Paragon of Korra

by Deus Swiftblade

When the new Avatar stepped off the boat in Republic City and as she deals with life as the Avatar, she soon discovers that not everything is what it seems. Especially when the other side of the world, a place the Bending Countries had been in vague contact with for the past 70 years, shows itself again.

26. Breaking and stealing

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, the Last Airbender, or the Legend of Korra.

Paragon of Korra

Chapter 26: Breaking and stealing

"Talking"

"Thinking"

"Bijū/spirit talking"

"Bijū/spirit thinking"

(Location: South Pole)

The morning after the spirit had attacked, people were already on the festival grounds, cleaning up the mess (the official report of what happened was that it was a combination of a rough wind, slightly rusted metal, and a snowball that had gotten big rapidly). While all that was happening, Unalaq was in the stables a few miles away from the grounds, ensuring that all the items that would be needed were packed. He heard the sound of a polar bear dog slowing and looked to see his niece coming in. "You're early," he remarked as she slow Naga down and hopped off.

"What can I say? I'm pumped up to learn that Unalaq spirit fighting," she told him.

He gave a little chuckle as he placed a hand on her shoulder. To her, he looked like exactly the teacher she needed. "I'm not here to teach you to fight spirits; I'm here to help you begin your spiritual training. We're going to one of the most remote places in the world, the long neglected spiritual center of your tribe, the South Pole."

"You're going to train me at the South Pole?" She knew of the place. While people not from the Tribes had always considered their lands the North and South Pole, the Tribes themselves knew that the poles were actually at the exact center of the lands. But while she had heard of the place, she had never been there.

"We will do more than just train. By neglecting the spirits, the people of the South have brought darkness upon themselves, and now it threatens to destroy our tribe. We must set things right. The Southern Water Tribe depends on you."

When she heard those words, she got even more excited about it all. "A dangerous trip to the South Pole? Count me in!"

(Location: Southern Air Temple)

"There it is, the Southern Air Temple," Tenzin declared as Oogi flew into sight of the temple. "Isn't it magnificent?" The place has changed in the past seventy years. The Air Acolytes who lived there did a fantastic job clearing away all the mess and debris (and bodies) that had accumulated since the Fire Nation attack. Now it looked like it was supposed to: clean, pristine, and full of life.

He had his bison land in the nearest courtyard, being careful not to land on any of the acolytes that were out there. When they saw the shadow fall over them, they looked up and saw the sky bison. They were surprised to see the creature and kept staring even after it landed.

But even as they stared, the abbot of the temple came out to the courtyard quickly, being followed by two attendants who were carrying a large box between them. "Master Tenzin, welcome!" he said to the man as he and his wife disembarked the bison. Their youngest son was strapped to Pema's back and was watching everything with a curiosity only a toddler could have.

"Good to see you again, Abbot Shung," Tenzin said in reply. He and Pema both bowed their heads to him. He had been the abbot for the Southern Air Temple longer then Tenzin had his tattoos.

"Is there anything you need? Water? Dandelion greens? Ahh, perhaps you'd like to recenter yourself by meditating in the gardens?"

"No thank you, I'm fine."

He turned his eyes to Pema. "And you must be the honorable Pema! Please, accept these gifts." He turned around and reached into the chest, pulling out what looked like a wire basket in the making with little knives hanging from the bottom. "This is an ancient Airbender head shaver we've refurbished just for you," he said, offering it to Tenzin.

The man had never seen such a thing and would rather trust modern technology then that when it came to shaving. But it wasn't like he could just refuse it. "Oh. Okay?"

"And Pema! These flowers once filled the mountainside!" he told her as he handed a massive bouquet of flowers. "Now, they can brighten up your room."

When she held the bouquet in her arms, she couldn't see past them. "That's…sweet? Y-you didn't have to."

"Nonsense! Whatever you need is yours. Anything for the mother of the next generation of Airbenders," he declared as he looked over to where the children had gotten to.

Both Jinora and Ikki were standing in front of one of the acolytes. She was offering a book to Jinora as a gift when Ikki snatched away. "No! That gift is mine!" she stated, turning away from her sister to protect the book.

"You don't even like to read!" Jinora told her sister. She just stuck her tongue out at her.

Pema had managed to move the bouquet around enough to see what was going on. She felt a little embarrassed that her children would do that in front of everyone. "Yep, those are the world's next generation of Airbenders," she said with a faltering smile.

"Mommy, Daddy, look! I finally got a lemur!" Meelo shouted as he appeared from behind the three acolytes, landing on the abbot's head with said lemur in his hands. "I'm gonna name him…Poki!" The lemur broke free of his grasp and quickly flew away from him. "Poki! Come back!" he cried as he leapt off the abbot's head and formed an air scooter to chase after the lemur.

Meanwhile, Kya and Bumi were in the process of getting all the baggage down from the saddle. It would've gone a lot easier if they had some Airbending to ease the motion. But they didn't so they were stuck with tossing it down to one another. Bumi got the majority of the weight and was beginning to feel it as the last bag struck him in the face and he shifted it to his shoulder. "S'cuse me, a little help here?" he asked a nearby acolyte as Kya slid down off Oogi with her own baggage.

She stopped her sweeping to turn and look at them. "Sorry, I thought you were the servants," she said with a bored expression.

That annoyed both of them and it showed on their faces. "We're Tenzin's brother and sister!"

"Avatar Aang had other children?" she asked with shock, which then turned to excitement and made her drop her broom. "The world is filled with more Airbenders?"

"We're not Airbenders," Kya told her in a calm but clearly annoyed voice.

The excitement went out of her as soon as it had come. "Oh…I'm so sorry." She bowed deeply to them both. They were exasperated and a little annoyed with the reaction. They were Aang's children and yet, Tenzin got the treatment because he was the Airbender of three of them? It was beginning to feel like a raw itch that wasn't going to go away.

But Bumi made one last attempt to get rid of said itch. "I am also the Paragon of the Air Nomads," he told her.

She looked at him with a little caution in her eyes. "Are you sure about that?"

"Of course I'm sure!" He reached down into his shirt and yanked the Medallion out for her to see. "There, happy?"

She looked at more closely, almost as if she was trying to find something wrong with it. When she couldn't, she backed up a little and bowed her head again. "Hello, sir. Welcome to the Southern Air Temple."

"Thank you." It was a little better, but still kind of annoying. Kya just looked plain old annoyed.

(Location: Konoha)

Tsukiko tried to hold it in as she and Arashi walked through the street of the village. But the temptation was too great. She let out a big yawn that stretched her mouth out to her limits. "Would you stop that?" Arashi asked her when she was done. "You keep that up and I'm going to start doing it too."

"Maybe you should," she said back. "It might let you loosen up a bit."

