Content and Trigger warning- This chapter contains gory violence, including the death of a child, the use of some bender related slurs, severe PTSD and references to and the end of rape. If anything about the latter triggering topic gets to you, use Ctrl+F and look for "... She had done everything.", it's after... the roughness, but I wouldn't blame you for doing so, cause me and Coniine care. So just a heads up. Be sure to give it a review and fave!
Hatori had to get out of the room, she had to be alone, it was all coming back to her. She knew this different universe version or whatever of her niece didn't know what happened, she knew those other three didn't know it either.
But the more Opal talked to her, the more the memories came back with every single word coming out of her mouth triggering the images of what she endured ringing loudly in her mind.
Even as she screamed for the girl to shut up, it was too late, she saw their faces… those horrible faces… smiling… laughing at what they did.
Then she heard the screaming in her mind. Not just her screaming, but Jissika's… and Miki's… but even trying to control her breathing like how Hattori Hanzo The VII taught her when she was only a pre-teen, it proved to be pointless as it was too late as she pulled herself away from her wife's hands.
Hatori took the acoustic guitar in hand and rushed out of the room, pushing past her sister who had been there for her after the Avatar got Sha-Garou out of her, not even bothering to turn back to look at her mother nor her own wife.
She needed to be alone, opening the door to her and Izumi's bedroom and slamming it shut as hard as she could as she stood alone, knowing the truth was going to come out in the other room.
She then looked down at the guitar in hand, seeing the art painted on, rather crudely, but she didn't care, grabbing a guitar pick off the clothes drawer, laying next to a picture frame with a photo of her and Izumi on their wedding day.
Hatori looked at it, seeing her and Izumi at the reception, with Toph, Lin, Suyin, Opal and Kuvira at her side, while next to her wife was Fire Lord Zuko, Fire Lady Mai, Iroh II, his husband Haku, and Mihoshi.
In her mind, it changed and was now replaced with one of her standing in the wedding aisles at the home of the Southern Water Tribe alongside a beautiful tanned skin woman with her long black hair looped around the back, a beautiful betrothal necklace around her neck. And standing in front of them was a young girl of six years, who looked like the splitting image of her mother, only with grey eyes instead of her mother's blue
Their names were Jissika and Miki.
The former shadowbender shook her head, tears falling as she sat down on the bed, looking at the beautiful instrument in her hand plucking a string and tuning it at the headstock, making sure it was right.
Whenever Hatori would have these moments, being alone as she played the guitar would calm her down. It'd never fully do the job, but it numbed the pain just enough.
And with that, she began playing some notes on the guitar, her fingers gliding along the frets and strings with grace and ease as she moved the pick over the strings, the words coming off her lips.
"Guru, guru… Is this some conspiracy?" Hatori sang to herself, the tone of her voice shaking, but soft and caring as she kept playing and singing. "Tortured for my mistake…" She then turned back to the photo, seeing it was back to being the one of her and Izumi. "An image beneath me…"
She then focused back on the guitar strings. "Lost within our plans for life… It all seems so unreal…" She saw a tear drop onto the guitar, right onto the blue painted snowflake.
"I'm a woman cut in half in this world… Left in my misery…"
The one-eyed woman had to stop, hearing it all in her head once more, closing her good eye as the wounded one looked down at the guitar, another tear drop hitting the guitar.
The woman from the Southern Water Tribe laid on the ground, her clothes having been torn off of her as pain coursed through her entire body as she could barely move, her azure blue eyes unmoving, unblinking as she had watched the woman she loved give a silent scream at what she was forced to do against her own will.
"MOMMY!" The mother heard her child cry out, having to try blocking out what unspeakable things were happening to the woman who gave birth to her and her wife by holding her ears and closing her eyes shut as tight as she could, all done by nine sick and vile men who had been laughing and hollering as they assaulted the couple.
"Point of our lesson, NEVER sink so low to THEIR level…" One of the rapists hissed into Hatori's ears, the woman with the one gold eye and the other glazed over barely making a sound as she felt the so-called man get off of her, making sure to slap her hard in the face before throwing her face first onto the deck.
