well. I am left alone and they have information that I have picked up from time to time. I trust you have heard they have been making a dent in dealing with sexual offenders."

"Aye, I have. I also heard they were better off havin' Interpol deal wit' them as opposed to this Gentleman Avenger lad. He's quite vicious toward the bastards, and rightfully so." Hanzo looked at Evander, who just shrugged along with Ash. So they both know about his hunts.

"What they do is most henious, and the law is slow in dealing with them. Speaking of predators, I heard Cade was killed in prison." He glanced at Ash.

"Don't look at me." Ash said. "I had nothin' ta do wit' doin' him in. Besides, Evander here made him a deal that got him protection in exchange fer what was left of Grayson's operation, as well as a detailed statement on the Shimada clan's involvement, which wasn't much."

"No, that was Katsu's personal project. What did you give him in exchange, Evander?"

"I simply stated that he had a lot of clans on his arse." Evander said. "So I offered ta make sure the Yakuza would nae kill him in exchange fer said information. As it was, I kept my word—his death was nae by Yakuza hands; it was by his cell mate's hands, who was Mafioso."

"Clever." They sat there a few minutes, ordering drinks and chatting about what they've been up to. Ash and Solas had told the rest of their family about Reaper, and they didn't take the news well. They also told Interpol, who under orders from the UN were keeping that quiet. Evander gave them little information on Sombra, not to hoard information due to his warning but because much of what he read couldn't be found by mundane standards. Since Dublin, Interpol learned Sombra wasn't a collective, but one person with ties to the Mexican gang Los Muertos. It was new, sitting there catching up with...Hanzo supposed he could call them friends, or at least accquaintances.

"We heard about Hanamura, about what ye did. I'm sorry it came ta that."

"I am not. The elders...I allowed too much to happen, and they...they were like Katsu, only they were able to conceal those natures for the sake of obtaining their goals. It was the best option I had. I have no regrets but that."

"Has Talon been botherin' ye lately? We heard Doomfist escaped prison—apparently why Reaper didn't make an appearance in Dublin."

"He did. He...offered me a place in Talon, claiming we have much in common. I will tell you what I told him—I would have little to gain from such an arrangement, I choose my own path. He did, however, imply about considering offering you membership, Ash-san." That brought both siblings up short.

"Me?!" Ash asked. "Yer feckin' kiddin' me."

"I am not. He implied that perhaps you, the "Irish she-wolf" would be interested. I told him he might have had a chance, if Reaper had not killed your father."

"Bollocks to that! That self-righteous arsehole! Oh wait 'til I get my hands on him, he'll be beggin' fer the beatin' Winston gave him when I'm done!"

"Yes, speaking of the monkey—"

"Gorilla."

"—the gorilla...there has been word he is trying to reform Overwatch. There was little mention in the news, but..."

"The UN won't make a fuss about it, because his signal exposed a grave error made by both Overwatch and the UN, regardin' one of the old Ecopoints."

"Antartica." He remembered the news reports. "They thought that base was lost in a polar ice storm."

"They were stranded. They had gone into cryo-sleep when they ran low on supplies, an' no one thought to check on them when the storm ended. Not Overwatch, not the other research stations in the area, an' not the bloody UN. You'd think when they shut down Overwatch, they'd have checked on the remainin' assets such as the Ecopoints. But they didn't, those scientists were left there nine years while their power ran out. If Winston's signal hadn't reached them when it did, there would've been six bodies left in that tomb, an' no one would've known what happened because no one deigned ta look."

"No. There was no excuse to their being left there. There should have been a salvage crew at least sent to retrieve the remains, I doubt the storm lasted nine years. I saw bits and pieces of the interview of the one scientist who survived."

"Aye. Somethin' went wrong in that Ecopoint, an' fer some reason or another what failsafes there were didn't engage." Evander said. "Winston's signal woke the lass up, she discovered the world changed irrecoverably, her friends and colleagues were dead due to their tubes malfunctionin', an' she had to walk miles ta the nearest research station ta reach civilization. Alone, wit' no one but a drone, an improvised invention, an' nine years worth of environmental data. Gods...such carelessness."

