I continued to walk along the dirt road, not fearing any and all that came. I was in a wilderness, where the sun beat down on me like an angry platopus-bear defending its prey or its cub. The plain was dry, and sickly and dry plants littered the ugly and dehydrated ground all around me, as well as some boulders and rocks that were partially submerged into the ground itself. My footsteps were heavy and fatigued, for I was tired in some regard. Not exhausted or ready to fall unconscious, but my feet did hurt and I knew fully well that I would need to consume a good large meal and refill my water satchell- which I harvested from the ghost town, as well as a big wallet full of silver and gold Earth Kingdom coins. I had enough money to last me twenty or more days on the road. As I kept walking, the sun continued to rise into high afternoon, the peak of its height on the canopy of the sky. Lizards and mouse-snakes slithered and crawled in their dens below me, and I envied the animals, they had shade. "It's too damn hot out here." I complained as I adjusted my hat to keep me as shady as possible.

Though the sun didn't agitate my skin, the air itsef was hot, dry, searing at my stamina the more I marinated in its embrace. Then I came across the wooden sign that told of a village nearby. I sighed in relief. "Finally, damn!" I cried out. "At last, a good place to rest!"

I dragged my feet fatiguedly as I made way to my destination, the town. Upon sight, it was similar to Kyoshi, but the buildings were all made of wood more than any straw or bamboo-ish material. The town itself was like a big circle, with four big streets of dirt that made up the small districts, and tiny alleys and small streets between the buildings. I saw shops, a couple bars and restaraunts, and an inn that was two stories tall. I walked my way to the closest vendor and put two gold pieces and four silver pieces on the counter. My face was covered in the shade from my hat, but it seemed as if I gave off a weary and yet dangerous and desperate aura to the woman who ran the stand. "I need two water jugs with corks and strings to attach to my oobi." I said to her.

She was an older woman, maybe in her twenties of age. She had a rag of cloth over her fair hair and she wore the clothes of a simple commoner or a lucky peasant. But she was nice and cooperative as she put two rather big and round jugs of water that looked like spouts, with corks on the opening of the bottle and strings in looplike knots around the cusp of it. The string looked to be either silk or a cord of some kind, but it didn't really matter. She shuddered a little bit, like a chill went up her spine throughout our encounter. "H-here you go sir!" she squeaked.

I took the jugs and hoistered them to my oobi. "Thanks, miss." I thanked as I walked off.

I walked my way through the street that led to the bar, calmly keeping my pace in order to stall anyone from commencing in any violence with me as a newcomer. My legs ached and my muscles in my thighs and calves were exhausted, but yet I kept my chin raised and I walked steadily in order to not look weak. 'I don't know what to do when I find my first pickup. Kiss it or crush it for all of this menial bodily effort? ' I thought to myself as I walked into the bar. The bar itself was nothing major. Ten people in total, aside from the bartender and four employed women, were in a big room with a bar counter that served all of the drinks and three medium sized squeare tables and six booths across the cedar wood walls. Bounty hunters, all of them. Some looked Earth Kingdom, two of them looked to be ex bandits, and one even looked like a myrmidon apprentice with a temper problem. I walked in and sat at the closest booth on my right side.

I took off my hat and rubbed and attempted to partially massage my pauldroned shoulders with each opposite arm's hand. I grunted in both relief and pain as I did so, closing my eyes tightly. 'Whoever let me go off without at least getting some sort of royal massage was a real jackass.' I complained to myself. "Anything you want, hon?" a hiree woman asked me.

"Just a smoked hog-hen, with a glass of wine." I told her, being as polite as possible without drawing attention to myself.

She nodded and walked away as I reclined in my seat. I began to ponder upon many things that I needed to do along this journey, things I must retrieve and people I must find. But I didn't know where or how to find any of them, for I had no trail to follow in order to get started. I closed my eyes for a small incriment of time. 'Think, Jushiro, think... You've gotta focus on this.' I thought to myself. "Hey, have you heard the rumors?" a bounty hunter in the room asked.

I opened my eyes a bit. 'Oh dear spirits, thank you.' I praised as I listened silently. "What rumors?" another asked in response.

"They say that there's something in the mine up near the uncrossable desert in the northeast. Like a vault for the spirits." the first one answered.

"Bah, that's just lies." the second said.

'If there was a lady spirit of luck, I'd kiss her right now. And maybe I'd slap her.' I said to myself as I continued to listen. "People are already gathering to try and claim what's behind those big doors. " he told the second. "They say everyone gets a cut, and the gettin's massive."

'Oh fuck no.' I growled. 'Mine!' I almost jumped out of my seat when my food and drink were brought to me. "Here you go." the hostess said.

"Thanks." I replied as I began to eat.