Hatori's beaten and naked body had landed on the hard wooden planks with a thud, the woman unable to process how this could have happened, unable to cry, scream or even make any sound after the fourth member had his way with her.
She had done everything she could to hide Jissika and Miki, to make sure her fellow Equalists would not find out about them, that she could hide the fact that her stepdaughter just began waterbending.
Yet they found out, somehow, the Equalists found out, leading her here to the docks by Yue Bay to discuss some recent problems, only to realize it was a trap when she saw her wife and stepdaughter held at electric glove and pole point.
Even as she fought back and killed some, it was too much… she wasn't powerful enough to protect Jissika and Miki… to stop these men from doing what they just did to her and her wife's bodies.
But then Hatori felt finger tips touch hers, ever so gently, yet shaking, just moving her eyes to see Jissika was trying to reach out to her, those azure blue eyes just wondering...
"Why?" Jissika cried out softly before lifting her head up, looking at the nine rapists, and the one man who had stayed off on the side, unable to make a move except look off into the bay, regret in his eyes. "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO US?!" She screamed out
Then one of them, who both had heard referred to as Kogua, laughed out loud, at this, holding his slimy hands onto a struggling Miki, his hand holding her by the chin, making the waterbender look at the sight of her parents laying there violated.
"She wants to know, why us Equalist's had to teach a lesson about dating a watersplasher…" Kogua mockingly said, pulling the now struggling girl into the arms of one of the others. "Here, she'd make for a good choice of bending meat for the Pleasure Factory…" He muttered before looking down at Jissika before turning and taking a glance at Hatori.
"Should I really tell her, Hatori?" Dripped out of his mouth, his fat cheeks stretched out from his smile. "Seeing as this is ALL YOUR FAULT."
Jissika moved her head towards her wife, who shook at what he was going to say.
"Oh, she never told you, DID SHE?"
Her hand slowly moving out to her wife, Hatori's finger with the wedding band moved ever so close to Jissika's own.
"... I-I… I'm so… sorry…" Was all Hatori could say in her weakened voice, just before she caught sight of the blade of the katana made by the man who raised her come straight down towards the top of Jissika's black hair.
All four travelers were in complete and utter silence as they listened to the story as the alter Lin sat on her knees, holding back the tears as Toph held a sickened Izumi in her arms.
"Why?... why would they do that, why would he just kill Jissika like that?" Opal, finally speaking, tried to process, knowing that many forms of evil existed in the world. Yet it was so easy to forget in a world like theirs, you don't need to be a bender or spirit to commit the worst possible act one could do to another.
"If I had to guess, to make the pain much worse." The Lin of this universe answered in a small tone, remembering verbatim the story Sha-Garou told her in that interrogation room, how the corrupt officer Hatori swore lead the gangrape escaped the premises, becoming a wanted man before the host took back control, vowing she was going to make him suffer the most for the deaths of Jissika and Miki.
"I know the story ain't done yet, but truth be told…" Hattori began, drinking another glass of the whiskey before needing Toph to take the bottle away from him, the hate and anger in his voice very evident. "I don't blame lady me for wanting everyone of them motherfuckers dead, to put them down like the monsters they are."
Both Lin and Opal exchanged worried looks at the tone of voice he spoke in, it was almost like a vicious snarl of rage, which was out of character for the male Chief.
In fact, he sounded EXACTLY like how their Hattori was back in that brothel, having just murdered Vullok and aimed his sights at Asuki.
"Or maybe that's just the whiskey finally kicking in and talking." He shrugged as Izumi lowered her head.
"From what Hatori told me, Miki took it just as bad…"
"...Mama?… Mama?!" Miki began calling out, having just seen Kogua drive the blade into her mother's skull, the blood pooling out from her head, slowly realizing what just happened to the woman who gave birth to her "... Mama! MAMA!"
All Hatori could do was watch wide-eyed at the corpse of her wife, staring back at her with her dead eyes, the red blood moving around her right one.