"I told you to go to bed early. You're the one who choose not to listen."

"And you're not the littlest bit tired?"

"I'm used to this."

"Freak," she muttered. It was bad enough when he woke up this early and did training, now she had to get up this early too and not stayed in bed. Her parents had been no help either. The previous night, they just smiled at her and told her to do well. How could she do well at this kind of time and without food too?

If Arashi heard her word, he didn't say anything back. Instead, he kept walking through the streets. It was a little weird to see the village in the predawn light. The only thing that was out there with them was the streetlamps and they were being turned off behind them, one at a time. All the stores they passed were closed and the lights inside were out. The sky above was them was beginning to lighten, but it was a slow process to their minds and it left them still thinking that they were walking at night.

He looked down at the piece of paper in his hand. It had directions to the training ground from the Uchiha complex. It had been the only thing that Tsukiko's parents had given them for help. Anything else and they were on their own. They also warned them that the alarm on the fridge would be activated overnight to prevent them from getting food in the morning. He wasn't quite sure if they were joking or not (a fridge with an alarm? Come on) but he wasn't going to risk it. Tsukiko hadn't been of the same mind and he had to all but drag her out of the kitchen and out the front door.

That was half the reason she was in a grumpy mood. Ironically enough, a sleepy and grumpy Tsukiko was a cute Tsukiko. It kinda reminded him of Pabu whenever the fire ferret was dozing and got woken up too soon. He tried to be angry, but it just made people want to go "Awww!" at him (of course, he was never telling that to Tsukiko).

"How much farther?" she asked him, breaking his concentration for a moment.

"I think we're about ten minutes away," he told her, looking at the paper once more. They had to go left at the next intersection and that should take them right out to the training ground.

"Hooray, more walking." Even though she was grumpy, her sarcasm was out in full voice.

"Look on the bright side."

"What's the bright side? Please, tell what is the bright side?"

"When we get there, we do the test. We prove ourselves to be shinobi. And then you can go back to your bed and proclaim your undying love and devotion to it."

"Ha ha, you're hysterical." But it wasn't a bad idea.

They kept walking through the street, turning left at the intersection and heading straight. The silence around them felt a little unnatural to Arashi. In Republic City, even at night, there was something going on. It was the city that never sleeps (when he told that to Jiji, he laughed and agreed but also said that, "It could use a nap.").

When they finally reached the training ground, they found that Hiro was already there. "You guys are cutting it close," he remarked as they walked up to him.

"Maybe you're just early," Tsukiko said back to him.

"No, you're cutting it close."

"Why are there holes in the ground?" Arashi asked, looking at the holes in question. There were three of them right beside them. He couldn't tell how deep they were but he had a feeling that he would not like the answer if he asked. There was also the disturbing fact that there were three holes and three of them.

"I don't know," Hiro admitted.

"Maybe some gopher got really excited with his digging," Tsukiko suggested. She fell down to her knees in an easy slump.

"I don't think that any animal is that anal about their digging," Arashi told her, still looking at the holes. They were easily the same shape, length, and width while also being equally spaced from each other. When he looked at the entire training ground, they were the only things that seem out of place. The training ground itself was a forest with clearings spread throughout. The entrance had led them to the clearing with the holes and there they would stay. The sun still hadn't risen yet and the forest took on a somber and serious feeling.

"Hey, Arashi," Hiro said.

"Yeah?" he said back.

"Where's your headband?" He had been wearing it yesterday when they left Ichiraku's. But now it wasn't on his forehead or any visible part of his body. He was wearing his usual shirt, pants, and jacket but no headband. It puzzled the Hyūga and he wanted an answer.

"The thing itched, so I took it off."

He heard the answer and yet, it didn't really make sense. "You're supposed to wear it."

"Why?" the dyed redhead asked him.

"Because you're supposed to," he replied. "How else are people going to know that you are a shinobi of Konohagakure?" If he didn't wear it, he could get into trouble while in different countries. "Do you have it on you, at least?"

"Of course I do. But a thought came to me last night. It would probably be best sometimes to have to proclaim your loyalty right away but keep it handy when you do. Plus, it's the metal band and the symbol of the leaf that matters, right?"

"Yeah," he said, not sure where he was going with this. "Arashi, what exactly did you do?"

"I took the metal part off and put it somewhere else." He pulled his jacket's flap back to reveal the inside. The metal band with the symbol of Konoha dangled close to the inside. It was dangling the long way, making the symbol be sideways. How it was dangling like that, Hiro didn't know.

But he made a guess. "Did you…sew the band into the jacket?"

"No. Do I look like I know how to wield a needle and thread?" He made it sound like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Alright, then how did you get in like that?"

"For now, it's a piece of good string. I'll figure something more permanent later."

Hiro looked at the band again and where it was dangling from inside the jacket. "You're holding it in there with string?"

Arashi looked a little offended by his question. "I said I'll figure something more permanent later. And it's good string."

He looked over at Tsukiko. "Did you know about this?" She didn't move from her slumped position, leaning against Arashi's leg. "Tsukiko?" He got a loud snore for a reply.

Arashi looked down at her too. But with the semi-darkness and the angle, he couldn't get a good look at her. "Is she…?" he began to ask, looking back up.

"Yep," Hiro answered. They got another snore from her, even louder than the last one.

"On my leg?" he asked, looking back down at her. "Get off, Tsukiko. Come on, get off!" He tried wiggling his leg to free it, but that just made her hold on tighter. "Oh this is just great. Of all the times to realize that she's got an iron grip."

"Actually, if you don't mind, I'm going to take a little nap too." He was already sitting down on the ground, trying to make himself comfortable. "I stayed up a little later then I should have going over tactics in battle. I'm still a little sleepy. If you need to wake me, do so."

"Wait, hang on!" But it was too late, he was already asleep. And so the dyed redhead was left awake in the field while his teammates slept away. "This is not a good start," he thought to himself.

(Location: South Pole)

They had moved the staging area for the trip was outside the harbor city. While Unalaq and his children tended to the camel yaks, Korra and Mako tended to Naga. "I thought you said Bolin was coming?" Korra asked Mako as she checked the straps.

"He said he'd be here, but I can't worry about it. I have to make sure you have everything you need for a safe trip," he replied after lugging up a sack onto the saddle.

"Thanks, Captain Expedition, but I'll be fine." Her tone was sarcastic but she had a smile on her lips still.

Everyone heard the sound of a snowmobile getting louder and louder, making them all turn their heads to the sound. They saw Korra's father driving in from the city, coming to a stop beside them. "Tonraq, what do you want?" Unalaq asked his brother, walking over to him as he turned off the machine and got off it.

"I heard you're taking Korra to the South Pole," Tonraq answered, crossing his arms across his chest. "I'm coming."

