She knew who she was, but that was about all she could remember. She didn't know what had happened or where she was. She didn't know if she was safe or what time of day it was. It was all a blur and everything was black.
Like a wave coming in and out of the shore, she drifted between consciousness and unconsciousness. Her head was pulsing with pain- she felt the blood flow through it like a current. Every few seconds she would experience another zap of pain at the bottom of her skull and she'd see flashes of her memories rise to the surface.
"Sakura, where are you going? What is all this?" Her father stood behind her, his arms crossed and waited for an answer.
She stood frozen at the door, trying to hide her packed bags from her father's sight lines. It was time that she had faced him. She was not going to cower in fear of dishonour or resentment. Either she stood up for herself now or she was never going to leave this island.
"I'm leaving, papa," she said firmly, dropping her bags by her feet.
Her father's eyes grew wide in shock, "You are not going anywhere. You're staying with me. Where you belong." She watched him come towards her, trying to grab at her arm and she backed away.
"This isn't where I belong," she said, trying to stay calm. This wasn't what her father was really like, but he had changed over the years and she had grown up. "If this is where I belonged, I would feel free to be who I am. You have never let me do that."
She allowed him to take her hand, "I'm only trying to protect you, Sakura. This is why I didn't want you to discover you were a fire bender, because I knew you would leave me and I was right. Now, come back inside and we'll have a talk." He had sounded so convincing, and for a moment there she almost forgot about that fact that he wasn't stable.
"Being a fire bender is who I am, you can't protect me from that. I'm not abandoning you. I'm leaving for myself," she urged, squeezing his hand. Suddenly he pulled his hand away from her as if it was on fire and his entire mood changed.
"You want to leave? Well, leave! We're better off without a fire bender to burn everything to ashes," he shouted at her, waving his hands in the air like maniac. She looked at her father with guilt. She didn't want to leave him like this, but if she didn't she would be stuck here for the rest of her life wondering what could have been.
"I'm sorry, papa," she told him tenderly, "I love you and I promise that I'll come back to visit."
"Get out of here!" he yelled at her, advancing towards her. "Go on, leave me like your mother! I don't need you here!" He slammed the door in her face as she felt a few hot tears stream down her face.
Her father wasn't a bad man- he was just misled. She knew he didn't really mean it and that he only wanted the best for her. But their ideas of what was best for her were just drastically different. She just wasn't happy here knowing that she was so shielded from the outside world. She wasn't happy here knowing that she would never be able to train to grow as a fire bender because it went against her father's wishes.
She was doing the right thing. She picked up her bags from the ground and headed towards the dock. It was a new day for Sakura as she set off to Republic City. The city of the new world.
The memory began to vanish, as she was brought back to consciousness with the sound of two men talking.
"Will she be alright?" one voice said, sounding gritty and rough as an old man's.
"Well, she banged up her head pretty hard. I'll give her a few days until she comes back fully. I'll come back to check on her but until then make sure that she takes it easy if she wakes up sooner than expected," the second voice answered, sounding mousy compared to the other voice.
She tried to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt heavier by the second. And when she tried to speak out, her voice was too hoarse that nothing came out. She felt a weight be lifted by her bedside, and heard footsteps leading towards the door.
"Akio, just before I go," she heard some ruffling of bags, "she'll most likely be in shock when she wakes up. Giver her a few drops of this and it'll calm her nerves right down."
"Thanks, doc," said the first voice as the girl felt her lids soon become too heavy to keep from closing. She heard the two men exit the room and she was left alone with her own thoughts.
So, she had hit her head, huh? It explained the abominably large amount of pain she was getting up there. She had hit her head lots of times, but never hard enough to knock her out completely. Whatever had happened to her must have been some intense stuff for her to get injured like that.
She wondered who those two men were, for she hadn't recognized their voices, which gave her growing concern. At least she knew one of them was a doctor, so she knew she was somewhat safe. The other man sounded old, but not the kind of old where your bones and muscles are fragile. He sounded like a man of authority-that was the best way to describe it.
She tried to figure out what kind of place she was in. It made a major difference if she was lying in some kind of warehouse as opposed to an actual house. Her head was slightly elevated so she assumed the she was lying on a pillow, which meant that she was on a bed. The material of the pillow was silk-like, which most likely meant that it was more expensive. She wasn't sure if it was day or night, but it was warm in the room. Not too hot and not too cold. There was proper ventilation and heating. She could deduct that she was in someone's household, mostly likely of someone of higher status than she, considering the pillow material and the room temperature.