"MMAAAMMAAA!" She heard Miki scream out louder, the woman just now able to get on her wrists and move up, just in time to see her stepdaughter struggle in the arms of those Equalists holding her, wanting to rush over to her mother's corpse.
"KEEP HER IN PLACE!" Kogua yelled out to the two.
"I'm trying here!" One yelled out as the waterbender kicked and screamed.
"MAMA! MAMA!... AAAAAHHHHH!"
With a high pitched scream, the child waved her hands down, causing the water around them to form around them into tentacles, reaching out at the ten Equalists, lashing and trying to grip at them as Miki broke free, her grey eyes burned in anger, seeking their blood.
"Ah! AH! NO!" One equalist yelled out before two water tentacles grabbed him by his throat and waist before pulling hard enough away to rip his body in two as blood splattered across the dock, everyone ducking for cover, with Kogua falling backwards against a loose nail on a beam, which cut into his neck.
"FUCKING LITTLE BITCH!" He yelled out, holding his neck, even if the wound wasn't deep, it still hurt and was going to leave a scar.
Another equalist tried to grab the small girl with an electric rod, hoping to shock and knock her out.
But Miki, with an angry snarl, lashed her hand backwards, water over her hand which turned into an ice blade, cutting the hand holding the weapon off the equalist's wrist, causing blood to squirt out of the wound as he screamed.
Yet the guy didn't have the chance to do anything else before Miki, forming up another ice blade, lunged onto him, relentlessly stabbing him in the chest, torso and throat with her makeshift weapons, screaming in rage at what she had seen.
Hatori could only watch the girl she helped raise with Jissika murder these men, horrified to see such an action happen, just then seeing her jump on the guy who had not been involved with the gangrape.
"Someone do something about that-" Kogua tried ordering as he pointed his finger at Miki, only to lose all sense of control in his arm, watching as his arm began moving on it's own until he looked up as he, those still dealing with the water tentacles and Hatori realized what was happening.
With hate in her eyes, Miki somehow was using bloodbending against the man who killed her mother with one hand, the other keeping the other man down as he struggled against her icy grip as she had so many plans for them, not noticing the man in her grasp instinctively grabbing something from his jacket.
"MIKI, WATCH OUT!" Hatori cried out, but it was too late, the vengeful look in the small girl's eyes was replaced with that of confusion, shock and pain, looking down at the Equalist she was on top of, holding up a knife right into her chest, right where her heart was.
The woman with the mismatched eyes watched in horror as the girl's arm dropped, freeing Kogua, before Miki gave a quick glimpse at her step-mother.
"... mommy?" Was all the girl could ask before falling down dead on the side, the man crawling away after taking the knife out, shaking his head in fright at what he just had done, swearing to the others he didn't mean to do it.
"NNNOOOOO!" Hatori cried out as the two most important people in her life were now dead, and it was all because of her.
Having just played more of her guitar as she sang, the memories still burned in Hatori's head, Jissika with the katana blade in her skull, Miki having that knife stabbed into her little heart.
Other memories flashed into her mind, her and Jissika meeting in that noodle shop, being so nervous as Jissika couldn't help but find her funny, meeting Miki for the first time, the first time she and Jissika made love, playing around and painting with Miki, the big wedding where she and Jissika became one and Miki became her stepdaughter…
… the acoustic guitar Jissika and Miki got Hatori for her birthday, with the young girl having painted the blue and white snowflakes onto it herself…
… then that horrible night happened only days later.
Strumming the guitar, Hatori kept on singing in her sad voice. "Well, I guess you took my youth… And gave it all away… Like the birth of a new-found joy… This love would end in rage."
Stopping once more, the woman let her tears fall once more, the rest of that night coming back to her.
"... I'll kill you…" Hatori said in between deep painted breaths, her eyes finally getting wet with tears once more as her eyes were getting red, looking at the eight that still remained, slowly getting herself up, focusing on Kogua and the man who had done nothing to stop this.