"Absolutely not," he replied instantly, sounding very angry. "You're a distraction to Korra and a hindrance to what needs to be done."

"My daughter is not going without me! She needs someone to watch after her."

Korra rode up to them atop of Naga with Mako riding behind her. "Dad, why do you always think you know what's best for me?" she demanded. She wasn't a kid anymore; she could make her own choices. Hadn't living in Republic City and going through all she had proven that?

But it wasn't her father who answered, but her uncle. "Because he's misguided," Unalaq told her, throwing a quick look at Tonraq before looking at her again. "The sad truth is, it's men like your father who have put the Spirit World out of balance. He's ignored my warnings in the past and hasn't learned since."

That was something that she didn't know. As far as she had known, her uncle had never contacted her father outside of formal letters. This was the first time they had met in the longest time. "What happened in the past?

"It doesn't matter," Tonraq told her. "What matters is the Everstorm."

"The Everstorm?" repeated Mako. It didn't sound like a good thing.

"It's a massive blizzard that's battered the South Pole for decades," he explained briefly before turning his attention to Unalaq, getting closer into his space. "I'm coming, unless you think you can stop me." His stance became challenging. It almost seemed like he wanted Unalaq to try and stop him.

No one was sure if a fight was going to happen or not. They all just waited with held breaths to see who would make a move first. But before either of the brothers made a move, they all heard the sound of another snowmobile and Bolin shouting, "Guys! Hey, wait for me!" He rode in on a snowmobile of his own that had a sidecar attached to it and a new snowsuit. "Check it out, I'm traveling in style!" He boasted, leaning on the arm bar. Doing so made him turn the throttle, jerking the snowmobile forward. He managed to stop it before it went anywhere but it was still embarrassing. "Okay, uh, sorry, still getting used to that throttle."

"Uh, where'd you get the ride?" Mako asked him. He was pretty sure his brother didn't even know where to rent one, let alone actually get it.

"Varrick; he's awesome!" he declared. "He also gave me this fancy snowsuit! It's inflatable, with an internal heater, emergency beacon, and food ration pouches! I mean, if I get lost, I can survive in this thing for like, like a month!" He reached into the coat and pulled out some food. "Who wants some freeze-dried cucumberquats?" No one replied. They all just stared at him. "Nobody?" he asked, still not getting a reply. "Did I interrupt a conversation?" He probably did. Pabu popped out of his coat and snagged one of the cucumberquats before disappearing back into the coat.

"No, the conversation is over," Korra told him before turning her gaze on her father. "Dad, come if you want, just don't interfere with my training." She urged Naga on before he could reply.

"Oh good, we made it," Yue said as she walked into the area with Tahno and Asami following her. They all had on heavy fur coats and were carrying packs that were full. Both Tahno's and Asami's breath was a bit labored as they hadn't really carried this much weight before.

"What's the meaning of this?" Unalaq demanded, turning to face her.

"We'll be joining you for a bit of training."

"This is not training, Yue. This is a serious mission."

"Which concerns the Avatar and the spirits, I know. All the more reason for a Paragon to be here, hm?" she asked rhetorically. Unalaq opened his mouth again but she cut him off. "You can try and argue, Unalaq, but you really don't have a choice in the matter. The Paragons are here to watch the Avatar. That means where she goes, one of us is there."

He closed his mouth. "Fine," he said in acknowledgement. "But we did not bring any rides for you."

"That's okay; we're not going to be riding. We'll be walking."

"Uh…why?" asked Bolin.

She turned to him and smiled. "For us, this is going to be an endurance run. I'm going to see how well, these two can do in wild country. Of course I would normally be doing something a little bit different and more dangerous, but this works."

Asami blanched a little at her words. "You mean we'd be doing something worse?"

"Of course you would. Tahno's already done it, except he went for two days only."

"We had to get back for the festival, sifu," Tahno told her. "And you were the one who found me. I thought I was doing fine."

She gave him a long flat look. "I found you half buried under a snowbank and thought you were trying to be suicidal again."

"If I may ask a question?" said Asami, getting the attention of them both. "What's the usual way of doing it?"

"Oh, I just throw you out into the tundra with barely any tools or food and see how you do," Yue explained. She made it sound like it was a casual walk in the park.

That just made it all the more chilling to Asami. "And that's okay for you?"

"Of course," she answered. "Sokka did it to me when he first took me as his apprentice. He always made sure that I never died out there, just get close to it. Have you not gone through survival training yet, Asami?"

"Umm…I think that might depend."

"On what?" she asked, looking more closely at her.

"On what you consider survival," Asami answered.

"Has your sifu kicked out onto the streets and told you to survive?"

That was a weird question and yet suddenly, she could see where she was coming from. "No, he hasn't. He's just been randomly attacking me."

"That's it?" Tahno said with disbelief in his voice. "That doesn't sound too hard."

"Say that after you've done a week with him doing that, Tahno," she challenged him. "I guarantee you that you'll be taking some kind of weapon with you everywhere you go."

"Hmm, I would've thought that Naruto would have gotten to your survival training already," Yue said to herself, musing about it. She didn't muse long. "Ah, well, he has his pace in training. I have mine. Okay, any questions? No? Good." She didn't give them a chance to speak (Tahno wasn't fazed by that. He was used to not having an opinion in his training).

"Does this sidecar have the capacity for two passengers?" Eska asked Bolin, having walked up to him in his snowmobile.

"Sure does," he said flirtingly, patting the sidecar in question with his hand." But, uh…who's gonna drive?" He quickly got his answer. He didn't like it.

---

Hours later, the sun had just set over the icy tundra they were traveling through. Bolin was sitting in the driver's seat of the snowmobile and did not look happy. It was probably because of the fact that both Eska and Desna were sitting in the sidecar. Mako, riding his own camel yak, came over to him. "Well, what do you know? Looks like—"

"Go away, Mako," he told his brother. He didn't want to put up with that right now.

At the front of the group, Korra joined up with her uncle. They could see the Everstorm off in the distance, even though they still had far to go. That was how big the thing was. "So once we get to the South Pole, then what happens?" she asked him.

"You will open an ancient spirit portal," he told her.

It took her a second to actually understand those words and she was still confused. "I'm sorry, what now?"

"At the South Pole, there is a portal that connects our world to the Spirit World, but it has long been closed."

"And that's why the evil spirits are attacking?" That made sense to her.

But he thought differently. "There are no evil spirits, there is light and dark in them all. But when they're unbalanced, the darkness takes over. If you can open the portal in time, balance will be restored.

"What do you mean…in time?"

"There's a reason the Glacier Spirits Festival ends on the winter solstice. That's when the Spirit World and the physical world are close together," he explained. "Only then can the Avatar open the portal."

