The second part of the story of Avatar Kaiya Saito is going rather slowly, due to the fact that this particular part of the story has not been in my head quite as long. So, uh, yeah, I don't know what exactly is going to happen. But, since neither do you, and neither does Kaiya, I think no one will really mind so much. Look out for less frequent updates. Hopefully once I get started, I'll start writing faster!

Thanks to all who read and reviewed Book One. I hope you enjoy Book Two!

One last Reminder: This is not a retelling of Avatar Aang's story. Everything in the show happened, 2000 years ago. Most of the characters are original. Blah blah, I don't own Avatar, blah blah blah.

Chapter One: Crossroads

All was silence in the White Lotus headquarters, an underground fortress that spanned the entire town of Jasmine, of which Iroh's house was the center. Since their arrival two days before, Washi had been sitting guard over Kaiya. She was still sleeping, and the whole organization seemed to be buzzing with their own theories as to why. They were all, thankfully, asleep now, and Washi tried to mentally message Kaiya that now would be a wonderful time to wake up. He fell asleep in his chair, his broadswords leaned up against him, waiting.

There were hundreds of people surrounding her. They were all dressed so strangely. Some wore long flowing robes of orange and yellow. Others wore fur-lined coats like they lived at the North Pole. Still others were dressed in fancy cloaks of red and gold. One woman wore the strangest face paint Kaiya had ever seen outside a circus. Closest to her stood a man with arrows tattooed on his face and arms.

Suddenly all their eyes began to glow, and Kaiya felt the power grow inside her until she wasn't Kaiya anymore. Chaos ensued.

Kaiya awoke screaming.

Washi jumped out of his seat and leapt to Kaiya's bed. "It's okay, Kaiya!" he yelled over her screams. "You're safe!"

Kaiya, tears running down her face, stopped screaming and looked at him. "Safe?" she asked. She vaguely remembered he'd said that to her before. She looked around, confused. "Where are we?" She only half listened as Washi explained about Hahn calling Iroh and the White Lotus taking them inside their compound for protection. She heard that she'd been asleep for two days and that everyone else was safe and not hurt. "Except Zakk," Kaiya said, her voice low.

Washi looked away. "You should, uh, take things slowly, yeah." He grew slightly more confident in his advice. "We'll get you some food, and you can just take it easy for a while."

"I can't take things easy, Washi."

"Sure, you can. The Elites and Anil can't find us here …"

"I'm the Avatar, Washi," Kaiya said slowly, sadly. "I've got to save the world, remember?"

Washi regarded her carefully as she looked away. She didn't look all that happy to have found the Avatar. Come to think of it, no one in their group was actually happy to have found the Avatar. Everyone was still kind of in shock.

*****

Hotaru and Hahn sat out on Iroh's porch. Hahn had followed Hotaru out there after she'd stormed away from a group of White Lotus members making cracks about whose daughter the Avatar turned out to be. Hotaru glared at Hahn, feeling betrayed and angry. "Did you know the whole time, then?" she asked him suddenly.

Hahn started. Hotaru had been giving him the cold shoulder since he'd called the White Lotus. He hadn't really figured out why. "No," Hahn said, shaking his head. "I mean, they didn't tell me who they thought the Avatar was."

"No, but, you knew," Hotaru said, nodding angrily. She jabbed an accusing finger at Hahn. "You know her better than anyone. You of all people would have seen this coming."

"She didn't even know herself, Hotaru! How was I supposed to know?" Hahn asked defensively. He looked away, and a flash of memory interrupted his anger at being accused. A toddler Kaiya sitting next to him in his father's car. Crashing. Glowing. "Shit," Hahn muttered. "I should have put it together sooner." He looked at Hotaru, who now seemed genuinely interested in Hahn's change of tone. "She went into the Avatar State and saved us from a car crash when I was five. That's what it was. I never figured it out before."

