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It wasn't always a brand, is the thing. Hanzo could outline the markings by touch alone even without the raised skin, because it was the first tattoo he'd ever gotten. The markings of his clan. The reason for his existence. It was a stain on his skin, yes, and maybe at the time he would maybe have described it as a brand. But it wasn't like this.
Now, when he ran his fingers over his shoulder, he could feel where the skin puckered and pulled unnaturally. Where the markings of the dragons became a jagged, unfamiliar scar. Where the lines came apart and settled incorrectly because the precision of an iron rod could never be as accurate as the markings of a pen.
Hanzo remembered both getting the tattoo, of course. But now it was tainted. By memories of a darkened room, of being held down where he should have been patiently still. Searing heat instead of needling pain. The memories were right but they felt all wrong, and some part of him resented the clan for that, more than he resented them for marking him in the first place.
Another part of him does not understand why he cares. He bore the symbol anyways- would bear it for the rest of his life, as a memory. He should not care that it has been desecrated in such a manner. He should not care that the memories associated are borne of fire and fear instead of his age old pride. Why not resent the symbol itself? Why not resent the people who gave it to him?
Why only resent the fact that it was a brand?
(He knows. He knows why he resents the brand. It was a desecration of his family symbol, a smudge on his body and on his name. It was a horrific, angry mark, one that came from a place of vengeance rather than respect.)
(More than that, he remembered fearing it. The process of the brand, it was not sacred like the ancient tradition of the tattoo. It was made to hurt him, and nothing else.)
Now, when Hanzo outlines the markings of his clan symbol, it brings him nothing but pain. Pain, and the memories of that moment. The heat and the pain and, more than that, the smell and the sight. The degradation of the moment. The screaming- his own screaming. He could no longer associate the mark with his family, but only with the scent of burnt flesh and the underlying feeling of ownership that he had never truly experienced before.
It wasn't always a brand, but it was now. And that brand- it would always be there. A reminder of his family that no longer felt like a calling, but rather a cage.