As I ate, I tasted my own bitter anger with the wine and that was only helped by the fact that the hog-hen was quite filling in my stomach. I scowled as I remembered each intricate detail about the conversation between the bounty hunters. They found something that was a 'vault for the spirits'. I obviously knew what was behind those said doors, and it belonged to me, because I was the one whom in turn was busting his ass to actually finding them. I felt my body fill with the nerve to kill, but I had to bide my time. I knew I'd kill, but it needed to wait. 'It's not what she'd want, Jushiro. It's gotta be done in the right way.' I told myself over and over again.

"Well then, just go get it." my stepsister's voice told me.

"You know I can't yet, I have to get it peacefully." I told her.

"Jushiro, you don't have to kill them all if you don't want to. But you can hurt them all till near death." she argued.

I was silent for a few seconds as I came to a realization. "You're absolutely right." I affirmed as I walked out of the bar, my steps pounding with vigor as I quickly began to run to my destination.

The mine of the northeast.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Flashback:

I held twin katanas in my hands and held a ready counter-stance for my opponents. Three firbenders stood all around me, surrounding me. But I kept my focus on one, that was in front of me. The rose of dusk with her fingers on the cusp of slipping past the horizon added a sense of beauty to my environment in the outdoor training area. I saw that my step father and mother were watching me from a shaded bench, along with my step brother and sister. I smiled a small amount as I heard the ignition of a firebender's attack. My senses sharpened as I jumped with both as little emphasis in my height and yet as much power in my feet and leg muscles. As soon as I was in the air, I turned my body to where I was belly facing down in the air and I spun 720 degrees, utilizing my feet and my blades for attacking. I both slashed and pounded the three trainee firebenders in less than ten seconds before I landed on the chest of one of them and used him as a catalyst to jump off of in order to avoid the fireblast.

I sheathed my katanas and landed gracefully on my feet upon the grass in front of the family. My step sister smiled in satisfaction as she clapped lightly. My mother clapped a bit as well, looking amazed at my performance. Step father didn't clap, but he did look as if he saw promise in me, his lips tinged with a small smile. My step brother crossed his arms and noticed something about his father, looking displeased. He didn't even make eye contact with me. 'Is something wrong with-?' I began to ponder. "That was wonderful, Jushiro." mother congratulated.

I looked to her and smiled as I scratched my head. "Aw, it was nothing. I'm more than capable of a few firebender trainees surrounding me." I brushed aside.

My step brother looked like he was ready to attack me, and I think my step father noticed it. He looked to me and raised a brow. "'A few firebender trainees'? They were some of the sparring partners that Prince Zuko trained with until very recently. He took months to win a spar with them." he informed me in curiousity.

I chuckled under my breath. "Wait, seriously. I can't even firebend, and yet I just... really?" I asked.

My step brother looked a bit more puffed up and aggrivated. Step sister simply shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. "Well, he did get past their level. Maybe he can see if he should try to challenge you." she chimed in.

Mother didn't look approving at the situation, but curiousity peaked her with concern over her son. "Well, did you have your-?" she asked me.

"Mother, I already promised that I would only use them here if I were either fighting against exotic predators, prisoners or if someone demanded a greater challenge. Of course I didn't use them against those three buffoons." I answered. "I wouldn't disgrace the Yojimbo by violating that."

She nodded a little bit. "Then I suppose that you should allow Zuko to challenge you. But you have to keep it fair."

I smiled. "No swords." I affirmed as I cracked my knuckles. "Got it."

And Prince Zuko was younger back then as well. He had more hair, but it was in a royal uptie like his father's was. He had no scar on his face, and he looked like more of a happy and childish boy whenever he was with his mother. But when he stood up, he yelled out in anger. "Fine, let's see if you're worth the challenge!"

I smiled challengingly as I leapt and backflipped onto an open space to fight with him. "Take a shot, princeling." I taunted.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"So, that's how he got all bruised up like that?" the brown haired girl with dancer's shoes asked me.

I strummed my guitar a little bit as I sat with her on a bench in the moonlight. "Yeah." I told her. "The funny thing was, the only member of the family who looked out for him was mother. She insisted I wouldn't use my swords, while he had the advantage of firebending."

She scooted a bit closer and her hand brushed up to mine, making me stop my strumming. I noticed this and looked in her direction, upon her face. She smiled at me in that so very beautiful, cute way. "It's very nice that you only used your fists." she said. "You need to be careful with your family."

I smiled amusedly at her remark. "I have very little family in this world, mi'lady." I retorted. "You, mother and my step sister are my only family. Zuko doesn't like me and I feel I need to earn my step father's affections."

She closed her eyes and sighed a bit. "You're doing it again." she scolded a bit.

I smiled warmly and giggled a bit. "Doing what?" I asked.

"You're trying to be too respectful, trying not to do anything 'stupid' again." she continued. "You're a prince too, remember?"

"I'm adopted." I argued.