"I'll kill you…" She repeated, taking her katana out of Jissika's skull, holding it up. "I'll kill each and EVERY-FUCKING-LAST-ONE OF YOU!" She cried out, trying to swing in distress at Kogua with her katana, but her lack of strength from what she endured caused her to trip, dropping the blade as those seven bastards laughed at her as she hit the ground again.
Feeling the hate come out of her mouth with every breath she took, she realized she was at the feet of the man who killed her stepdaughter, looking up into his pained eyes as he shook his head.
"I… I didn't mean to…" He tried to let out as Hatori slowly began getting up, grabbing him by his well dressed attire as leverage. "I didn't know they were-"
"You killed them… " Hatori interrupted, looking into straight into his eyes, wanting him to look into hers. "You just stood by… why…?" She cried out at her best friend before her grief and hate came out, trying to grapple with him as he struggled. "WHY!? WHY DID YOU BETRAY ME?! WHY TARKIK?!"
"LET GO!" Tarkik yelled out, not realizing he thrusted his hand out… the hand with the knife he accidently killed Miki with, realizing too late he had done it again and lowered his hand, watching the beaten and naked woman in front of him look at him with her one good eye, in disbelief at the knife shoved just enough into her other eye. "No, shit… Hatori, I-I…"
Realizing what he had done, all Hatori could do was grab the knife by the handle and pull out the blade slowly out of her eye, now split in two, feeling the blood drip down her cheek as she tried to process it once more.
"Tarki- GAAAHH!"
Suddenly shooting pain shot into her back and out her stomach as she looked down and saw the blade of her katana had been stabbed into her by an angry and sneering Kogua.
"Fucking bender-loving whore…"
Realizing this was it, all Hatori Beifong, or Hatori Hanzo at the time, could do was stumble backwards on her two feet, looking all those who remained who had assaulted her and her wife, forced their child to watch, witnessed them be murdered, her back to Yue Bay as she looked at a remorseless Kogua and a regretful Tarkik.
"... All of you are dead men… I'll kill you all…" Hatori said in a low voice, giving hitched up breaths as she felt her life drain away. "... not even death can hold me…"
With that, the woman felt the last of her energy be spent and she felt her eyes close as she fell backwards into the water, crashing into it, the last image just before her eyes closed were of her slain family before she died for the first time.
"The way we were… The chance to save my soul…. And my concern is now in vain..." Hatori sang to herself once more, not even bothering to play her instrument anymore as she cried out the last of the lyrics.
"... Believe the word… I will unlock my door… And pass the cemetery… gates…"
Putting the guitar off to her side on the bed, the damaged eyed woman just sat there, crying loudly at what she lost in the past, how it was just taken from her, all because she screwed up.
"... we're sorry about what happened to you."
Hatori opened her misty eye, looking up to see Lin, Kya, Opal and Hattori in her room, looks of regret and sorrow in their eyes for the woman, Lin feeling her own emotions at how such horrible things could happen. The closest she, or even Hattori felt at being helpless was when Amon took their bending in their respective universes.
While obviously nowhere as bad compared what Hatori went through, Lin felt an inkling of her pain.
"What happened to you, Jissika and Miki, we're sorry."
"It's… okay… none of you knew, you only had… what you experienced as reference…" Hatori tried to say in between sniffles, wiping her eyes. "They're dead because of me, it's my fault they died, it's all my fault…"
With a tug at her jacket, as if trying to cover her own shame, she looked away from them… "It's all my fault what happened to me and Jissika happened."
"No it's not…" Opal said, moving up to the one-eyed woman, rather timidly as to not to provoke her again by mistake. But once she saw Hatori pat the spot next to her on the bed, the airbender nodded and sat down, letting the woman put her arms around her and just cry out her feelings. "It's not your fault."
"You did none of those things to your family, those bastards did, you have no reason to blame yourself." Kya assured the woman, her words having her natural kind warmth to them, even knowing what sort of topic she was talking about.
