Asami loved her apartment facing the harbour for three reasons. Number one it faced Yue Bay, a short Sato-Speed-Boat ride and it was the perfect impromptu date spot whenever they felt like it. Number two, in the year to six months, depending on who you spoke to and which timeline they were currently in, Korra had had her on every surface, every tile, rug and ikea desk (of which there were now two thanks to weak struts). And finally, and she had never voiced this out loud to anyone, the Republic City High Security Penitentiary could not be seen from this one high tower.
The stark, metallic ugly island on the north side of the isle was hidden behind skyscrapers and fog on a good day. When her eyes caught from any high office in the it her heart would catch. Some days she'd need a moment, others she broke down entirely, calling Korra from corporate bathrooms and finding her arms around her seconds later. Still, after four years she felt the pressures and prejudices seep through the scars her father had inflicted on her image.
It was in the minds of new investors, pity, anxiousness, she made it her mission to drum it out of their eyes with every pitch.
All that remained of her family was there, rotting, and she was reminded of the fact everyday. That was until she'd moved in to the penthouse with Korra, she could almost forget, feeling something new and infinitely exciting forged in those four walls with their bed.
The memories comforted her as she stood at the prow of the visitors ferry. She'd been searched, but she was thankful that her hard work dissociating herself from Hiroshi Sato in the public eye had finally paid off, because the guards never gave her a second look save to appreciate the way her clothes hugged her curves. Still it felt a delicious thrill to be able to tell someone she was taken.
Icy wind poured through her, glad of her circular shades blocking the sharp specs of water appearing inside and out of their safe cover. She had her deepest shade of blood red lipstick on, water proof and as Korra had discovered kiss proof much to her disappointment. She had asked of course, to accompany her to the island. Asami assured her she was old enough to handle this on her own, and as much as she wanted to wait until present Korra returned on the 26th, she admitted too that she didn't want to risk changing anything, and urged Korra from their beautiful future to return to her Asami.
"I'll call when I need you again." she'd said with a gentle, relieving smile, after frowning her way contemplatively through Korra's tales. Braided Korra could of course see right through the front the engineer had expertly built up, her blue eyes were dim and pensive, her warm hands had found the tops of her arms, Asami swore she could feel her callous' through her shirt as she held her and kissed her temple. She thought of how she loved those hands as her cheek scraped collar bone, not daring to blink knowing the jewels of tears were pooling on her lashes would tumble at the slightest inkling.
"Everything will be okay, baby."
"Promise?"
"I'm the only one who can."
She had a myriad of things to say to her father, the last thing she wanted was Korra to be targeted as she settled this underlying score.
The moment she stepped off the boat she straightened her back, squared her shoulders and kept her chin high. The heiress held her clutch like she would a blade, even without the keys and ID she held inside it she felt with the right flick of her wrist she could kill a man with it. This idea carried her as she strode through the halls of RC Pen. Be fearless, she chanted to herself, be like her.
Coming to the final guard, a tall broad shouldered man, skin like Korra's and eyes darker, they looked at her with apathy and charged a small tray towards her. Asami lay her clutch inside, desperately trying to stay her hand from trembling.
"The shades," he grunted. The heiress stifled a sigh of discomfort, before whipping them off her face into the box, wiping under her eyes fervently in the hopes to clear the inevitably ruined mascara. "It's been a long time since last you were here Miss Sato." she paused her ministrations to gape at him, something seemed to have melted within the man because now he saw her his eyes were gentle. She was reminded of her girlfriend, and was comforted enough to pay attention to him. "He may not be the man you remember… I feel like you should be prepared for that." He swallowed, seemingly concerned that he may have crossed a line.
Asami shot him a thankful smirk as she watched her possessions pass under the X-ray. She whipped out her keys and lay them before him. Turning towards the door that she was free to open she turned back.
"Promise?"
A buzzer and a light, and no sooner had she walked inside the private visitation room had her father been led in by his elbows and his shackles attached to a lengthy chain to the floor.
Everything faded as Asami's eyes took him in, shrunken, grey her father looked like a cracked and faded photograph. For a second she had dropped all the anger she ever held for the man, and had to scramble to reclaim it, that was until their eyes met. Fierce green on an amber that boiled the blood and plucked like fish hooks in Asami's skin. There might have been a smile in them, but Asami didn't allow herself to see it.