Hotaru continued to glare at him, not knowing whether to believe this epiphany or not. Most of the time, Hotaru couldn't see any family resemblance between the cousins. Now, she recognized the look on Hahn's face. It was that excited, "Now we're talking," kind of look that crossed Kaiya's face when she'd just realized something and was coming up with an idiotic plan. "What are you thinking?" Hotaru asked him.

"Kaiya's going to love this," Hahn said, smiling.

*****

Kaiya sat in the dirt in front of the grave-marker, disbelieving what she was seeing. "Foco," she read off the stone. "That's it? That's all he gets?"

"Kaiya, they, uh, didn't, well, they didn't think it was entirely smart to go broadcasting that Zakk Foco died fighting a crazy airbender."

Kaiya glared at Washi.

"But obviously people should know what a hero he was. Brave. And, uh, good," Washi stammered. He didn't like Kaiya looking at him like that. It made him fear for his life and future happiness.

Kaiya turned her attention back to the grave. She pulled a water whip out of thin air and turned it into an icicle. She used it to carve the circling dragon symbol Zakk had come up with the year before to represent them. It didn't look as smooth as when he'd drawn it, but it was recognizable. At least people would know there was something special about Foco.

"Kaiya!" Iroh called from the path ten feet behind them. He'd figured out where Kaiya would want to go after waking up. When Kaiya didn't even turn to acknowledge him, Iroh started walking towards them anyway. He offered Kaiya a small box. She looked at it, looked at Iroh, then turned away and continued to stare at Zakk's grave. "Well, I just thought you should have it." He set it on the ground beside her. "Come on, Washi. She knows the way back." Iroh took Washi by the arm and led him away. Washi kept looking back at Kaiya, wondering if he was going to see her again.

Ten minutes later, when Kaiya was sure Iroh and Washi were long gone, Kaiya picked up the box. It wasn't very big, no more than a favor box. Opening it, she found Zakk's dragon pendant necklace. It now had a scratch near the top of it, and some of the paint was chipped. The clasp still worked, though, and Kaiya put it on, vowing no one would ever die for her again.

*****

"You think she's all right? She's been gone an awful long time," Washi said, pacing the length of Iroh's porch, where Hotaru and Hahn were still sitting. All them were waiting for Kaiya to get back from the cemetery.

"I don't know," Hahn said truthfully. "Kaiya was always a little, uh, crazy, where Zakk was concerned."

"But that was a while ago. They, well, nothing was between them anymore, right?" Washi asked, doubting his assumption himself.

"He died for her," Hotaru said calmly. "She's not going to remember any of the bad after that."

"Right," Hahn said, nodding. Kaiya would never be rid of Zakk Foco now.

Kaiya came back about ten minutes later. She walked slowly past them all and into the house, ignoring their attempts to speak to her.

*****

Kaiya couldn't sleep. She was afraid of her dreams and also worried. She didn't like the White Lotus compound, underground and secret. It disturbed her, seeing all the guards suddenly struck dumb as she walked past them. After the water-whip incident that morning, the members of the White Lotus were pretty much leaving her alone now.

Kaiya longed for an ocean, or at the very least a big lake. And she wanted it soon. Unable to attend to that right now, Kaiya headed for Iroh's kitchen, hoping he had chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

She wasn't at all surprised to see Iroh sitting at his table, drinking a cup of tea.

"Jasmine?" she guessed, taking the seat next to him.

"Chamomile. We're out of Jasmine. That Washi of yours has a taste for it," Iroh answered. "How are you doing, Kaiya?"

She looked at him for a few minutes before asking, "Couldn't you have helped him? Helped him get away from the Elites?"

"We have a strict policy, Kaiya. Give the Elites no reason to suspect we are powerful enough to be a threat to them. If we started taking their agents from them…"

"But he wanted out! Hahn says former Elites are joining every day!"

