Author's Note: This was formerly known as "Avatar: The Next Legend." It has a new title now: "The Heart of a Lion-Turtle." After struggling with what to retcon and what to leave the same I'm more or less picking up right where I left off, but only things like a few character names and bits and pieces from back stories are all that's being retained, basic plot points. Overall, I'll be trying some new approaches this time around. As fun as they can sometimes be to write, no more 48 page long chapters (at least in Word). From now on, shorter, sweeter chapters featuring one character's POV per chapter is my mantra this time out. Also a bit more action. I love doing fight scenes and haven't done them enough in past stories.

Tip: Don't go assuming anything because you happened to read "A:TNL" or "A Man and His Spear", I've changed up a few things.

Hope you all enjoy.

Prologue

An unease clung to Captain Asuke of the Dai Li. It crept into his senses, impossible to ignore. It made his scar itch. It made him shift uncomfortably in his chair. He should just get up and move away from the source. Get some relief. But no. He couldn't. He wouldn't. This was too important to let something like that break him. He still had his pride as a grown man to maintain, after all.

So, Asuke steeled himself and sat through it. Though he found he couldn't keep perfectly still no matter what. The effort to stop tapping his foot made him start drumming his fingers. Stopping drumming his fingers made his foot start tapping again. Eventually he found a balance. Fold arms across his chest and look irritated, which didn't take any faking on his part. He was also good and irritated.

A heavy fist slammed down on the conference hall table. "Another death this morning? All we've done is talk and people are still dying. This is a disgrace!" barked a grizzled army general named Sho. He began to rise.

"Due to past dereliction of duty, General Sho. It would be inadvisable to make further rash outbursts at the disrespect of the Earth King," the only man present already standing, a young Earth King representative named Kensei said. His tone warding, Asuke thought, but still smooth. "Please."

Sho's face, what wasn't covered by a heavy growth of reddish brown facial hair, turned a shade redder, but not from embarrassment. His body was visibly trembling to hold back from throwing into a frenzy. Asuke could practically hear his teeth grinding together. Through some miracle, cooler heads prevailed. He slowly sank back down into a slightly less antagonistic crouch.

Murmurs spread amongst the other members of law enforcement, national security, governmental figures, and intelligence agents present as Kensei continued speaking as if Sho's outburst hadn't ever occurred. The victim was a smuggling baron who operated out of Reiko District. Killed while alone in his house. A single stab wound to the chest with a very sharp weapon. No such weapons were found at the scene. His death went undiscovered for nearly 24 hours before anyone found the body. A clean, efficient kill. The M.O. all fit.

"It's him. The Akuma of Death. The Blue Revenant," someone murmured to Asuke's right. Several people made sounds of reluctant concurrence.

A harsh snort answered them. "Please. Listen to yourselves," said Yuzia, a draconian delegate, of the female persuasion, from the Fire Nation and a distant member of the royal family. Asuke noted it was the part of the royal family best-or perhaps worst- known for being megalomaniacal psychotics, prone to shooting lightning at people and being just generally terrifying. Even at the ripe young age of 14. "Akuma of Death? Blue Revenant? Please. You say this without even a trace of irony anymore. The more you give into to this fear mongering, paper selling nonsense, the more hysteria you let take root. Frankly, it is beyond laughable that people believe these deaths are acts committed by some vengeful vigilante spirit of justice. Assassin is far more likely. We worry ourselves over a spirit we can't hope to defeat when we should be first concentrating on who contracted the killer and working to the assassin through them."

"Last time I checked, assassins aren't contracted to kill contraband movers and two-bit thugs," smarmed a portly councilman whose name Asuke didn't recall. "But I agree. This is nothing but a bunch of criminals offing each other. A gang war being fought off the streets and in back alleys and bedrooms. These meetings are and always will be a waste of everyone's time."

"And furthermore," Yuzia said. "These meetings are a distraction. We're worrying about some fictitious death demon when the real concerns are being haphazardly ignored. Or-"

"And here we go," Asuke grumbled under his breath. He glanced over to Kensei, who hadn't said a word, his expression carefully neutral.

