Rush (Overwatch)

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And a special thank you to Joe, you absolute madman.

On a warm summer night in the middle of Kanezaka, I sat overlooking the interior of a warehouse, waiting for it to be robbed.

Usually I wouldn’t be caught dead working for the Hashimoto Clan, either due to how horrible their pay is or how scummy they treat civilians for no reason. But… well, I’d gone to Japan during the first flood of attacks from Null Sector, and now the path I took to get into the country was no longer available. 

So I needed some… underhanded connections, and found the people desperate enough to give me what I needed to get the fuck out of Japan, and weak enough that they wouldn’t try and double cross me to get out of paying.

Brushing my hair back so it didn’t go over my eyes, I kept watch over the multiple guards and the shipment we were guarding.

My experience as a mercenary had taught me a lot about the job, most importantly was that ignorance was bliss when dealing with organizations above a certain size. You can’t be murdered for being a ‘loose end’ if you never asked any awkward questions.

Still, from the smell of gunpowder and laser munitions, the Hashimoto were looking to up their firepower. Heavily. Taking Jackal in my hand, I almost absentmindedly unloaded and reloaded the high-powered pistol, taking care to check exactly which bullets I was placing inside.

What information the Hashimoto gave me on their ‘Yokai’, was that they all primarily used kunai and other medieval weapons along with stealth. Reaching onto my belt, I checked what supplies I had for the potential firefight, and grimaced.

Two flashbangs, one grenade, and not a single medical stim?

I knew money had been tight going to this country, but Null Sector pulling up across the globe was really fucking with me. I needed this job to go well, so I could at least find another job that’d actually pay me.

After the collapse of the Shimada Clan thanks to Blackwatch, the Hashimoto clan became one of the few groups to stand out from the power struggle to fill the vacuum left behind. Where the Shimada was a group that survived by working with the country and its people, the Hashimoto gained power through sheer ruthlessness.

Pretty soon it’s perfectly slotted in as a much worse version of the massive crime family that had originally all but owned this country, and considering the second son of the Shimada was the one that all but destroyed it in the first place that was saying something.

Honestly, this was one of the main reasons I’d waited until I literally couldn’t afford to go anywhere else before traveling here. The criminal underground here is obsessed with being as needlessly cruel as possible, and it pains me that I need to associate with them to get out of here.

I wasn’t ignorant enough to believe my actions wouldn’t aid them in some way, but guarding a crate of firearms from some street gang is much better than anything else I could do for them-

The faint sound of a body falling to the floor somehow reached my ears, and every muscle in my body immediately twitched as I subtly began scanning the entire area. There were guys stationed in every exit, and everyone was informed of every possible entryway accessible from the outside so they weren’t caught off guard.

Hell, I’d personally told everyone not to bother with radios and instead straight out call out if they so much as saw anything they couldn’t immediately explain. The building’s echo along with my better than average senses made it clear I’d notice that in case the worst happened.

But no doors, no sound, no motion, not even a smidge of radio static. And yet one of these fuckers was dropped like a fly. How would-

Fuck. I got swindled, didn’t I?

Of fucking course the gang that named itself after mystical creatures would be magic! This fucking island is the only place where shit like that actually happens, and of course I end up on a bunch of rogue wizards’ bad side!

I let the adrenaline course through my body as I quickly armed myself and kept my wits about me. Alright, magic ninja have already infiltrated, and the Hashimoto’s guards are all about quantity rather than quality so I’m basically on my own.

I’ve got two flashbangs, one grenade, and a few customized clips of ammo to get my way out of this-

In the dark spot I sat in, overlooking the entirety of the warehouse’s innards, a flash of pale green light appeared behind me. My heart raced, my blood burned, and I could practically feel the change come over me.

Without bothering to look behind me, I could almost see the moves my enemy was going to use. The slender man was in the middle of slamming a circular hilt- ah, kunai- into the side of my head in the hopes of knocking me unconscious. He’d taken a bracing step backwards, though his pulse spoke of mere exertion. No stress or fear, he found this act completely routine.

My elbow shot out like a bullet and landed with the force of a cannon into his ribs, the sudden jolt of pain throwing off his aim and concentration. The swing went wide above my head, and with the same arm I grabbed him by the forearm and flipped him over my back and in front of me.

The same hand now held his arm behind his back, and I didn’t hesitate to punch him in the back of the head, knocking him out with ease. I let out a harsh breath, taking in the cool air of the warehouse and immediately taking in the rest of the area.

I ignored the down enemy, even as I drew my own pistol. He was just a kid fighting against the massive criminal organization that was hellbent on destroying his home.

Feeling the heady rush of Hysteria Mode filling my mind and body, I unlatched one of my flashbangs and kicked up the dropped kunai into my hand. Pulling the pin, I gently lobbed the explosive down below me before covering my eyes with my forearm.

