Work Text:
霊魂の滅
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He doesn’t know what Shimada looks like anymore.
He crouches low beside him now. There’s no light from the visor, the streak of brilliant green that pierces through the shadows. The plating on the back is shattered - Reaper can still hear the echo of the armour shrieking under the blast of his gun - and through constellations of blood and chrome shards scattered across the muscle, the beauty of the tattoo enthralls him. Gabriel had never seen it before. Never asked to. Now the dragon finally reveals its form, long hidden behind cold hard metal: a royal green with ribbons of gold and splatters of rich black. Reaper resists the urge to touch, to trace it with a claw. It’s not like him to defile those he kills. He sits back on his haunches instead. Takes off his mask.
The world is silent as he waits. No light escapes the veil of clouds in the sky, no single rustling of wind to stir the clogged stale air. For a few moments it is just him and the night and he suspects - what he had brushed off before as a stupid question - that perhaps Shimada lost more than his body, that going cybernetic means that - and then there it is . Tiny spots of light appear, blinking to an unknown rhythm, mysterious fireflies. Reaper breathes carefully as he waits, until they steady and coalesce into the glowing orb. His eyes glimmers red in response.
Royal green, with streaks of gold and a scar of rich black. It’s not the clean, inhuman neon green that glows in a constant hue. The colors shift and wreathe as he stares, a surreal collage of what makes up the man. Its halo illuminates the alley, casting harsh shadows along the ground and rubble, across the scars and ridges of Reaper’s face, reflecting off the cutting-edge of the discarded blade.
He takes a moment to admire it, bask in its warmth. The energy it pulses with is overwhelming. The light of the living, the heat of a heart. It’s radiating life, more life than Reaper has. It’s everything he wants. It’s everything he can’t be.
It’s beautiful.
Reinhardt’s voice haunts him like a lingering ghost, something the knight had said after a battle, after they lost Smith and Lionel, the roar of his baritone reduced to a soft murmur. If your soul is worthy, he said as he looked up, it will sit amongst the stars in the sky. Everlasting, everbright. Reaper pulls off a bloodied glove, and reaches out. The light paints a wrong hue on the grey marble of his skin. He takes in a breath, steadies himself. Arm hovering. Then he closes his fingers around it.
It’s fiery. It’s not hot, but it burns. Something’s not right - shimmering scales envelope the orb like crystal shards, and they ripple - and the skin on his palm vapourizes, hissing into smoke. The gust of wind blows off his hood, the tail of his coat flutters. He hasn’t met it before, but recognizes the energy suddenly crashing upon him. A sharp pain shoots up his arm and it threatens to dissipate, edges blurring. He can’t see the dragon, but he can feel its bite, hear the roar. It sounds in his head, resonates in his skull, and the wrath it carries makes his blood boil. Reaper growls; he hasn’t felt fear in a long time. He doesn’t let go.
The dragon is ancient and strong. A loyal guardian, a greedy parasite. It knows the hostility in Reaper’s claws. Perhaps it can see into him too. He wonders what it sees, if there is a soul in him after all. If it would be red like blood or black like tar, or silvery white like it once was. Another bite, and he flounders as his arm reforms. He gathers his strength.
“I’m sorry,” Reaper says softly. There’s a spark. “I’m sorry. He belongs to me now.”
He clenches.
The dragon’s wail rings through the night, an otherworldly sound that pierces his ears and tugs on his heartstrings. The scales break and shatter and the fire dwindles, until it burns him no more.
He wishes he could know its name, even as it leaves them. He wonders how long the dragon has been with the soul. What it means, to have a companion like that, bonded eternally, and what it feels to lose it now. Whether it protects him, or controls him. Whether he had a choice. Reaper wonders a lot of things, and there’s comfort in knowing nobody will answer. Death is final, puts everything to a stop. It’s an intimacy he shares with his prey.
It’s a gentleness denied to him. A forgiveness he didn’t deserve. He watches until the tattoo lose colour, then glances up.
Without its guardian, the soul is peaceful, hovering small and calm. A docile vulnerability that stirs a hunger deep within. It scares him, it consumes him. A hollow, a void. He remembers the first man he reaped- a Talon scientist who was part of his experiment. The scream he heard as he experienced his soul. That scream was his own. The curse, the anguish, the sin; a wrench in his gut as he comprehended and understood , yet utterly hated and rejected. His first soul as a monster. A blood path follows his footsteps. He kills, he carries; he lingers, he waits.
Shimada hovers before him now, deceptively fragile. He braces himself as he stands, eyes crimson and sad, body wounded and empty. He cradles it carefully, wrapping thin veils of smoke around it. The weight of a life in his palm. Yet another. He swallows the lump in his throat, and devours Genji Shimada.
The pain is blinding, as it always is. As soon as the soul enters his chest, he screams and crumbles, faltering to the ground, body arching and thrashing. The agony tears him apart from the inside. Black smoke pools and coils until he fails to maintain his body. His consciousness ripped into shreds, his mind fragmented. It’s- he thought- God, his soul is so strong -
Wind. That’s the first thing he feels. Tender and soothing, violent and relentless. Weightlessness. Joy. Then an inevitable sense of withering - it grips him with so much fear, it immobilizes him. He doesn’t see images often, unless they’re strong and scarring, but he doesn’t have to - he understands, he knows . He knows better now than to fight it. He can pick them apart, yet they’re all one and the same. They’re at different corners, yet they’re all together. Angela, Mother, sakura petals, Hanzo, Father, Hikaru, Morrison, McCree, Zenyatta . The sword, the dragons’ roar. The blood of many, the betrayal of one. Above it all, a blanket of emptiness that tries to subdue. He wants to fly, so Reaper curls and twists, until he realizes those are not his thoughts.
He’s expected more rage, more bitterness. It’s there along with the hate, like a crater, but it’s a low simmer, an ember choked into ashes along with something else, everything else. There’s a longing. Then he's letting go, then letting go some more. Trying to grab some back, then letting go a little more, until there’s only loss, emptiness. Regret. Fear. Helplessness.
Loneliness .
Until all those no longer mean anything but still mean everything. Reaper knows now, and he hates it. Even he. It’s inhumane, letting go of everything. It tortured the cyborg as much as the hollow that consumed him. It’s scary. Idiot, Gabriel screams, idiot!
Black smoke gathers and twirls until Reaper finds his shape again. He leans his shoulder against a brick wall, feet unsteady. Chest heaving, face wet. His wounds have healed, body strong, smoke seeping off him with renewed power. But he feels exhausted, scraped empty. He doesn’t move, remains still until his breathing evened. The wind is silent. The night is dark.
He puts a hand over his chest, clawing at the armour, where the soul disappeared.
“It’s okay, Genji,” he whispers softly. His hand clenches into a fist, the bitter taste of guilt on his tongue.“It’s okay. No more wandering. No more.”
Nobody answers.
With a soft sigh, he looks up to the sky, gloomy and grey, and wonders if Jack’s soul is up there, safely beyond his reach, watching him.
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