"Big deal, I have a bunch of sisters who look like me."

"At least you have siblings that are of your blood."

"I'm kinda wishing I simply lived with you and Zuko, that I was your sister instead."

I smiled and closed my eyes. "I thank all the spirits that I don't have you for a sister." I told her. "I like it better being how I am now."

We looked at one another, our eyes locked in the pale light of the moon. She was dressed in a pink and dark velvet red jacket and a slightly longer skirt, because it was colder out that night. She looked at me in the most beautiful way in the world. She was always cute, even more so when she was smiling and giggling, or just being her usual self. But she was serious, and I could almost feel the romantic inclination between us. I began to lean inwards to her, to the jewel of my life.

XXXXXXXXXX

"I don't recall giving you permission to come here, boys." I chided as I took out my uchigatana.

Twenty five men surrounded me, who stood in their way at the mouth of the mine. The sun was about to set upon the horizon, and my moonstone blade glistened in the pink light. I simply stood in my confidence, and all of the surrounding men were just about ready to try and crush me. I chuckled as I saw this in the men, the boiling anger and murderous intent. I almost felt like I was consuming it for myself. One of the men sloppily drew out his weapon, a spear of wood and bronze metal. "Listen, kid, you may live and walk away now, or else we'll kill you just for fun!" he threatened.

I swashed my blade, whipping some dust away into the wind. I chuckled with the excitement of a good challenge. "You'll kill me for fun, you say?" I asked, mockingly. "Then I might as well enjoy this just as much as you kids would."

A bigger, burlier one with twin bronze axes in his gnashed hands spat at the ground. "Ah see! So you're gonna have to be asshole here!" he insulted.

I sneered. "Shows what you know. You're the assholes here."

Out of anger at my challenge, they all ran at me in a large battlecry and a flood of men ready to kill. I took stance and prepared for them with my sharpened senses. They appeared to move only half as fast to me, and I felt much faster. 'Alright, let me see here.' I thought as I dashed forth at my enemies, silently and speedily. 'Strike swiftly.' I told myself as I ran through like liquid shadow and sliced with my blade of the moon. 'Strike strong.' I told myself as I cleaved through the flesh and bones of the bigger and stronger men. 'No mercy.' I told myself as I finished my barrage of attacks with a simple standing where I was, facing the mouth of the mine. My blade was clean, and the men simply stood where they were, out of energy and almost soulless. "All of you are fools and mongrels alike. You do not know what you even seek, and you will never learn the absolute failure of your lives." I lectured them. "Like the wolf, looking upon the moon from the lakebed reflection, you will never reach me or what I seek."

The men began to stagger and weaken more and more as time flowed on. "You can try to pounce upon me, but you will do nothing but fall to deeper depths and wallow in your failure. I will allow no one on this earth to stop me from my goal." I declared as I slowly sheathed my moonstone blade, and as the guard clinked against the scabbard's opening, dusk fell from the earth and the men fell dead all around me, their blood and entrails leaking out of them like an open mouth lake of death.

I sighed and walked onward into the mine, my destination within. 'Aro's craft is rather well made, I'll have to admit.' I thought to myself as I caressed the hilt of my sword. 'Maybe I should come up with a name for this baby.' I pondered as I came upon the doors of my destination.

They were not shining gates to another realm, or the walls of a welcoming country palace. But rather, they were giant old doors made of a bonelike white stone. They aged both well and poorly, in the sense that they still showed much age with algae, dirt and hanging moss. But they were still very strong and sturdy looking, and I saw the scars and strikes for when people looked like they were tryig to mine their way into the "vault". Seeing this made me a little happy, because I felt the jealousy of other people who didn't have what was inside of those doors. I chuckled as I took a single finger and brushed it upon the door, looking at the dust and dirt of age down here. "It's really something, these babies are so strong." I said aloud.

No one was around to hear me, so I simply pushed the doors open with all of the force in my arms. That was something no men here could do with ten years of mining at them or firebenders blasting them, or even earthbenders crushing at them. What was behind those big doors though, the so called 'treasure of the spirits', that right there is what truly made my evening. It was still intact, still beautiful, and still one of my prides and joys in the world, aside from her.

It was no more than a piece of celestial crystal, divine ruby that was raw and unpolished. The inside glowed with a fire that was not from this world, and the jewel itself reflected all of my desires, for it was what I needed to pick up along the way during my great journey. I smiled as I walked to the stone bowl pedestal that it lay in. 'Alright, you little beauty, you're the first I found, I suppose.' I said in my mind as I reached in my pocket and took out a black neck cord and held it up to the bowl, like an offering to a ritual. "Here standeth the elephant of war, to dash thy little ones against the stones." I chanted.