The world beneath me exploded with light and noise that would disoriented even me, if I weren’t currently in this state. Mindless cries of pain mixed with minor spots of glowing yellow light- those were real, I could tell- was what everything quickly devolved to.

Unfortunately, the gentle yellow hues were proof enough of who exactly was there. So, without hesitation or even bothering to double check my aim, I fired into the building beneath me.

The quickly multiplying smell of blood along with cries of pain told me that my hand was as steady as usual, and despite the subsequent rush of movement away from me… there are plenty of things you can ricochet bullets off of in warehouses like these.

Even if I was largely incapable of seeing the target’s position or where they were going, I knew I wouldn’t miss. In fact, there was only one threat currently here-

Another flash of green light behind me was answered with me pointing my gun straight behind me and firing exactly where she wouldn’t be.

Again, she teleported, this time in front of me, and I met the sharp blade going for my neck with the kunai I’d taken off the last person who tried this maneuver on me. The two blades clashed, burning red sparks fluttering between us as the metal scraped against each other.

Soft brown eyes looked sharply at me, a magical green glow filling her eyes as she looked at me with unbridled rage- oh she thinks I killed her friends. Oops?

The side effects of my current state made themselves apparent when I immediately began looking at the murderous female assassin’s full and pouty lips. Forcing them back up, I tried to reassure her that my blows were all nonlethal, and that they’d all be fine in about a week.

“My my, if I knew murderous spirits were as fine as you were, I’d’ve joined your gang long before I’d ever considered working with these clowns.” Unfortunately I became an unrepentant flirt the second I activated Hysteria Mode, and while history proclaims most people are absolutely mortified about how they act when this activates, I’m much more concerned with the fact I have absolutely no self-control!

The girl with the red and white fox headband, wearing the robes I knew were reserved for shrine maidens, jumped back and away from me once she realized she couldn’t overpower my blade. So instead, the ‘Kitsune’ bit her lips in a (sexy) furious grimace and began throwing multiple kunai at me at once.

In a blink of an eye, eight kunai filled the air, with even more on the way. There was barely any space between us, the flying knives coming at me with the speed and precision of a sniper round.

Unfortunately for her, they didn’t reach me fast enough to keep me from firing once. And in this situation, that was all I needed.

My mind went into overdrive, calculating and adjusting my aim even as I lifted my gun into position.

A single bullet left the barrel of the Jackal, and crashed into the first kunai. Both careened off course and to the others. This repeated again and again until every blade ended up buried in the floor around me, and the belt filled with more ammunition was shot off the slim waist of my adversary.

Of course I ended up using the shot to strip her…

We both found ourselves in a lull of combat. Looking into her brown eyes, I could tell exactly what was going through her mind. She couldn’t defeat me in close combat. She couldn’t hit me at range.

Right now, her only option was to pull some more Japanese magic out of that perky ass of hers (which I’d apparently spotted while I was shooting down her projectiles, despite obviously never seeing her back) and I doubted she had much other options.

Currently she and her gang had only used two types of spells- teleportation and healing. I assume that’s what the latter was, considering it was only used after her allies had been shot.

But she knows that if she closes the gap, I win. Teleportation be damned. So what is she-

A flash of green light burst into existence behind me, and I turned to find-

The Kitsune, standing beside her unconscious ally and her hands flipping through various signs.

Oh shit.

“May the Kitsune guide me!” In a flash of what I could only describe as magical light, the famous red gates (only in pale green) burst into existence along a straight line in front of the other Kitsune.

Speaking of, along with that, along the path laid out was the cutest thing I’d ever seen in my life. And adorable, fluffy good girl fox leaped into the air along the path, and an impossible dilemma occurred.

How do I deal with the clearly magical animal charging straight towards me, with her summoner bearing down on me. Immediately I knew I couldn’t shoot to kill either of them due to how cute they both were (scum), and along with that I don’t think I’d be anything other than a sitting duck if I leaped off the edge.

There was no maliciousness in the fox’s eyes, and I knew that the only reason these people were a gang in the first place was the actions of the Hashimoto that we all hated…

… So I made a very dumb decision in favor of the woman I’d just met, and raised my hands in the air in surrender. “Yield, I yield!”

The fox stopped in it’s tracks as Kitsune narrowed her soulful, glowing green eyes at me.

“You shot my friends, why would I accept your surrender?” She asked crossly, the first actual words she’d said to me instead of the adorable good girl in front of me.

“Because no one likes the Hashimoto, and what little I know can be very helpful in taking them down?” I shrugged, not quite willing to explain I physically couldn’t harm her right now without serious consequences. Also because I had a valid, honest point. “Oh, and magic is scary, even if the Kitsune is a very adorable good girl.”

The fox yipped in approval of my compliment, and I could almost feel my adrenaline begin to decline- fuck that’s not adrenaline.