"-I should say, purposefully ignored. Hardly surprising."

"Now just what is that supposed to mean, representative?" the councilman demanded.

"Was I not clear enough, councilman? In need of explanation? This past week the fifth young Fire Nation citizen went missing in as many months. Two of the previous have been found butchered by the river like cattle. A few Earth Kingdom criminals die and your king calls a meeting. But five young men of Fire Nation blood are abducted and brutally murdered and there is nary a batted eye. Have I missed something or is the picture being painted here very wrong?" Yuzia's voice grew quieter and harsher with her every word. But the effect was the same as if she finished screaming.

And off the fray went. Yuzia's accusations of Fire Nation prejudice against the Earth Kingdom's defense and their counter-accusations of the Fire Nation playing the victim for attention. The Water Tribe did what they typically did. Shake their heads and stay out of it, unaffected and a little bit smug, after all, they'd have an Avatar to represent them soon.

There had been around eight of these meetings and they all concluded with such foolishness. It was why Asuke hated being here. It was always the same. Or it had been so. Today was different. It was something in the way the air hung, calm and stagnant just before the storm arrives, there was something deep and foreboding present here. And again, oh so familiar.

It only occurred to Asuke later that Kensei's abnormal detachment should've been the first clue. He was preceding over the meeting as always, but he was putting on appearances. Normally, Asuke would've stepped in and put an end to the squabbling. He had a knack for timing it just right to inflect his voice and get everyone's attention. But there was none of that happening today. Kensei wasn't himself, his thoughts were focused elsewhere.

Asuke should've known better than anyone what a man was like when he was afraid of something. Or someone.

From her seat off the side, in the slightly darker, less well lit part of the room she spoke once. Once was all it took. Her voice resonated through the stone of the walls and floor, it felt. "Enough."

At once the arguing ceased as everyone turned a shocked eye to her.

Her hair was dark and tied up in a bun but hardly worth mentioning. A pair of small nondescript, black glasses sat on her nose, small and forgettable. Her frame was slight. Her clothing was unremarkable, a robe with soft bottom shoes.

She was unremarkable in every single way.

This was not by accident.

She wanted to be ignored by everyone present, to observe in obscurity. And it was only when she purposefully drew attention to did you see the truth.

She was beautiful.

It was a fact as undeniable as gravity or the color of the sky. She simply was. You don't argue things like that. You don't question it. It's just accepted. Meant to be, so leave it so.

She was beautiful.

Deadly things so often are, whispered a voice at the back of Asuke's thoughts.

Her eyes. They were what everything was centered on. They were a shade of blue so light they were almost gray. They saw everything while looking at nothing. They cut through what they looked at while letting nothing else through. Like staring at a cloud hiding the burning sun. And, like a cloud, everything was far away from those eyes. She had as much regard for the dignitaries and critical government figures before her as one had for an insect. Like her beauty it was simple fact to be accepted and understood, not argued against and fought.

And despite appearances another fact hung true and undeniable. She was only barely at marrying age. No more than sixteen or seventeen.

When she spoke, cold words emerged, unforgiving and unsettling. But also bored. And it felt more like she spoke to herself than to the assembly. "I am very disappointed." She pulled a pin from her hair and let it tumble loose from the bun as she took Kensei's place at the podium, who had moved aside so quickly and discreetly it was like he was never there. She placed a hand on the stand, looking out at the audience in silence. An awkward moment later she sniffed. "Is this really what I'm tasked to work with? This collection of spineless, witless politicians and chest thumping, boorish military thugs?" She shook her head harshly. "No. No. No. This will not do. Not do at all. Not do. Not do. Certainly not."

Asuke swallowed down a dry throat. Why did he feel as if his head was on a chopping block? The scar running down his cheek scar began to itch again.