"The winter solstice is tomorrow," she said in realization, quickly doing the math.

"Exactly, and we can't afford to wait another year."

Suddenly, Naga turned her head to the left and began to growl dangerously. "Easy, Naga," Korra told her, trying to calm her down. But it didn't work and her growling caused the others to stop. Korra turned her head to look at what Naga was growling at, seeing only a wall of mist off in the distance.

But then the mist faded just enough so they could see three dark shapes standing off in the distance, watching them in silence. "What are those?" Bolin asked, shrinking into the snowmobile. They looked creepy, very creepy.

"Dark spirits," she told him. The mist thickened again, hiding the spirits from sight once more. They were watching them.

"Let's keep moving," Tonraq told everyone. "We have to find a safe place to set up camp."

"That would be the first good news I've heard today," Asami said at the far back.

"Don't complain, we're fine," Tahno told her. They had on nice fur coats and were carrying supplies in their packs. They had nothing to complain about. That didn't stop her from throwing him a foul look.

(Location: Training Ground Five)

It was three hours past sunrise when Rin finally joined her team. "Good morning all," she announced grandly as she appeared before them. Then she stopped and looked at the scene before her. Two of her new students were asleep and the third was still standing. Actually, the way that Tsukiko was holding onto Arashi's leg was a bit funny to look at.

Arashi saw her and relief poured over his face. "Rin, please—"

"Ah-ah, what am I now?" she asked him, stopping him from speaking. If she was a ruder person, she might've raised a finger and wagged it at him.

He scowled slightly but let it pass. "Rin-sensei, please help. I can't move."

"Have you tried waking them up yourself?"

"Of course I have, but it didn't work."

"That I can," she remarked, looking at Hiro. Unlike Tsukiko, he was lying full on his back and was sleeping peacefully. "Alright, I'll take care of it. You might want to cover your ears though." She took a deep breath and then bellowed, "WAKE UP!"

Tsukiko leapt a good foot in the air at the sound of her voice. "Wah!" she cried out intelligently as she flailed around in the air before landing on her butt. "Ow!" Hiro flailed on the ground but recovered a little quicker than she did. Arashi just moved his leg around, trying to get feeling back into it.

"Morning, did you sleep well?" Rin asked them both with a smile.

"What time is it?" Tsukiko asked, looking up at the sky. It was dark when she fell asleep but now the sun was climbing up through the sky.

"It's time for you to get up. Did I say that you could fall asleep when you were here?"

"You didn't say that we couldn't. And you were supposed to be here before sunrise!" she said accusingly as she stood up again.

"Did I say that I would? I said that you had to be here. I didn't say anything about me. Now, I have a question: why was Arashi the only one who stayed awake?"

Hiro looked at the dyed redhead with surprise. "Arashi, I thought I told you to wake me if you needed to. Why didn't you?" He actually sounded a little disappointed with him.

But the dyed redhead gave him a flat look. "I did try. You wouldn't wake up when I shouted at you and I couldn't reach you to shake you awake because of Iron Claw here." He looked at Tsukiko when he spoke.

"Excuse me? Iron Claw?" she repeated, very offended by his words.

"You kept me locked in that position with your grip. I lost feeling in this leg!" He gestured sharply with both hands at the leg in question. "And why did you use my leg as a pillow in the first place? Couldn't you have used the ground like Hiro did?"

Rin cleared her throat audibly, getting their attention. "If you two are done, we can proceed with the test." The two of them both fell silent but exchanged glares with one another. "Knock it off, I want your complete attention," she told them both. She reached into her pocket and pulled out two bells. "Now, what are these?"

"They're bells," Tsukiko said. She wondered why she was asking such an obvious question.

"Very good," she replied. "How many are there?"

"Two."

"How many are you?" she asked, looking at the three of them.

They all shared a look too. "Uh…there are three of us," Hiro told her. "Why are you asking?"

"Because this is how the test is going to go. In two hours, I'm going to sound off an air horn. That will mean the test is over. You have until then to take a bell off me." She jingled the bells for a second and then tied them to her waist. "You take a bell off, you pass the test. It's that simple."

Again, they all shared a look, a look of confusion. "But, Rin, yo—"

"Ah-ah," she told him, stopping his sentence.

He stopped and then started again. "Rin-sensei, you only have two bells."

"Why yes, I do. Thank you for noticing that, Arashi. That's where the kicker of the test comes in. You see, there are two bells because one of you will be going back to the Academy for more training if you fail to get a bell."

All three of them went stiff as boards at those words. It was something they weren't expecting to hear. They had been selected as a team and now one of them might have to go back to the Academy? Who was it going to be? "It sure as hell isn't going to be me!" Tsukiko silently declared. She had come this far, she wasn't going to lose it now. The only question was who was going to be with her at the end?

"Now, are there more questions?"

"Yes, I have one," Hiro said. "What's with the holes?"

They all looked at the three holes. "Oh, those are where I put the people who failed and then eat lunch in front of them. I'm guessing you guys didn't eat breakfast, right?" As if on cue, three loud growling sounds came from their stomachs. She smiled beneath her mask. "Good. Now, on the count of three, the test starts."

"Any last piece of advice for us?" asked Arashi.

"Now why would I give you that?"

"You're the sensei."

"Hmm, good point," she said light-heartedly. But then her mood darkened. "I've only got one piece of advice for you all: come at me with the intent to kill. Otherwise, you're not going to make it." They all gulped at that. They could tell she was serious. "Three…two…one, go!"

(Location: South Pole)

They had found a half-formed cave to set up a temporary camp. The animals stayed outside along with the snowmobiles, having their fur to protect them from the cold. The humans built a fire and gathered around that for warmth. A soup was quickly cooked to provide additional warmth and to put in their bellies. "Uncle, why do you think the dark spirits are following us?" Korra asked Unalaq.

"Can we not talk about dark spirits, please?" Bolin asked worriedly, clutching his bowl of soup and scuttling over to Eska to grab her arm.

"My brother doesn't like ghost stories," Mako explained to them all. Once, it would've been embarrassing. Now the only thing that was embarrassing was that he kept looking for something to latch onto when the subject was brought up. "Not a word out of you," he warned Tahno, who already had a smirk on his lips. Asami chose to eat her soup, enjoying the warmth it gave her.

"Don't worry," Eska said to Bolin in her usual dry tone. "I will protect you, my feeble turtle duck."

"Thank you," he replied.

"Sadly, this isn't a ghost story. This is real," Unalaq said, making the Earthbender draw up his hood and close it tight. The spirits are angry because he's here." He looked at his brother looking at his niece. "Haven't you ever wondered how your father ended up in the South Pole? Why he's never taken you to visit his homeland in the North?"

"Unalaq, this is not the time," Tonraq told him.