The… Shrine Maiden(?) looked disapprovingly at the fox for immediately taking my side, before glaring even more harshly at me. “We fight the Hashimoto because they hurt the people we care about. Working with you compromises… basically everything I stand for.”

“In my defense, you guys attacked me first, and none of my shots would keep them down for more than a week.” Fuck I could feel Hysteria Mode slipping through my fingers the longer we talked, the lack of adrenaline combined with the magic- shit the magic of the Kitsune spell was fucking with me. Making me… not quite weaker, but still accelerating the pace of my reversion.

“But hey, if you don’t believe me, I’ll just give you a freebie. The Tora no Sumika bar is a front for all their money to leave this town and get to the clan as a whole. Everyone worth mentioning in the clan is there, it’s a bargain bin for kicking them out of your city. Anything else?”

A flash of green later, the woman was now right in front of me, the ethereal green wind visibly swirling around her and making her trail that same color behind her. She held a kunai threateningly in my direction.

“...” Her eyes bore intensely into my own, and one of the fingers in my hand twitched. “...If you’re lying, I will never stop hunting you down.” At that, I couldn’t help by smile.

“Sorry, but as much as I love being chased, I’m being honest. So don’t follow me.” And with that, I tossed a grenade pin in her direction. Her eyes seemed to burst out of her skull as she didn’t hesitate to grab her friend and teleport away.

… I smiled down to myself, having tricked her with the old pin of my used flashbang, and after petting the magic fox for good luck I disappeared into the night before the beautiful miko (that’s the word!) could realize how badly I’d tricked her.

I reported a job well done to the Hashimoto, no thanks to their lazy men who fell asleep dreaming about nonsensical magic ninjas, and was on an extremely illegal boat to literally anywhere else to look for a job.

Relaxing on a boat after reassuring my ‘overseer’ that my vacation was over and I was ready to take more jobs, I couldn’t help but look over the videos.

The first was the Overwatch Recall, sent across the world that was immediately intercepted and caused every government that was still part of the UN to bitch and moan about how Overwatch was still illegal and all activity was a criminal offense. It was the last thing my older sibling sent me before disappearing for ‘work’.

The next was the latest report of Overwatch fighting Null Sector in Paris. An official statement on a large portion of the new team. Without my sibling.

And last, a fifteen second clip from an anonymous source. Showing nothing but a single woman, dressed in an extremely expensive dress, being aimed at by a field of soldiers.

I couldn’t see her face, or even make out any discernible details thanks to the shitty quality of the camera. All I did know was that at one point she was staring down a dozen soldiers, and with a flick of her wrist they were all on the ground with pools of red growing beneath them.

The metadata of the clip told me the original video was made three weeks after my sibling first disappeared, and I know better than anyone exactly whose technique that was. I still remembered watching them playing with a toy six-shooter based on McCree’s famous revolver.

“Where the hell are you, Touka?” I asked out loud, knowing I’d never get an answer here on the open sea.

AN: Holy shit that took forever, sorry about going completely radio silent. Just busy with a bunch of shit.

If you can’t guess, I’m trying to write out all the stories that had gotten votes before starting another one (which means me sacrificing my childhood for the lewd gods is inevitable), so I can finally get the stories that have been fighting me for no reason out of the way.

For more Overwatch relevant notes, let me be clear. I played a shit ton of Overwatch, and unfortunately still play Overwatch 2. I even had a stint of playing professionally, though it never got off the ground.

So I think it’d be interesting to use all the information I have on this series for this, and give bits of insight with each chapter.

Patch Notes:

Main Character (Kinji Tohyama):

Abilities-

Hysteria Mode (Hysteria Fatale): The Hysteria Mode is a genetic trait passed down throughout centuries throughout the Tohyama family. When experiencing specific stimuli, the members of this family undergo a physical and mental transformation that makes them nearly supernaturally gifted in combat and other high-stress situations. Though the downside is usually a drastic shift in personality, in Kinji’s case it’s a specific lack of restrain in complimenting women.

The Fatale version of this state, unlike the Standard which activates when sufficiently aroused, activates automatically when Kinji believes his life is in danger. Closer to a Flight or Fight Response, it enhances his physical and mental abilities to a greater degree, in exchange for lasting a shorter time. Kinji, uniquely, isn’t completely incapable of harming women in this state- though it does immediately end his transformation.

Billiard Shot: The closest thing Kinji has to an ‘Ultimate’, it deflects all incoming damage away from himself and his allies. It can also be redirected back at the enemy.

Kiriko:

Her personality is more closely aligned to her Animatic counterparts, rather than her generally mid and bitchy attitude in-game.

Oh, and also everything she does is clearly magic. Why didn’t she use a Suzu? She was in a solo fight, and the invincibility frames wouldn’t be worthwhile when she couldn’t hit her enemy.

Thanks for reading, Peace.