"... I was in those flames for so long…" Hatori's voice cracked out, just having to tell them. "In the spirit world, forced to watch all the suffering I caused."
"And what happened on the docks was what you saw the most?" Hattori asked his other self to which she nodded. "Yeah, that's been a running theme throughout these universes. And soon, he came?"
"Yes, Sha-Garou…" Hatori said, wiping the tear off her good eye, doing the same with her damaged one. "He gave me false condolences, saying that I didn't need to suffer because of what those bastards did, while they still walked free… and like every other Hattori Hanzo you mentioned, and your sister…" Hatori made sure to point out to her male counterpart. "I accepted his deal, to come back from the dead as a shadowbender to get my revenge five years later…"
Different sets of memories came rushing into Hatori's mind, all rapidly like a mover in her mind she couldn't turn off.
From emerging from Yue Bay, having to pull her katana out of her stomach in order for the wound to heal and stealing some clothes. Coming back to her, Jissika and Miki's home, seeing it had been abandoned after all tfive years, noticing the spirit vines having grown around it, but entering regardless.
Seeing how untouched everything was for the most part before turning to see herself in the mirror, just then noticing the horrible wound on her face, smashing the reflective surface with her fist before screaming in loss and anger, breaking and tearing apart anything she could get her hands on.
Stopping as soon as she saw the acoustic guitar given to her by her girls and crying as she plucked it strings.
Finally, all those she had targeted, she saw their faces in her mind, all as Sha-Garou was telling her something, the look on her face slowly changing from grief to pure rage as her one good golden eye glowed blood red, putting on appropriate black colored clothes for such an occasion, t-shirt, a zip up hoodie jacket, pants, gloves and boots.
"Find them… find the men who raped and murdered you and your loved ones… make them suffer, make them know your pain tenfold… RIP AND FUCKING TEAR THEM APART!"
More images ran throughout the damaged woman's mind, all having to do with her finding the seven rapists.
She found her first target in his fancy restaurant, attacking him in the kitchen as she threw him all over the area, then ripped his hands off at the wrist with her shadow tentacles. Hatori then saw a nearby bottle of cooking wine, taking it in hand before forcing it down his mouth before slamming his bulging throat down against the kitchen counter, causing blood, wine and broken glass to burst out of his throat.
Then Hatori managed to find the second one using chi-blocking to temporarily paralyze a woman's leg in a alleyway, only to come to her rescue, bringing him over with a shadow hand and sliced his groin open with her katana before dragging him over to the side of the building and stomped down her foot onto the back of his skull against it at least ten times until the woman she saved stopped her from crushing it anymore.
Next was her finding the third guy with two goons of his, with the first dumb bastard getting dragged into the shadows and coming out another completely skinned alive, the other getting a shadow spike thrown into his knee before partially bisecting him vertically with a single swing of her katana. Lastly, she had her target drawn and quartered into the air by shadow tentacles, watching him be ripped apart into pieces with a wicked smile as sirens wailed nearby.
Then there was the Pleasure Factory where those two brothers ran it, both having violated her and Jissika at the same time. After a hard fought battle against the bigger one, Hatori ran her sword through the man and tackled him into the shadows, dropping out from one on the ceiling of the main room where Korra, Lin and their allies had been trying to warn the other brother, not knowing the truth.
The big one's head burst like a melon upon impact on the ledge of the stage. After fending off The Avatar's crew, she got her hands on number five, beating him outside the building before taking and ripping his jaw off with her bare hands and throwing him into the path of an oncoming bus. Morgue attendants had to literally scrape the body off the road with a shovel.
After turning herself in and dealing with some annoying "Fans" of hers, including a rapist who made the worst move to brag about his crimes to her, Hatori told Lin and Korra about what had happened to her, where she had been staying as they had guessed correctly, and also finally meeting her mother.
She didn't remember killing the next target as Sha-Garou forced himself to take control to escape the prison, though Hatori was told the remains of him were like "pulled picken" by the time the spirit was done with him.
