Sometime in the year 170 AG...
It was pure coincidence that Yuzo Noguchi was able to save the man. One of those rare occurrences when the circumstances led him to be in the right place at the just right time.
He rose early. An elaborate breakfast- a bowl of congee, four sticks of youtiao, a small plate of crunchy green beans, and a serving of spicy stir fried pork belly; appropriate for a man of Fire Nation heritage. A long careful shower and shave, appropriate for a surgeon in his early thirties. A drying off with a fluffy white towel and a combing of his thick black hair. A buttoning of his shirt, a step into his slacks, a smoothing of his suit jacket, a tying of his shoes, and another day of routine was underway. All before six fifty-three in the morning, Wednesday.
He was locking the door to his Inner Ring hotel room when he realized that he'd forgotten his timepiece on the bedside table, an expensive but humble looking Seita wristwatch his wife had given him as an anniversary gift two years ago. He quickly walked back inside.
This was the first of the coincidences that would lead to him saving a man's life later that day. The the hotel concierge, who would have knocked on his door a minute after he left was able to catch him, and deliver the telegram of good news that would have him packing a travel bag in a flurry, asking the concierge to arrange tickets for the earliest train out of Ba Sing Se- and an onboard pass for an adjoining ferry towards Republic City.
The concierge asked if he would be checking out.
"Yes I'll be checking out. Move all my current reservations to a month forward from now if you can, thanks," he said.
"Understood Mr. Noguchi. Is there anything else I can assist you with?"
He thought for a moment, "I'd like to send a telegram please."
The concierge took out a pen and a note pad. "Who's the recipient?"
"Miss Kushala Reddi, Dean of the Northern Outer Ring Hospital."
"And the message?"
"Tell her I'll be utilizing my month of parental leave starting from today," he said.
All he heard were noises at first, stirring him from his sleep. Random muffled sounds on the far edge of his consciousness. He wanted to ignore them, go back to sleep. But something was telling him to listen. Something instinctual. Visceral. So he listened.
For a while the sounds remained indiscernible. But as his mind awakened, he began to realize. He began registering the familiar changes in pitch, the inflections, the accents. Sounds became words, words turned into sentences. A voice. No, two voices. A conversation.
Where on earth was he?
He felt his eyelids open a fraction. For a moment all he could see was a blur of yellow light. He blinked a few times.
"He's waking up." The voice came from his right. A man's voice. The words came out matter-of-factly.
"It's about time," said another voice from somewhere behind him. A woman. There was relief in her voice, but there was a calm confidence behind it.
He tried turning his head towards the voices but found it too painful to do so. The best he could do was glance around with his eyes. He was in a small room lying down on a thin mattress, on a frame that was too high up to be a bed. An examination table.
There was a clacking of boots to his left before a woman in a long white coat stepped into view. A doctor. He noted the deep brown skin and the bright blue eyes. She pulled out a penlight from her pocket and pointed it towards his face.
"Focus on a spot on the wall behind me," she said before passing the light over each of his eyes in a systematic fashion. She nodded. "Good, now use your feet to push against my hands as hard as you can," she continued. He felt her cold hands touch his bare feet, did what he was asked and pushed his toes towards her. After a moment, she nodded again.
"How is he?" said the male voice, whose figure walked into the right side of his vision. No white coat. Just an expensive looking suit. But the way he spoke suggested that he too was some kind of medical professional.
"Well, his pupil response is normal and he's not exhibiting any one sided weakness, so I'd say the neurological damage isn't as bad as we were expecting."
Those words snapped him wide awake. Damage? What were they talking about?
The guy in the suit must have noticed his distress, because he immediately began explaining things to him.
"Relax. I'm Doctor Noguchi. A surgeon. Right now you're onboard the MV Jingfei, hailing from Ba Sing Se."
He nodded.
"This is Doctor Klara, the ship doctor." Noguchi gestured towards the woman in the white coat. "You've been in an accident of some kind. From the extent of your injuries, it looks like it might have been a fairly serious one."
"Can you remember anything? It's important that you tell us what happened if you can. There might be more casualties we need to look out for," Klara said.