The ruby glowed with some sort of emotionless excitement, like coming home in its regard, and it flew speedily into the neck cord, connecting to it. I put the cord upon my neck, and wore the Berserker's Ruby like the newfound prize of a contest of strength. 'Now I'm a bit closer to you, aren't I? My shining star...' I pondered to my heart as I walked out of the mine and the doors quaked the ground as they closed on their own. The stars shone from the canopy of night, the lights and formations showing my way to another destination. Marked by the lone blue star, far off in the distance of the interseason sky, my destination lay bare. I groaned out, complaining and whining, "No fair! That's all the way across the earth kingdom, let alone the desert!"

I flailed my arms, like a displeased child and groaned before I calmed down and closed my eyes. I took a deep breath in and exhaled, calming down my nerves. "Ugh, whatever." I swashed aside as I squatted down with one leg striding in front of the other. "I think this one is the one I need for this. Or is it both this and another?" I kept talking. "Well, only one way to find out."

A gigantic dust devil began to gather around my feet and enrage more and more as time went on. Red light glowed in a corona around my legs, and the winds began to sweep up small rocks and dry plants. Then, I leapt. My body was like a great Lion-Falcon, flying with such strength and grace through the skies, defying the winds that tried to buffet me and batter me down.

I flew past the dust, launched past the bounds of wind, rocketed past the clouds. I had jumped with all of my strength both forward and upward, and for a moment, I only gained momentum forward. But the view was grand, for I could see almost everything. The majority of the continent, the city lights from Ba Sing Se, even where I needed to go next. The desert was like a pale blemish on the Earth Continent, the firelights from the Fire Nation glimmered like a moth chasing a distant moon, and I could even see the aurora lights of the atmosphere covering the poles of the planet. I smiled and just took in the pure gleaming joy of my placement. That was, until I felt gravity begin to pull me back down a tug. That tug began to grab at me and pull stronger. Then I lost all form of straightness and focus in my "floatie" locale and fell down and forward from the sky. As I fell, I braced my arms for any and all nature-borne attack that the gods would be sending as punishment. Then I arm braces began to heat up and as I gained speed in my fall, a corona of slicing wind began to gather and sharpen around me, and intense white heat began to gather and smolder. This process didn't drag out, and soon after, I was a meteor falling to the earth. Fire and pure energy were an unbreakable shield and fiery blaze of death and destruction around me as I fell faster and faster. I blazed through the clouds. I blared past the wind of earth. I seared through the sky and through the fire and the intense flames I saw it.

There was a gigantic mobilization camp of Fire Nation soldiers. Hundreds, no, a few thousand or maybe a bit less. Seeing this, I had no true anger or regard. I braced for impact and flinched in anticipation with my eyes shut tight. 'This is gonna suck so ba-' I thought as the explosion caught my thoughts in the throat.

Upon first impact, I bounced off of my arms and landed on my feet, buried one foot in the soil of the ground. There was a crater, black and seared from the heat the size of a very small villiage. Men screamed and fire mixed with the sound of chaotic thunder obliterated everything around me. My hands and arms smoked from the heat and my arm braces were charred thickly and they felt half rent and battered from the discharge. My sandals and feet were covered in dirt, which I kicked off of me, but they were still able for use. I took my hat and adjuested it, for it had fallen off of my head and although its strab was upon my neck, it fell to my back's cusp of the head. I messed with my ruby and walked onward, as I looked around at the destruction and carnage of the Flare of Death that my inferno had unleashed upon these men and everything around me. I took my guitar out as I walked on, and strummed a little bit, to my favorite song in order to lighten the mood. "Maybe I'll just walk." I said aloud to myself.

"Prooooooobably best, Jushiro." her voice agreed with me.

I smiled and chuckled. "Sorry, plum blossom." I apologized. "I kinda got lazy."

I noticed all around me that there used to be a forest here, from the looks of all of the rent and blazed dead trees and ashes all around me. "I know this forest." I said to myself. "It's sacred to the villiage close to here. It belongs to the..." I tapired off into silence as I slowly put my guitar away and took out my shorter sword with the cream fabric handle.

I felt the breaths upon my back, and my skin began to tingle a bit in a combination of fear and hysteria. I prepared to take my blade out as I willed to the power of the Ruby on my neck, and my body began to heat up and gain temperature. That relieved me a bit, to see that the jewel powered me up. As I sharpened my senses, I slowly turned around and grimaced in an impolite way at what I saw, the creature. "You're big, creature." I commented.

No preliminary movements, the clash began.

Author's Note: I am SO terribly sorry for the longer wait for this chapter. I had a lot of stuff to do and I promise this won't be usual. But anyway, I think this was an OK chapter, because I do plan on having at least a chunk of my chapters with Aang's group or Azula's group in there. Oh, and if you guys have any questions or comments, private message or leave it in the reviews. I can and will answer and read any questions and I will heed any opinions from the reviews. Thx.