Who the F*** is Kanto?

Chapter 8 - That Jerk

Quick clarification, I didn't really think through the whole thing with using "Week XY" to measure time, and for practical reasons I'll have to switch to using Lin's age to tell time in the last two chapters. (I have no desire to find out how many weeks are in 18 years)

So the first part, "7 months before Lin's born", is two days after the end of last chapter.

Okay, that's it, carry on.

oooooooooo

7 months before Lin's born

Like every week, Toph and Kanto had a second appointment selected. They picked it out of habit, they always had an extra one just in case, but Toph never actually thought she'd have to use this one. It was two days after they were supposed to meet in their apartment, almost 50 hours, when Kanto actually started making his way up the stairs. When he opened the door, he found Toph sitting at the table. Waiting.

"I didn't think you'd come," he dared say after standing her up, after everything. But she wouldn't let him get away without having this talk. He owed her at least that much. The truth, finally.

She stood up then, still in her armor, and she planned on staying in it.

"I guess you've heard everything by now."

"But I wanna hear it from you... How's your triad, Hotshot?"

"Recovering."

They'd only exchanged a couple of sentences by that point and she already wanted to kick him until all his teeth were on the floor. How did she think she could listen to him for long enough to get some answers? She probably couldn't. Not after hearing what she did from her officers.

After Kanto was a no-show last time, she had her people pay special attention to what was left of the Terra Triad, worrying they had somehow found him out, then imprisoned him, or worse... Yet the actual truth was somehow even harder for her to process. In just a few hours her officers returned with the news that the Terra Triad was rebuilding with Kanto as their new leader.

"How? How'd you do it? How'd you lie to me?" It would've been expected of her to ask why, yet she didn't give a fuck about his dumb reasoning and pathetic excuses. She just needed to know one thing for her own sanity. "Was it all lies? Did you plan it from the start?"

"No, Toph. Nothing like that, I-"

"So you're not a fucking psychopath who can lie as easily as breathe? You weren't selling me some bullshit here for an hour and then running off to laugh at the desperate bitch with your friends? Is... Did Ling ever really exist? Or was it just a sob story for sympathy points?"

"Stop!" He was the first one to take a step closer. "It was all true. I didn't fake a second of it... I couldn't even if I tried."

Her truthseeing really felt broken, because even at all that, it didn't signal a lie.

"Then if it wasn't all a con, how come I didn't feel you lie when you said you were going to meet me, huh?"

"Because I hadn't yet decided then. When I talked to you last, I really believed I'd come, Toph. I wanted to."

"Then why the fuck didn't you?!" She felt tears prickling her eyes. "I waited here for..." She let the sentence die in her throat. "Everything worked perfectly... Your plan." She chuckled bitterly. "How stupid of me not to see it left you as the only fifth ring member in the triad. The only one capable of seizing the power for himself."

"I wanted to leave everything behind for you. A part of me still does, but there's work to be done here, in the Shades. We're not done. We got the Boss, sure, but what about others like him? This place chews people up and spits them out, and that cannot be broken from the outside like you want to believe. No... That can only stop with help from the inside. Inside, at the top."