Then there was Kogua and Tarkik left. Before she revealed the dirty cop was the ringleader, the bastard actually escaped custody while she was in prison, with the spirit taking control against her own will to find them, trying to hide.
Turns out Kogua tried roping Tarkik back in to save his worthless hide, but Hatori's former best friend had turned a new leaf, wanting to repent and redeem himself for his part in what happened, having become a Air Acolyte since then, where he met the man who'd later become his husband, ironically eventually becoming an airbender through Harmonic Convergence.
"I was saving Kogua for last, to make him really suffer. So I had Tarkik right where I wanted him, but…" Hatori stopped, shaking her head. "I couldn't kill him, I saw in his eyes that he was ready to die for his part, what he didn't prevent from happening… I knew Tarkik was still paying for his mistakes and accepted what I wanted to do to him without a fight."
"So, Sha-Garou never took full control?" Lin asked which her other universe sister shook her head.
"Oh no, he still tried. Kogua was a bastard to the end and attempted to give me one last "Fuck you" by throwing my katana at me… only for Tarkik to push me out of the way…" Hatori still remembered seeing the look in the airbender's eyes as he stood there, the blade in his chest, asking for her to forgive him before falling dead on the ground.
Then Hatori looked up at the same katana now hanging above the door. "Sha-Garou then forced control again and did the rest." She remembered her hand being thrust into the rapist's mouth and down his throat, gripping on something inside his body, along with hearing what the spirit said in her mind at the moment Lin, Korra and the others arrived too late, watching her rip the man's spinal cord out from the torn open mouth.
"Huh, guess he wasn't so spineless after all."
"And… Well, as you can tell, a big ol' battle happened, I was freed of Sha-Garou by Korra with her energybending, we destroyed him and… here we are." Hatori said, finally able to breathe properly after telling all of that, letting all her sadness and anger out. "I still have the occasional panic attack or two, but I've been recovering as slow as I need to."
She sighed, pointing outside the room. "Clearly, I still have a lot more time to heal, but you don't just recover from what I went through overnight." She snarked, trying to use humor to defuse the situation, but it was clear that wouldn't work in this case.
"So… how does Izumi fit in all of this?" Hattori asked, curious about that before noticing, along with the others, the former Fire Princess walking in.
"Because, she saved my life from one of those bastards who tried assaulting me in an alleyway." She said, kneeling in front of her wife, remembering herself having to pull the Equalist Ripper away from the body, even with her one leg being useless for a short while at the time.
"I owed her my life, at least a favor, so during the investigation after we bumped into each other again, I hid her here, finding out more about her as she did what she did."
That got Lin's attention. "Wait, does your sister know?" She asked, finding this completely out of left field.
"Took her awhile to figure out, but yeah, Lin knew Izumi was indirectly involved. In fact, Korra, mother, Suyin, all our friends and allies, they knew." Hatori said as she held her wife's hand with Izumi looking up into both her good and bad eyes as she moved some of her black strung out hair out of the way.
"But by the time you escaped from prison, after I saw you interact with Toph for that first time, I realized that I didn't care that some evil spirit was trying to corrupt you or what those men did to you and your family before you died, I only saw the woman who played that guitar late at night, crying for her wife and daughter, who sat at my side when I shared my loss, sharing positive memories… I fell in love not with the Equalist Ripper, I fell in love WITH YOU."
Izumi then looked at the travelers. "After the murders, even though they won't admit it publicly, Lin and Korra lied to the press and officials, they said that Hatori wasn't to blame when those men were killed, that Sha-Garou was in control of her body during the murders. And for the most part, they bought it."
She then looked at a surprised Hattori, giving him a knowing smile. "I told you that there was much more to the story."
She then looked into her wife's eyes, wiping a stray tear that remained from the damaged eye. "I love you, Hatori Beifong, as much as I loved Kyo, as much as I love my own children, and…"
She then put her hand in her pocket, confusing the one-eyed woman as she took out a cellphone, a slight smile on her face. "Well, while you were talking to our guests, my father called, of course at the worst time, and…"
"... and?" Hatori asked, wondering where this was going as Izumi couldn't help but laugh at this reaction.