If there was a way to look comfortable in this seat, Asami couldn't see it. Back straight, hands folded over her lap she gave a single flip of her hair instinctively throwing it in place and let her fury seep out of her soft glare. She couldn't tell if her father was pale because he had been obviously malnourished or he was afraid. You should be. The heiress thought wryly. The last time he had seen her she had been this confused sobbing seventeen year old, with no one to turn to except a board of advisors and Korra's family, already struggling with the nuances of her horrific life altering accident.
This was when she'd thrown herself into caring for her best friend so ardently she lived for nothing and no one else. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and retrospectively, helping fix Korra felt a lot like fixing her own problems.
You have to be strong Asami. Hiroshi had croaked, aching to hug his daughter on the other end of that line.
I don't understand, she'd sobbed, why are they doing this?
I've sacrificed my freedom for something bigger, something more important than myself.
Than me?
For you.
He looked too weak a man now to have to be put behind plastic, and he used to be strong, viper quick, calculating and decisive. In and out of the boardroom Hiroshi was a man to be afraid of if made an enemy. Asami was lost briefly in a flood of unwanted memories, her hands clasped tightly over her own knuckles and she instantly wanted to be holding Korra's hand. She imagined what she'd be doing to soothe her, even the thought of her lips pressing clumsily over her ear in front of her father came as a comfort. A rush of necklaces and rings and aurora super nova's flitted through her then. She held back a jolt as her father's voice, gentle in tone but still sharp to her ears cut her from her entropy.
"You're looking well."
"You're not." Hiroshi chuckled, until he grasped that Asami's lips were an unforgiving straight line. A few moments of silence passed uncomfortable and pensive. But Asami didn't know where to begin.
"You didn't come all this way to insult my appearance did you 'Sami?" Asami darted her eyes away and studied the tiles on the wall to their left. Counting tiles like her own breaths, hating the way her pet name still sounded so full of love after all this time. "How's the real estate been going? I haven't had an eye on the market for a while now but it's always such a thrill to turn a profit from a place…" Still Asami's jaw remained locked, "I know it's been hard for you handling the company without me…but I'm so proud of how well you've been doing."
"You have no right." The heiress snapped, slamming her fist on the table so hard she thought she heard a knuckle break. She used the unexpected pain to bring her breathing down as she glared at her father's perfect mask. "No right…" she breathed, still struggling with that first hurdle of what she had planned to be a tirade.
"Asami-," and like that she found her voice, finding his unbearable.
"Paladins!" Now she was sure Hiroshi knew exactly where her anger was coming from, "You developed weapons for Paladins!" Her chest began to heave, and with each passing second the barrier that kept her from utilising her deadly array of martial arts was shrinking inch by inch. "You helped think tank methods of murder and destruction with cruel and unusual methods and dragged our name through the mud doing it! And Senna and Tonraq? They were our friends! And you used us to spy on them!"
"Their kind has to be stopped. Asami."
"None of them were teleporters!"
"They all were! Only Gods should have the power to be all places. Vicious unfeeling immoral creatures that have the power to do more damage to the universe than I ever could! Their bloodlines were the most powerful of them all, they had to be monitored, contained, combined in that girl- the hardest part was watching you traipse around, watching her familiarising herself on you before she was killed! Thank the spirits!"
"Korra isn't." Asami snapped and then stopped, her brain at once stopped raging and paid attention to the bitter memories churned up now in the forefront of her brilliant mind. Illegal weapons. Faulty contracts. Fraud. She'd eaten the tabloid speculative because they were easy for her to swallow. CEO's tread on eggshells all the time, it takes a miracle and a magicians bag of tricks to claw one's way to the top. Sociopathic tendencies were to be expected of most people looking for money. Fortunately these weren't traits that Asami possessed, Korra always remarked that if she wasn't in business she would be in charity. Asami always countered with a swift I don't see why I can't do both. Still Hiroshi thinking Korra was dead wasn't a miscommunication. By rights he shouldn't have ever known about the accident, having been arrested days before.
Asami mused then that when it rains it pours, a domino effect of everything going wrong happened in consecutive days. Her father being arrested, Korra getting crushed and impaled somewhere off of the interstate road in a tornado of ice and foam and faulty breaks. And yet here he knew, he expected that something terrible had happened to Korra. He had no idea she'd survived.