"You're right. You should have told her a long time ago." There was a hint of an accusatory tone in his voice, but it was there.

"Unalaq, back off, now," Yue ordered. Her face was in an unusually serious expression. Both apprentices looked at her when she uttered those words. Her being serious was a rare thing to see (at least, to them).

But Korra already had the scent and would not be denied now. "Told me what!?" she demanded.

Her father sighed in what sounded like defeat. "I left the North Pole because…I was banished."

She didn't say anything at first because she knew what banishment meant for a Tribesman It was one of the most terrible punishments that could be passed down onto them. "You were banished from the North? Why?" she asked him.

"Because I almost destroyed the entire tribe," he answered her. He took a deep breath and began to tell his tale. "Twenty years ago, I was a general in the Northern Water Tribe, sworn to protect my people. One day while out on training detail, Unalaq came to me and told me that that the city was being attacked by barbarians. But while their attack had been sudden, we were close enough to stop them. I drove them out of the city and deep into the frozen tundra." He stood up and walked to the cave mouth, looking out to the cold. All he could see was the howling blizzard obscuring everything.

"We tracked them deep into an ancient forest. Many believed this forest was the home to spirits, and the barbarians retreated there because they thought we wouldn't attack them on such hallow grounds. They thought wrong. We captured the barbarians, but in the process, we destroyed the forest. I didn't realize the consequences of what I had done. By destroying the forest, I unknowingly let loose angry spirits. They threatened to destroy everything, the entire city."

"Didn't you do anything about it?" Tahno asked him.

"I tired, but I failed." He looked at his brother with a look no one had seen from him yet: a look of grudging respect. "Unalaq was able to guide the spirits back to the forest. But by then, the damage had been done." The look disappeared and he stared out the cave again. "For being the cause of so much devastation, my father banished me from the Northern Water Tribe in shame. That's when I came to the South and started a new life."

For a moment, all they heard was the howling of the wind and the crackling of the fire. Then Bolin broke the silence in his typical fashion. "Whoa, so you," he gestured at Tonraq, "were supposed to be chief, then he," he gestured at Unalaq, "became chief. No wonder you guys don't like each other." Mako elbowed him in the gut. "Ow! What? Isn't that what happened?"

"He has no filter, does he?" Yue asked Mako.

"Not really," he replied.

"I can't believe you kept this from me," Korra told her father angrily, standing up and facing him.

"I was protecting you from the shame I brought on the family," he told her.

"Why did you keep hiding things from me and then telling me it's for my own protection? I'm tired of you protecting me!" She turned around and stomped out of the cave.

"Korra!" he called after her. She didn't stop.

(Location Southern Air Temple)

"Wow, the statue room," Jinora said as she followed her father into the room. Her eyes were looking everywhere and taking in everything. She tried to see all of the statues without turning her head. It was a hard thing to do.

"That's right, Jinora, the most sacred place in the entire Southern Air Temple," her father told her. "Here, you will find statues of every Avatar who ever lived." He stopped and looked around for a moment. "Where are your brother and sister?"

He got his answer when Meelo and Ikki came flying past them on air scooters. The wind that they were blowing in their wake filled the room with noise, ruining the pristine silence. "You can't catch me!" Meelo told his sister. "I've the greatest air scooter-er of all time!" He then proceeded to smash right into one of the statues, knocking it down and destroying it.

"Meelo!" shouted Tenzin as he ran over to him, leaving Jinora alone. She started walking amongst the statues, looking at each one as she walked.

She came to a stop at the one in the middle. There was no inscription that told her who he was but she knew all the same. It was her grandfather, Avatar Aang. She knew that the statue was only stone, but she liked to think that the person who carved the statue was able to capture kindness in his eyes. "I wonder it would be like to actually know him myself," she thought quietly. He had died long before she had been born.

"If he had lived, you wouldn't have known Korra," another part of her said in reply.

"I see you've found Dad," Uncle Bumi said from behind. She turned her head around and saw him walk up next to her.

"What was he like in real life?" she asked him.

He didn't say anything for a moment. Then he did. "He was a great dad. He wasn't like this." He gesture at the statue.

She looked at it again and saw nothing wrong with it. It was a statue of Aang with his fists pressed against each other in a meditative positioning. It was one half of a mediation stance she knew well. If the statue had been made sitting, she knew automatically that his legs would be folded inward. But nevertheless, the statue gave a comforting, peaceful feel to her. "What's wrong with it?"

"Dad wasn't just this. He smiled and laughed too. There wasn't really a person he knew that he hated or disliked." He paused for a moment and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, there might've been one person."

"Who was that?" she asked her uncle. He just pointed to the statue right of her grandfather. She looked at it. The statue was of a man but completely different from Aang. While Aang was bald and had a short beard, this man had long hair and a long beard. This man wore robes while Aang wore the Air Nomad cloak over a tunic and pants. She knew who this person was. It was Roku, the Avatar who betrayed the Paragons and caused the Hundred Year War to happen.

But then Bumi continued with, "Or maybe it might because I've never really liked looking at this statue."

"Why?"

"When I came home while on leave from the military, a newly promoted lieutenant, I found that Dad had passed away in his sleep two days previous," he said solemnly. "When the monks here revealed the statue and put here in the room, I didn't attend. I wanted to keep my memories of Aang like he was."

Suddenly, Jinora felt a slight presence behind her, like a silent person watching from a distance. But when she whipped her head around, she saw nothing but statues. "Did you feel that?" she asked her uncle.

"Feel what?" he asked back, looking around with her. His voice had become serious and his eyes looked everywhere for a threat.

But they saw nothing. "Never mind, Uncle," she finally told him. Whatever she had felt, she passed it off as a wind.

(Location: South Pole)

Korra was angry, everyone could see that. It showed in how she rode Naga. Not wanting to get snapped at her (or just ignoring her), most of them stayed away. Most of them did, one didn't. Her father came up to her side on his snowmobile. "Korra, you have every right to be mad at me," he began. "But I don't want you to make the same mistake I made. I should never have gone into that forest, and we shouldn't be going to the South Pole now. Spirits and the physical world should remain separate."

She moved Naga forward to cut him off, making him stop in his tracks. "Dad, it's my job to be the bridge between the spirits and the physical world, and I finally have a chance to live up to my potential."

"You don't even know if what Unalaq says is true," he told her sternly.

"You want proof?" Unalaq asked as he rode up on his camel yak. "Look to the sky. Where I'm from, the spirits are at peace and they light up the dark."

"The Northern Lights," Korra said in recognition.

"Yes. There used to be lights at the South as well, but during the Hundred Year War, the South was thrown out of balance and the lights disappeared. When the War ended, the North helped to rebuild you physically, as a nation, but we have not rebuilt you spiritually. Now the spirits no longer dance in your skies. Instead, they rampage in the Everstorm."