"I agree with you. That no one thought to check on them says they fell through the cracks. Morrison never thought about the civilian areas, Reyes could not have cared less and the UN wanted to forget Overwatch existed. Because of all of that, five people are dead and one woman has in her hands nine years worth of data she has to examine on her own, without any kind of support. The UN holds the most blame, though, because they did not go through Overwatch's inventory as throughly as they should have. Watchpoints, Ecopoints, all left to rot like discarded relics. They should've been dismantled as the organization they were part of was; plus weapons and inventions were stolen and used for nefarious ends, or at least personal gain."

"Ye think so?"

"Yes. I have noticed similarities in what tech is used and what Overwatch came up with—Sombra's vanishing act, blinking away as the agent Tracer would blink. Plus some of Vishkar's techonologies have quite the resemblence to what Overwatch had in its inventory—shields, the sound tech stolen from them in Rio, teleporters. Weapons used by the fugitives Soldier: 76 and Shrike, prototypes or innovations Overwatch had at the time they were shut down."

"Aye. We can't prove it, but the fact remains that while Overwatch screwed up in ways, the UN dropped the ball handlin' it. That allowed others to take what they wanted an' use those weapons an' innovations in ways they weren't intended to be used. Angie would have a fit if that rifle of Shrike's is what I think it is." Evander stretched. "By the way, that's a good look fer ye. Any plans fer Christmas?"

"I...not really. Christmas is not exactly an important holiday for me." Ash and Evander both stared at him.

"Not important?!"

"Well what the bloody hell do you do on Christmas?" Ash asked.

"We eat Christmas cake." Hanzo said. "It is very good, a layered cake with strawberries and frosted with whipped cream, topped with fruits and chocolates."

"Cake..."

"Christmas is not as important in Japan as it is in the West, Ash-san."

"Hmph. Fair point."

"If I wanted cake so bad, I'd make one." Evander said. "So...Overwatch—should it come back, or not? That's the grand debate."

"They should. Talon is only going to get stronger if they are not stopped, and Overwatch is capable of stopping them." Hanzo said. "Perhaps that is the wrong line of thinking, but these are my thoughts." That made Evander smile. Hanzo smiled in turn; if these past ten years taught him anything, other than he couldn't change the past, it was that he could think for himself. He could survive outside of the clan, and while he could not rebuild the clan he destroyed, he could rebuild his life. Whcih was what he did, and he wouldn't allow anyone to make him compromise himself again.

"Too true. We have to get goin' or we'll miss our train. It was grand talkin' with ye, Hanzo. If ye ever need aid, or even an ear, yer more than welcome to call us."

"I will." They stood up, and Hanzo shook Evander's hand, then Ash's. "It was good seeing you two."

"An' ye. Blessed be, Hanzo."

"Blessed be." Ash said. As Hanzo watched the two leave, as he fingered the silver disk Evander had given him and the ring he took from his mother's treasure box, he decided perhaps he could head to another location. There were other predators that needed to be hunted, and he needed to consider establishing some sort of base of his own. He remembered being contacted by Roberetti about the possibility of Overwatch's return, and he told the Interpol officer he wouldn't inform them about it. It was a risk that could've cost him everything, but as it turned out, Roberetti agreed with him.

"We can't get to Talon and hit them where it hurts." Roberetti had told him. "But we can't turn a blind eye to Overwatch reactivating either. If, however, there was another group of vigilantes dealing with them that we don't know about..." In other words, the former members of Overwatch could band together and fight Talon, without violating the PETRAS Act. Technically, how could they be violaitng said act if they were not in Overwatch colors or wearing Overwatch's crest? If they weren't even calling themselves Overwatch? It was something to take into consideration, something to talk to Genji about. The world had grown into a dark place, where people forgot what it meant to be good, forgot about justice and honor. The world, as it was, could use heroes more than ever.

And those heroes could always use allies.