"Not benders, Kaiya, especially not benders who grew up with the Elites in their heads." Iroh said sadly. He sighed. He didn't know what to tell this hurting young woman. "When he brought you to me, that night you almost died as the Red Spirit, I knew who he was. I tracked him down a few days later and asked him what his plans were. He said his plan was to protect you, and he thought the best way to do that was to go back to the Elites like nothing had happened. I am afraid I couldn't offer him an alternative. Wei would have done anything to get his favorite weapon back."

Kaiya glared. "What made me so much more important than Zakk?"

Iroh shook his head. "Zakk could not be saved. He'd done too much damage to the world, killed good people as well as bad. He never fully got over being the weapon. He perhaps just didn't have time to."

"And whose fault is that?" Kaiya put her face in her hands,, wanting to disappear completely.

"Anil's," Iroh said harshly. "And don't you dare think otherwise." Kaiya looked up into Iroh's stubborn eyes. "We all have choices we have to make, Kaiya, and these choices determine our destiny."

"A lot of people, Iroh, would say none of us has any control over our destiny. Given recent events, I have to agree with them," Kaiya said coldly.

"You will have choices to make, too, Kaiya. Everyone comes to a crossroads sooner or later. After all, Zan Saito could have just as easily become an Elite like his brother. But he didn't. He chose his path," Iroh said earnestly.

"You really are just a crazy old man," Kaiya said, getting up. "I'll go ahead and blame the tea."

*****

Kaiya clutched her bag in one hand as she snuck out Iroh's back door about an hour before sunrise the next morning. She was choosing her destiny. She walked a little faster, liking the feel of freedom. She would be invisible, and as far as she was concerned the world could pick up its own mess.

"Kaiya?" Washi asked, jogging up behind her. Apparently Kaiya needed to work on her sneaky walk.

"Go back inside, Washi," Kaiya ordered as she kept walking.

"You coming with me?" Washi asked, falling into step beside her. "Where are you going?"

Kaiya stopped, looked at him, shook her head, and continued walking. He followed.

"Don't even have a plan, do you?"

"When has that ever done me any good?" Kaiya asked. "The plan was to try to find the Avatar, not be the Avatar!"

"Kaiya! Stop! Where are you even going?"

"Away. Can't you tell?"

"Kaiya…"

"I'm a failure as an Avatar. It took me almost nineteen years to figure it out. I can't lead anyone! I can't save the world! The best I can hope for is to not get anyone else killed. Go home, Washi. Please. Just go home and forget you ever met me! Please, Washi."

Washi stared at her. "Kaiya, this is crazy." He shook his head. "You can't just leave."

"Washi, I've made up my mind," she said, turning.

Then Washi did something kind of crazy. He grabbed her shoulder and made her face him. "No. Now, you stay and you listen to me. After all, I listened to you talk crazy. Not it's my turn.

"You are the Avatar. That means there are three others parts of you that you haven't even discovered yet. How are you to become a whole person without earth, fire, and air? And, how are you going to find teachers on your own?

"Then, there's Anil. He's still out there. Still wants to destroy your parents through you. You don't stand a chance against him on your own. You need us.

"We're behind you, Kaiya. Me, Hahn, Hotaru, we're all here, and we aren't going anywhere. We're your friends, Kaiya, and friends are there for each other. And if you think I'm going to let you go and get yourself captured and tortured again, you've definitely gone moon-brained."

Washi wanted to go on, to tell her how he, personally, felt about her, but it didn't seem the right time. Especially when she was wearing Zakk's necklace.

Kaiya fought back tears as she asked desperately, "Can you promise me you won't die because of me?"

Washi thought a moment, looking into Kaiya's eyes. A million scenarios flew into his head. Bullets headed for Kaiya, Anil rushing at Kaiya, a massive Zombie horde charging Kaiya for her brain. In all the situations he came up with, he saw himself throwing himself between Kaiya and the danger. Yes, even the Zombies. "No, I can't promise that, Kaiya. But I'm still not letting you leave."

Kaiya broke down and threw herself into Washi's arms. Iroh would have said she'd chosen her path. She still thought there wasn't much choice in it. Wasn't that why it was called destiny?