"I think we're here," Mako shouted from the front, having volunteered to be the scout for the time being.

Everyone joined him. Together, they all saw the Everstorm. The best description any one of Team Avatar could have come with for what they saw was that the center was an orb of dark clouds with rings of more dark clouds orbiting around it. There was something ominous about looking at it. Korra felt something begin to gnawing in her stomach. It was telling her to turn around and walk away.

"Oh good, we've arrive," Yue said as she and the apprentices joined the rest of them. "Tahno, Asami, this is where we get serious."

"You mean we weren't before?" Asami asked her.

"Nope," she said with a bright tone of voice.

"We must keep moving," Unalaq said, pulling up his hood. Everyone followed his example and then followed him down the slope. As they went down, the wind began to howl harder, louder, and faster. It pressed against them like a like weight, suggesting (not forcing) that they turn around and leave.

But they did not leave. They kept going. As they went, they heard something in the wind, something that sounded a distant roar. It was audible but faint, letting them hear it for a second before vanishing into silence. "Is that what I think it is?" Bolin asked in a fearful voice.

"We must keep moving," Unalaq told them all. But the roaring was getting louder and longer.

"Oh man, I really don't like this," the Earthbender among them cried, clutching his head.

Mako looked back at his brother. "Bolin, just stay calm, there's no reason to—" A dark spirit suddenly burst out of the snow and leapt at him. "—panic!"

All of a sudden, there were dark spirits everywhere. They were coming out of the snow and leaping at everyone. These spirits weren't like the one at the festival grounds. They were smaller and more agile, leaping up on the animals and tearing off the supplies before anyone could actually do anything. One of the spirits actually leapt right onto Naga's face, making her rear back to shake it off. But that also made Korra fall down into the snow.

Another spirit popped out of the snow. This one had wings and was coming right for her. But before it could attack, her dad was already there, bending up a sheet of ice to block it. When it swung around, he blasted it away with a surge of water.

Korra heard a noise behind her and saw another dark spirit coming at her. "Korra, look out!" Tonraq shouted, bending the snow into ice to push her away from it. It turned its attention to him and after dodging his attack with another surge of water, it sent him flying into the snow with a flick of its tail.

Meanwhile, another dark spirit popped out of the snow right in front of Bolin's snowmobile and then promptly vanished into it. "Oh, it's in the engine!" he cried out. The hood of the machine popped open and the spirit came out, but the engine misfired and then started, taking the snowmobile out of control with him and the twins in it. "Aaaahhhhh!" he screamed in panic. The twins didn't react.

Mako, Korra, Asami, and Tahno were together in a group while the spirits moved around them like hunters going after prey. They went after the Nonbenders, somehow knowing that, and most likely thinking that they couldn't defend themselves. They were mostly right as Tahno and Asami could barely fend them off. Mako and Korra were throwing fire left and right at the spirits, hoping that would fend them off.

"Where's sifu?" Tahno thought, looking around as he played tag with a dark spirit. He saw her close by, avoiding the spirits around her and making it look easy too.

"Korra, look out!" Asami shouted. The Avatar looked up and saw a spirit leaping right towards her. It smashed into the group, scattering them apart.

Korra leapt away and landed in a roll, turning to face the spirit. As it turned towards, she bent the snow around her into water and then bent the water around the spirit, copying what she had seen her uncle do. Her hands wove quickly through the motions and she could see that it was happening. The water glowing as it whipped around the spirit, the spirit was calming down and its skin was turning from dark to white. "I'm doing this," she thought to herself, weaving the motions as quickly as she could. "I can do this!"

But then the spirit broke free of the entrapment, catching her off guard. It leapt at her, knocked her to the ground and then loomed over her. As she stared up at the face and watched the spirit form a mouth with many sharp teeth, she wondered what she had done wrong.

But then the water came again and the spirit was pacified, turning into light quicker than she would've thought could be done. She looked over and saw her uncle bending the spirit as it grew wings and flew away. She was relieved to see him there. When she looked around, she saw no other spirits. He must've gotten to them as well.

"Well, that was entertaining," Yue remarked as she joined the rest of them. "Asami, Tahno, excellent dodging skills. It seems like your training is paying off."

"Thank you, sifu," Tahno replied in a respectful voice. To those who knew him in the Pro-bending ring, it would've sounded weird.

Mako walked over to his girlfriend and offered her a hand. She took it and he helped her stand back up. "Is everyone okay?" he asked aloud.

"Aaaahhhhh!" he heard his brother screaming as he kept sitting in the snowmobile while it drove up a slope towards the bottom of a cliff. "I can't stop it!"

That was when Desna and Eska, who had done nothing up to this point, stood up in their seats. "I'll save you," Eska told Bolin in deadpan as she and her twin grabbed hold of him and then leapt off the snowmobile. It crashed into the cliff and they weren't on it, already going down the slope.

Bolin hit the slope on his back. The suit he was wearing instantly inflated at the contact, ballooning him up into something bigger. "I'm a raft!" he cried out the obvious while Pabu rode on the inflated stomach. The twins landed on their feet and instantly coated them in ice. Together, they skied down the slope, making it easy while still maintaining their deadpan expression.

Bolin skidded right past them, getting stopped by his brother's foot. "Uhhh, can someone please deflate me?" he asked. Eska promptly bent three ice spikes through the suit, letting out the air (thankfully, she missed Pabu). "Thank you."

"Ladies and gentlemen, the Wonder Twins in action," Tahno said, making a grand gesture towards the two in question.

Yue laughed at that. "Good one, Tahno. We're calling them that from now on."

"You got it, sifu." The twins didn't show any kind of emotion on their faces but their father looked a little annoyed at it. Asami had a small smile on her lips but kept it at that. She did find it funny, but was smart enough not to laugh out loud.

"Oh, great," Mako said as he turned around to look at their supplies, or rather the supplies that had been destroyed by the spirits. "There goes our equipment. Now what are we supposed to do?"

"There's only one thing to do," Tonraq declared. "We have to turn back."

"No!" Unalaq replied instantly. "The solstice is tonight. And we're so close."

"This mission is too dangerous. We're leaving."

At that point, Korra stepped in and put the proverbial foot down. "No, Dad, you're leaving."

(Location: Training Ground Five)

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Rin sang out as she strolled through the woods in the training ground. She was strolling casually and looked like she was completely open to attack. The bells jingled on her side almost merrily.

About fifty feet behind her, high up in a tree, Tsukiko lay with her back pressed against the trunk. "There's no way I am falling for that trick," she thought to herself. She had tried attacking Rin head on almost after the test had started. But she got her butt handed to her on a silver platter and a smile too (she just knew that masked kunoichi had been smiling underneath her mask. She had to be). She had been barely able to get out of there with her life (much less her dignity) intact.