"He's stepping down as Fire Lord, he's not made public yet, but he'll be announcing it in the next week or two. As it turns out... he's asked me if I'd take the title and throne."
"WHAT?!" Hatori said out loud, surprised to hear this, as was everyone. But none more so than Hattori himself, who knew EXACTLY what was happening. "Are you going to… Well…" The woman asked her wife who titled her head up at her, a small grin in her face.
"I told him I'd consider it on one condition…" She answered in a playful tone before putting her hand on her wife's neck. "As long you were to become my Fire Lady."
Hatori's single good eye went wide, and if she could still move her eyelid over the bad eye of hers, it'd be doing the same, holding her hands over her mouth, looking all over the room. "Oh SPIRITS, tell me I'm not dreaming…"
"YOU'RE NOT!" Toph's voice rang out from the other room as the old woman stood sauntered on in the room next to Hattori.
"This happen in your universe?" She whispered to the man who was amazed that she even knew about that. "Your heart started pounding like a jackhammer the second Izumi brought it up."
Hattori wanted to say that yes, his Izumi asked him the same thing and he messed up the best thing he had going for him by saying no…
… but now, he had something else to say. "Hey, Hattori…" He said, to which Hatori, who didn't know what to say, looked up at him as he mouthed two words of encouragement.
Hatori knew exactly what he was saying, and judging by certain things he said earlier, she knew why her male counterpart was telling her that..
"It's okay Hatori… "
Hearing those two other words in her mind caught the damaged eyed woman's attention as she then saw something she didn't expect to see in her mind, it was Jissika and Miki kneeling around Izumi, looking as they did on her last birthday before that night, both smiling up at her as a beautiful blue glow shining brightly around them.
"You've earned this… Let go of the pain, you suffered long enough…" Jissika's soft beautiful voice rang throughout Hatori's mind.
"Be happy mommy, for the both of us… We love you..." She then heard Miki's innocent voice say before Hatori blinked back to reality, no longer seeing her first wife and stepdaughter around a awaiting Izumi before nodding as hard as she could, giving the largest smile she could make.
"Yes, YES, IZUMI! I WILL!"
With that, Hatori held Izumi by the back of her neck and kissed her deeply.
"HA! Called it!" Toph said, pointing up at the other Lin of this universe as she walked in. "Well, actually, we both called it."
"Come on mother, you knew as well as I that she was going to say yes…" The Alternative Chief said, before putting on a small smile. "But good for them, Kya will be happy to hear this."
"Can already tell you she will be." Kya herself said, happy to feel the aura in the room rise up more than she expected as Hatori and Izumi got a surprise hug from Opal.
"So… think you can try convincing your Korra and the others to listen to what we gotta say?" Lin asked the happy couple, along with the other Lin and Toph.
"Long as we don't go too long with the backstory and leave out certain details, shouldn't be an issue." Hatori, the now future Fire Lady, said giving a playful shrug.
As everyone was making plans to inform both other members of the crews, Hattori stood next to the doorway, a small smile forming on his face, just happy that Hatori, after all she went through and knowing what was ahead, finally got her happy ending with Izumi.
It made him finally decide to do what he should have done years ago.
"Thank you for being there for her."
"Yeah, it's no big de-"
But then, Hattori froze in place and stopped talking as he realized he didn't know that voice, that voice of a woman behind him, quickly turning around to JUST see two glowing blue shapes vanish the second he saw them.
Even with being blind in one eye, he knew for certain what he had just briefly glimpsed, they looked like an woman Hatori's age and a little girl. But there was no way Hattori saw what, or rather, who he thought he saw…
... right?
"Hey, One-Eye, what's up with you?" Opal asked, deciding to playfully call him a combination of the nickname One-Arm Kya gave him, only to sense something was up as he wasn't reacting to it. "Uncle Hattori, what is it?"
"... I'm… I'm not entirely sure kiddo." was all the alternative version of her uncle said before choosing to focus on the others.