Thinking about my brief time in Japan.
It's months later and I'm still amazed at how big Todai-ji is. Photos don't really get across the size of it
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Okay, this is where things get complicated.
In my mind, the single defining moment of V's life is meeting Jackie Welles. Jackie's friendship lets V get a foothold in Night City, and ultimately leads to meeting Dexter Deshawn and the ill-fated Heist at Konpeki.
If Vincenzo, habitual runaway and former Bakker becomes 'the' V, that means his sisters never befriend Jackie. Perhaps they might have met, especially as Valerie ran with the Valentinos for a time as well, but they never became close enough friends to work together. If Valerie, habitual risk-taker and volcanic temper becomes 'the' V, that means Vincenzo never gets the job that leads him to Night City, and he spends what remains of his life an exiled nomad.
In either timeline, Violetta is Jenkins' underling in Arasaka Counter-Intelligence, embroiled in the midst of the Frankfurt Incident. Jenkins is still short-sighted and arrogant, and Violetta still receives her impossible task to kill their supervisor, Abernathy. But Jenkins' tracks are easily traced, and without Jackie on her side to intimidate the corpo-thugs who come to bring her in, Violetta is quickly brought before Abernathy for a 'vigorous debriefing.' Under duress, Violetta reveals everything, and Jenkins is dealt with as flippantly as the man was in life.
But Abernathy isn't a fool. She knows that Jenkins, the unsubtle boor, could never have reached his old level of success without he help of a talented, and surreptitious, underling. So she offers Violetta a choice: Accept her punishment, and burn with Jenkins on his funeral pyre; or accept an immediate promotion to Jenkins' old post, and the personal endorsement of Susan Abernathy herself.
Of course, the nature of this seemingly generous gift becomes clear over the course of her interrogation. During Violetta's complimentary stay in the Arasaka Corporate Internment Suites, there has been a great tragedy. Saburo Arasaka, the Emperor himself, has been murdered. And the prime suspect is none other than Violetta's own wayward sibling. None of them have been in contact with each other for two years, since the death of their father, but this is of little importance to Abernathy, or her subsequent interrogators. She is even visited by a stern man with impressive neck cyberware, but he says nothing to her as Abernathy repeats her questions.
Soon, she is released, with a new directive: She is to turn all of her inherited resources towards tracking, surveilling, and monitoring her past sibling. She directs her own division of Arasaka Counter-Intel, personally directing hundreds of ground agents and millions of eddies of company assets to keep tabs on the mercenary known as 'V'. There are many who joke in hushed breaths about a connection between the murderer 'V' and their boss, the villainous Violetta Villanueva, but only a privileged few at the upper echelon know the truth of this juvenile rumor.
This knowledge is Violetta's golden noose, her gilded sword of Damocles; for the connection to their Emperor's killer is what keeps Violetta in her position, and what could pull her from it in an instant. Her loyalty is therefore absolute, and her will is implacable. Her success means the death of her own blood, but her failure is her own utter erasure.
But all is not lost to despair. Her access to the higher reaches of Arasaka's corporate structure lead her to unexpected allies in the search for Saburo's true killer. And in time, with proven loyalty, these allies may become something more...
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