"What the hell am I going to do now?" she asked herself. A straight forward attack didn't get her anywhere and what few jutsus she could've casted had been so easily avoided by her sensei, it would have (and was) laughable. She had to come up with a new strategy to get one of those bells. "Come on, girl, think, think!"

An idea came to her. What if she rigged a trap? That might work. She could fake another assault and then lead her into the trap, but that might actually take some doing. She may actually need some help for that. She swung her head left and right, trying to see Arashi or Hiro.

She had no luck with that. "Where could they have gotten to?" she asked herself. They had scattered when the test began and she hadn't seen them since. She was beginning to think that hadn't been the best of ideas.

Her stomach growled loudly, making her look down at her. "Not now." She was really beginning to feel the hunger pains and it was distracting. Maybe she should've eaten breakfast after all. It would certainly keep her focused on trying to get one of those bells. But on the other hand, she might've been throwing up all over the place.

"Has anyone told you that your stomach is way too loud?" Rin's voice asked her, coming from directly underneath the branch.

She froze and then looked down. Sure enough, there she stood looking up at her. "Uh…hi?" she said, thinking of nothing else to say.

"Come on, Tsukiko," Rin told her.

"Um, no, no I'm good up here."

"What? Afraid of getting another beat down?" she asked with a mocking voice. "I would've thought the daughter of the Hokage; much less the granddaughter of Sasuke and Sakura would have put up a better fight."

She saw red and stood up. "Oh, she did not just say that!" But her balance slipped and she fell off the branch, stopping her fall by grabbing the branch with her arms. It was enough to snap her out of the red-tinted view she had. She dangled in the air, trying to get back up onto the branch. But then she felt a hand on her leg. "Uh-oh," she thought to herself.

"This wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I said come down, but I'll take it," Rin remarked before pulling on the leg. Even though she was pulling, Tsukiko wasn't moving. In fact, she was holding onto that branch with all she had. "Hmm, maybe Iron Claw was an apt name for you."

Then she pulled harder and Tsukiko was brought to the ground with a loud thump! Her back exploded with pain but as far as she could tell, nothing had been broken. "Ow, ow, ow, ow," she thought to herself as she stood back up. Then she realized that she was standing with her back against the tree trunk and Rin was looming over her.

"Now then, shall we continue with the lesson?" she asked.

"I'd rather not," Tsukiko replied, her hands going to her sides. Her left one dropped out of sight and started looking for the pack she put on her belt. She had to get out of there.

"Now what were we on? Was it Ninjutsu or Taijutsu?"

"Um, I just said that I'd rather not do this," she said again. She found the pack and opened the flap. Her fingers started digging through, trying to find what it was she was looking for.

"I know. I heard you," Rin told her.

"Then why aren't you saying anything about it?"

"Why, because you really don't get a choice in the matter," she said. Again, she was smiling underneath her mask.

Tsukiko's response was to grab the smoke bomb in her pack and throw in to the ground, engulfing both of them in smoke. The second her vision was obscured, she dashed to the side and got the hell out of there. She didn't stop running for a good ten minutes, well out of sight of the smoke she created.

She stood there, hands on her knees and panting to get her breath back. "Okay, I think I got away. Now what?" she asked herself.

From behind her, Rin's voice called out. "Nice trick with the smoke, Tsukiko. But remember, you can run but you can't hide. I will find you."

Those words put her second wind in her. She took off, running deeper into the forest. "Where are the guys?" she thought as she ran.

---

Hiro could not believe that this had happened to him. He should've seen this coming. For the love of Kami, he had the Byakugan and he still ended up being buried up to his neck! How? How could this have happened?

"You know what happened? She ambushed you!" he reminded himself. He had been rigging a trap and got it done when she appeared. He thought that he was leading right into the trap but when she stepped through it and it vanished, he realized that he had been put in a Genjutsu.

The next thing he knew, he was hanging up down from a tree with a rope around his leg. He had a kunai in his pouch and he was able to cut through the rope and land safely on his feet. But when he turned around, Rin-sensei was there waiting for him. He tried fighting her but that got him in this hole.

"This is so humiliating," he inwardly moaned. If his grandmother saw him like this, she would never let him forget and he was never going to be allowed to live it down. "Stop that, Hiro. It's not going to help you. You need to figure a way out of this mess."

As he tried moving around in the hole, Arashi landed in front of him. The dyed redhead looked him over. "Hey, Hiro, how's it going?" he asked casually.

"Very funny, Arashi," Hiro replied annoyed. "Do you mind helping me out here? I can't move."

"Yeah, I noticed. How did you get in that spot anyway?"

"I tried fighting her and she somehow pulled me down." That was the only way he could explain it without embarrassing himself. "Now would you help me out of this already?"

"Actually, I'm a little tempted to just leave you there."

"Why? What did I do?" His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Is this because you'll have a better chance at getting one of the bells?"

"No."

"Then what?" he asked, still suspicious.

"For leaving me awake for three hours while Iron Claw drained feeling out of my leg." He looked down at the Hyūga with slightly accusing eyes.

He wanted to say something in protest, only to realize that he didn't really have anything to protest. Arashi was right; he did leave him like that. "Sorry?" he said, making it sound like a question.

His teammate stared at him for a moment longer. Hiro wondered what was going through his head. Was he going to leave him here? "Alright," he finally said, walking around him.

"What are you doing?" Hiro asked him, trying to turn his head to watch him walk.

"Trying to get out you out, now just hold on." He started tapping his foot on the ground with every step he took. He was trying to find something; Hiro just didn't know what that thing was.

But what he did know was what he was doing was going to do anything. "That's completely pointless, Arashi," he told the dyed redhead. "The earth is tight around me. I can't even move to scratch my nose for an itch."

"Do you have an itch?"

"No, I was just using it for an example."

"Alright, now just hold on." He kept moving around and around, tapping against the ground with his foot. Then he stopped on Hiro's left. He focused on the ground, moving his foot around as he tapped and tapped. "Here we are."

"What are you doing?" Hiro asked him.

"Just wait." He lifted his foot up and stomped down.

The earth around the Hyūga suddenly didn't feel so tight anymore. There was enough wiggle room for him to start moving around. His moving around got himself more and more room to move until finally, he was able to lift his arms out of the hole. Arashi didn't hesitate, grabbing hold of an arm and pulling him out of the hole. It took a few pulls but he was able to do it. "Thanks," Hiro told him as they laid there on the ground, him on his stomach and Arashi on his butt.

"No problem," he replied.

They sat there for a few seconds in silence. Then Hiro broke it. "Has she come after you yet?" he asked Arashi.