For a second he felt a tugging in corner of his mind. He was close to something. He could sense it. But nothing connected, and the thought was gone before he could grasp it contents. He frowned. Something was missing.
"I found you drifting out in the middle of the ocean holding onto some kind of debris. Did your airship crash? Maybe your boat capsized?" Noguchi said.
The ocean. A boat. The tugging was there again, only this time it was ten times as worse.
"Where are we exactly?" He could see that the two doctors had been watching the gears turning in his head.
"On a ferry," said Doctor Klara, "It's seven-forty at night and we're about thirty minutes from our destination, Republic City."
Republic City. He looked up and found the two doctors watching him expectantly.
"Well? Can you remember anything? Is there anyone else we need to look out for?" Klara asked.
He remembered everything. The boat. The explosion. His struggle towards the surface. The burning in his lungs.
"No."
He thought about his brother, immediately dismissing the possibility of him also being alive. He'd been sitting right on top of the fuel tank. There was no way he could have made it.
He'd known it was coming. Accepted his fate the moment he heard the fuel cap being unscrewed. So why wasn't he dead too?
"What about your name? Can you at least remember your name?" asked Noguchi.
"No," he said again, though he could give him two names if he wanted to.
He made a move to get up, only to find Klara's hand pushing back down on his shoulder.
"I don't think it's a good idea for you to be getting up," she said, worry in her eyes.
"I'm fine." He swatted her hand away with his.
Or he would have, had it not been for the fact that his entire left hand was missing.
He went silent, staring at the unfamiliar stump just below his elbow. Covered in bandages. Clean bandages, he noted. Strange.
"We only just managed to staunch the bleeding. If you move around too much the wound might open up again." Klara warned.
He used his remaining right hand to push himself up and onto his feet. Heavy bleeding was something he could easily fix himself.
Again he looked at the stump. It was strange. If it weren't for the numb, prickly sensation that had taken over the rest of his arm, he could have sworn he could still feel his hand there.
"Why does it feel numb?" he asked colloquially.
"I had to clamp what was left of your radial and ulnar arteries," explained Noguchi, "It was a little difficult, your arteries kept slipping back into your arm you see, so I had Doctor Klara use her bending to administer a general anaesthetic to keep your body from reacting to the pain. It'll wear off in a couple of hours, but the hospital will have you on some strong painkillers by then, so it's nothing to worry about."
The numbness in other areas of his body as well. He looked down to check if anything else was missing. Found a flimsy gown covering him up. Shrugged it off.
While nothing else was missing, there were several ragged red blotches all over his body. Most of them began on his left side, stretching across and tapering to his right.
"You've received burns to about forty percent of your body," explained Doctor Klara, "The most severely affected areas are your upper torso and…"
He noticed the prickly numbness on his lips, cheeks, eyelids, and immediately understood. He rushed over to the sink in the corner of the room, bending over the basin to look into the mirror.
A craggy red mess of burnt flesh slashed diagonally through his face, from the right side of his crown to the left side of his neck. His eye brows and most of his hair had been scorched into non existence, and the majority of his upper lip had been seared right off, down to the gum line.
No hand. No face.
This was a joke right? It had to be. Some insane and elaborate prank conducted by his kid brother. Perhaps it was a dream. Just a nightmare he had to wake up from. But it wasn't either. His hand was really gone. His face was really burnt. What the hell was he supposed to do now?
Why the fuck was he still alive?
The face of a certain teenager from the Southern Water Tribe crept into his mind. He suppressed the beginnings of a laugh.
Of course.
He looked back into mirror. Studied his repulsive new face for a moment. Then he laughed. Hysterically. He couldn't hold it in. The irony of it all was just so funny.
"Is something the matter?" he heard the male doctor say. He sounded concerned.
He shook his head as his laughter began to die down.
"Everything's just perfect."
Authors Note: If you don't know who the antagonist is by the end of this prologue then i have failed as a writer.
Aaaaand this is the part where I promise to release chapters as quickly as I can to motivate myself. Never really works but I'm gonna keep trying. Especially for Korrasami. Korrasamiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.
Oh and shoutouts to my "cool" friend moneycap- who beta'd this chap for me.
Bye for now.