"You planned her death didn't you?" The horror in Asami's voice replaced the anger, it was weak, disbelieving and yet every syllable spoke the awful truth. Her heart clenched at the idea of it. For a moment she begged every deity she could think of for it not to be true, to have her father be the man she once believed he was. Sandcastles on the beach. Tinker toys and Sato-mobile presents. It only took three words to crush that dream.
"It was necessary." Asami saw Korra in that mangled state. It stabbed right through her unforgiving and haunting. She'd almost told a corpse she'd always loved her, instead of a coma patient. Now she wanted nothing more than to have her love in her arms and prove she was real. "She's one of the few we were certain who's power would grow exponentially."
"She was just a girl, dad." And that would be the last time she ever tasted that word on her lips.
"What does it matter? It's over now!"
"That doesn't justify what you were a part of!"
"Doesn't it? Her kind took everything from me, my freedom, the life of my wife! She wouldn't hesitate to take everything from you and yours!"
"Don't you fucking dare!" Asami seethed, "Don't you dare mention Yasuko Sato in the same sentence as Korra. She's beautiful and kind and she's saved so many people, more than you have ever seen in your fucking pathetic life old man."
She stood up, her chair ricocheting off the ground like a fish yanked out of a pond as she was unable to stop her tirade now that it had begun. She was itching to claw matching marks into the weak man in front of her that he had given to her Korra. Hot tears tore down her cheeks but she didn't care, her eyes felt like they were burning and her lungs breathing white hot flames.
"Asami please listen!"
"No! I won't listen to justify killing a seventeen year old girl, and her sixteen year old cousins and an innocent man. And it doesn't matter because it didn't work. Your little stunt was only an accident that only the kids walked away from!"
"No…" Dread filled Hiroshi's features, Asami felt an odd thrill watching it suffocate him and freeze him in his shackles.
"Korra's fine. And beautiful and alive and in love with me." The blade was in her hand, and all she wanted to do now was twist. "We're engaged." It wasn't exactly a lie, just not true yet. Hiroshi's eyes went to the size of dinner plates, if he didn't look nauseous before he sure as shit did now. "I gave her mom's ring." and with that Asami twisted and aimed her stride for the door. Adrenaline pumping, words failing she had to leave before anything else is said.
"I'm so sorry Asami…"
"Fuck off."
"No Asami. She is dangerous. Now more than ever." His voice was soft, and genuine and it made Asami feel like she was going to puke.
Everything will be okay, everything will be okay. She felt the need to repeat the words to herself as Hiroshi's filled her with terror. "If she isn't dead the fabric of time and reality is at risk of being torn. Do you understand what that means Asami? You know what she can do?"
Asami couldn't justify that with an answer. There it was again, this idea of tearing reality apart. Korra had been so flippant about it. And yet mathematically it was a possibility. But only with someone infinitely more powerful than Korra, at least Korra six months ago, on her own, with no one else to aid her.
"If what you say is true then you're the only person who can get close enough to do it."
"Shut up."
"You have to be strong Asami."
Asami's fingers clenched around the doorknob. Listening for what else, anything else, that Hiroshi had to dump on her. It was already too late, she clutched a hand over her chest, feeling doubt settling there. There was her logic, and her love and something that told her the two could not survive together.
"I will be." she whispered.
XXX
"Sir?"
"Mmm?"
"We've received a message Sir."
"Mm."
"A Telegram. Sir." The agent blinked incredulously at his assistant. Scarred mouth agape. The man wasn't much younger than he, in fact for his entire time at the Bureau Leuten had been his right hand guy from their last employ. Always there, just underneath him. It suited them both fine, Leuten was stoic, calculating from the edge of the room and exploding when need be and his boss; a man with a plan Still nothing of this nature had reached their desks in over three years, a part of him hoped it never would. He was starting to like the quiet civilian life.
"Who's it from?" His face a mask, he leaned forward, plucking an array of prescription pills and ointments from his desk and prodding at the blood that weeped from his tear ducts around this time of day.
"Equalist Sato Sir."
"Read it to me."
"Visit from A. Stop…and this next part is in all capitals, Sir, WTT STILL ALIVE. Stop. Republic City infected with new breed. Stop. End Telegram."
The agent necked a handful of colourful pills, but gave no reaction to what he had just heard.
"Noatak, Sir?"
"Not Noatak, Leuten." he felt a smile pull at his disfigured lips, "Amon is back."