Just as she was beginning to dig further into where she was and why she was there, her head turned blacked and she lost herself to her mind once more.
She was minutes away from the place she had been dreaming of: Republic City. The boat was approaching the dock as Sakura marvelled at the sight. It was nightfall, and the city lights illuminated everything around it. She watched as they passed by the gleaming statue of Avatar Aang, standing proudly over the nation he had united. She soon became engulfed in the smells and sound of the city, which wasn't very pleasant, she had to say, but enjoyed it because they represented her freedom.
She sat on the cold railing, her legs hanging over the edge, and staring at awe at everything she had been experiencing for he first time. Finally they had attached themselves to the dock and opened up the gates. She inhaled deeply before taking her first step into another land outside of her home.
She was eager to see, smell, do, and taste everything. It was like entering a new world- everything was just so different from island life. She must have spent hours that night just walking around taking it all in. The fashion, the lingo, the hair, the technology- she just felt so stupid being so ignorant to all of this before.
She had been saving up to leave for a long time. It wasn't much, but she hoped it was enough to get her on her feet. If there was one thing she knew for sure, it was that it was all worth it. It was worth it now and it was going to be worth in the end. Just you wait.
She was walking down the street passing yet the fifth teashop she had seen today when she heard something out of the ordinary. It wasn't a cry, but it was a loud muffle coming from the alleyway near by.
Sakura watched as two men dressed in weird bug suits struggled to carry a large brown bag and try to load it into their truck. She could tell there was something off- she couldn't help but get a closer look. The men wore these odd green goggles over their eyes as if they were little flies or something, and these large gloves with a green lens thing on their hands. There were some odd fashion trends in Republic City nowadays- she could say that.
At this point she was certain there was a person in the bag, so she got out her Kyoshi fans and armed herself with her preferred weapon of choice: her daggers. She would use her fire bending but she had just started to learn how to control it. She had been a Kyoshi warrior for longer, it was better that she attacked with what she was comfortable with.
"Huh? Who's that? Who's there?" one of the men asked to, what it appeared to be the wind. He felt something move around him, in swift movements and then- the man took a swing. Sakura whipped her fans in two fluid movements and used the power of his arm and unleashed it back against him. The man lost his balance, but armed himself with that bulky glove she had noticed before. Suddenly electric bolts struck out of it, like lighting that he could control with the palm of his hand.
He aimed for her, but she picked up a sprint and jumped off the wall to dodge it and position herself behind him. She took the skills she from Ty Lee that had been passed down to her, and hit him at his weak points to make him crumble into a pile on the ground. At this point she had caught the attention of the man who had already gotten into the driver's seat of the van, and had checked to see what the problem was. She suspected they weren't very smart, seeing that they left the body in the bag unwatched but at least they had their glove weapon thing to this a challenge.
From her peripheral vision, she could spot him aiming for her. She waited in place for the right moment and just as the bolt was about to strike her- she leaped out of the way. Whilst still in the air she whipped her fans at top speed at the man, pinning him to the wall by his clothes.
She looked at the two of them triumphant, and proceeded to free the person inside of the bag. Grabbing a dagger, she ripped it open to find an older man closer to the middle aged range, who was gagged and whose hands and feet were chained. She watched him wriggle, his eyes widening in shock she presumed as she broke open the lock on his chains, setting him free. But he wasn't in shock, he was trying to get her attention and warn her. Once she realized it, it was too late.
Sakura cried out in pain as she felt a bold of electricity strike her in the head. She crumpled to the floor and everything fell black.
The memory started to fade away but the girl began to piece everything together.
That was why she was here. Either she had saved that man in the alley way and he had taken her in. Or she hadn't saved him and those kidnapping bugs were holding her captive. She decided that the former was a lot more likely to be true and settled on that. And that man in the bag must have been the man visiting her with the doctor. It all made sense now.
At least that answered one of her questions. She still had a lot more to go. Like where exactly was she? When was it? Who exactly was that man? Also why did those bug people want to kidnap him? She hadn't had time to observe the man or those bug people. But she could sense something was off, and she wasn't sure what it was.
Sakura felt her mind become fuzzy again, but this time she drifted into a deep sleep. Dreaming about her epic defeat the other night and of her new life in Republic City. She only hoped that her experience here goes up hill from this point onward.
Hi there! This is my first LOK fanfic, but I love Iroh II and I love Kyoshi warriors so that's where I got a lot of my inspiration for this fic from. This is all I have written for this fic so far, so let me know if you want me to continue it. Please feel free to follow, fav, or review this fic. Thank you for reading!
GeekAttack xoxo