"Denials, deflections, debates. The schoolyard game called bureaucracy. This is what the appointed officials of the world do in the face of the enemy? Sit on their hands and wag pointed fingers instead of acting?" She sniffed, seemed to consider a thought to herself. Maybe how it's impossible to sit on your hand and wag a finger at the same time. "Very well, it is decided. I won't make use of any of you. No. Not at all. You are worthless to me. Perhaps even less so than worthless. Pathetic, all of you. Go back to your noise then, fools. I…" She broke off, stared into space for a brief moment. Then, without another word, stepped away from the podium and walked towards the door, in no visible hurry. The audience left stunned.

Mostly.

General Sho let out a snarl and jumped to his feet bellowing, "What in the name of the spirits? Whose savage idea of a joke-"

That's the furthest he got before a mass of water slapped him in the face, covering his mouth and hardened into ice, freezing his mouth shut. He recoiled in surprise and pain, hand pawing at the ice, making muffled cries of surprise. Cries shock and confusion shot through the assembly.

Asuke had taken his eyes off the girl for just a bare second. But when he looked back again her arm was extended, hand open as if she had just thrown something.

"There is only one joke here, fool. It's the person that thinks they can dare raise their voice to me," the girl said, her voice devoid of any emotion.

Enraged, Sho ripped the ice from his mouth, drawing blood and pulling hairs from his bristling beard out of his skin. "Fool? I'll show you a fool, you impudent brat!" He struck with an unmistakable two fisted blow of earthbending and the entire section of table immediately before him erupted and hurtled at the girl. Asuke's instincts took hold and made him spring to his feet, reach through the earth to intercept the mass of rock hurtling towards the girl, but he wasn't fast enough.

The girl, however, was.

The girl's arms blurred before her. On one hand a thin wisp of water whipped from within her robe sleeves. It sliced through the section of stone like a hot knife through butter, splitting it apart entirely, sending the stone to smash in the wall on either side of her, leaving her unharmed. With the other hand, at a gesture the ground beneath Sho sprang up, catapulting Sho into the air, high enough to touch the ceiling. His hands hit first. They were covered entirely by ice, frozen together and to the ceiling, trapping him there 20 feet off the ground.

The entire sequence didn't last 4 seconds. When the ice got on Sho's hand was anyone's guess.

No one could find breathe to cry out or scream. No one.

Looking at her handy work, the girl flicked her hair back, sniffed, appearing only mildly inconvenienced by the sudden violence. Her bored gaze looked at the crowd. "Make no mistake. The Blue Revenant exists. And he will be caught and balance will be restored. This, I, Kina of the Northern Water Tribe, promise you. With or without your help makes no difference to me. Literally, I mean. You can't help me even if you try. I recommend not trying. But if you do, be a good band of fools and heed this one warning." She suddenly held up a finger. At least ten people present visibly flinched away. Asuke was one of them, unfortunately. "Do not stand in my way. Or," she looked up smiling at the sputtering Sho, dangling from the ceiling like a chandelier. "my punishment won't be as playful next time. Ta." Then she turned on a heel and walked out, head held with a big smile on her face.

Several minutes passed before Kensei stepped back up to the podium and said, calmly, "Meeting adjourned."

A movement to the exits to the room more akin to a funeral processional began. No one tried to get General Sho down. Earthbenders could climb up and get him down once everyone had cleared out. Asuke could have but his frame of mind was too fractured to do that without risking getting himself or Sho hurt.

It was a lot to try and accept. Earlier, he had been uneasy. Now, he was worried. Not for himself. Oh no.

Asuke was worried for the state of the world.

Asuke couldn't deny it any more than he could deny the sky being blue.

Kina.

Kina was Water Tribe. She was no older than seventeen. Avatar Aang died, was killed, just under eighteen years ago.

Kina bent. She bent water. Then she bent the earth. At the same time. And probably bent the air to make her voice carry even though she didn't speak above a murmur.

Kina was the Avatar. The most powerful person on the planet. Master of all four elements. The bridge between the worlds of the physical and the spiritual.

And was absolutely insane.