He shook his head. "No, she hasn't. Don't know why," he replied.

"Well, I get the feeling that she's enjoying all of this." As he spoke, he saw that a frown came onto his teammate's face. "What's the matter?"

"I don't know. I just get the feeling that this test is rigged somehow."

"Rigged?" he repeated. "What do you mean by that?"

"I just said I don't know. But come on, you haven't thought that this was a little unfair to us?"

To that, he just shrugged his shoulders. "It's survival of the fittest. You taught me that when you dragged through Konoha."

He gave the Hyūga a look. "That was me trying to help you out. This is something different."

"I don't see it." Despite the fact that they were in a forest and there was only one person they were up against, he thought it was quiet similar to what happened to him. If he closed his eyes and concentrated, he could replace the trees with buildings and the ground with streets and alleys. But without people, it made for a cold and sad image.

"The three of us are supposed to go up against a Jōnin for only two bells? Something doesn't right about it."

"They just want to see how we do." His stomach groaned and he felt hungry again. "Kami, I wished I had something to eat before now."

Arashi heard the groan and dug around in his pockets, eventually pulling out a baggie. "Here," he said, tossing it at Hiro.

He caught it. "What is this stuff?" It looked like some kind of red chips, if the chips could break at the slightest movement.

"They're sizzle-crisps. I made some last night to eat."

He looked at the dyed redhead. "But Rin-sensei said that we couldn't have breakfast."

"True. But she didn't say anything about snacks. I figured that was a loophole. Try them, they're quite good."

Hiro wasn't so sure about that. He had never seen this kind of snack before. And most of the food he was used to didn't come in red. He briefly considered refusing but then his stomach groaned and the silent debate became moot. He opened the baggie, took out a crisp and looked at it for a second. It looked like it would fall off if he gave a slight shake.

"Go on," Arashi told him, waiting patiently before him.

He popped the thing in his mouth with no hesitation (if he hesitated, he might not have eaten it), chewed it and then swallowed it. To his surprise, it left a nice taste in his mouth, along with a warming quality to it. "This is good," he declared as he ate more.

Arashi smiled. "That's good to hear. For a second there, I was afraid that I hadn't gotten them right for mild."

He almost spat them out at that point. "You mean these could be spicy?"

"Relax. Your tongue's not on fire, so you're fine." He looked out at the forest. "Agni, I can't help feeling that this is rigged somehow. How are three Genin, fresh out of the Academy, supposed to take on an experienced Jōnin alone? It's like…" He trailed off as he stared into the forest.

"It's like what?" Hiro asked, waiting for him to finish the sentence. But he didn't say anything in reply. He just kept staring out at the forest. "Arashi?" the Hyūga prompted him.

"…Of course, how could we not it?" he asked aloud. "It was right in front of us."

"Arashi, what are you talking about?"

He suddenly whipped around and grabbed hold of the baggie. "Sorry, Tsukiko's going to need this."

"Wait, what?" Hiro said. "Why would Tsukiko need that?"

"Because I'm willing to bet that she's going to be hungry and she's going to need to be at full strength." He pocketed the baggie of snacks and pulled out his cell phone (he had been stunned when he was first presented with it. A phone that could be easily moved around? It was completely astonishing!). It took him a moment, as he was still getting used to it, but finally figured out how to send the text message for his second teammate.

(Location: South Pole)

As Tonraq finished putting the rest of his remaining supplies on the snowmobile, Mako approached him. "Don't worry sir, I'll keep an eye on Korra for you," he promised.

"Thank you, Mako," he replied with gratitude. He knew that the young man before him would keep his word.

Korra was still irritated with her father and watched silently from Naga as the two shook hands and then watching her father leave. As he left, her uncle came up behind her on his camel yak. "Let's open this portal and lead your father and the entire Southern Water Tribe in the right direction. We don't have much time," he told her.

"Then what are we waiting for?" she asked back, urging Naga forward. The group moved forward. Eska and Desna sat on a camel yak that was pulling Bolin in what remained of his snowmobile behind them (something he didn't look too happy about). The Paragon and the two apprentices were in the back, marching determinedly on.

Mako had lent his camel yak to the twins and was now riding with Korra. "So, what exactly were you and my dad talking about?" she asked him, showing her irritation.

"Nothing, he was just worried about you, that's all," he replied honestly.

It wasn't an answer that comforted her. "Y'know, sometimes I wonder whose side you're on."

"There aren't any sides. We all just want to help however we can. You have to trust that we're here for you." She knew that was the truth, even though she didn't like it right now. She didn't have a reply for him, so she just kept her focus forward.

"We've arrived," Unalaq announced, coming to a stop. Everyone else did the same and then dismounted. They walked from that point on. From a distance, what they were looking at had looked like a glacier of ice far inland.

But as they came closer and closer, they saw that wasn't the case. In fact, it was quite different. "Trees frozen in the ice," Korra said as she stared at the frozen forest. It was a horrifying, yet eerily beautiful thing to see.

"It's just like the sacred forest Tonraq destroyed in the North," her uncle remarked as he walked up beside her.

"So, what do I do?" she asked him.

"You must find your way to the heart of the forest where the dormant spirit portal lies. From here, you're on your own." He looked back at Yue and the apprentices. "Not even a Paragon can follow."

"You don't hear us complaining," Tahno told him. He was winded and tired. If he could build a fire, he would.

"Tahno, are you the Paragon here?" Yue asked him. She didn't look winded or tired at all.

"No."

"Then how about you let me do the talking, hm?" She turned to Unalaq. "As for you, how many times is it going to take you to get that where the Avatar goes, a Paragon is there."

"She's right," Mako said in agreement. "There's no way she's going alone.

"Yeah!" added Bolin, coming between his friend and her uncle. "If she goes, we go, too!" Pabu poked his head out of the snowsuit to show his support.

"The Avatar must go alone," Unalaq said again, facing all of them. To Yue, he added, "What happens next has no business with the Paragons."

"I think he might be right, Yue," Korra told her aunt figure. But then a slightly worried look came upon her face. "But I don't have any connection with the spirits," she told Unalaq. "In fact, it seems like they hate me."

He placed a hand on her shoulder, a reassuring one. "You have to believe in yourself, like I believe in you." She shrugged the hand off and looked down at the ground. "What is it?"

"I guess I'm just so used to people telling me how to do things that I forgot what it was like to have someone trust in me," she admitted, looking back at him and giving him a small smile.

"What am I? Chopped meat?" asked a slightly offended Yue.

The two of them ignored her, one intentional and the other unintentional. "Korra, all the past Avatars live on inside of you," her uncle reminded her. "Let them guide you. Let them help you find the light in the dark."

He turned his head to look at what lay before them and she did the same. It was foreboding and chilling, but she knew that he was right. To Mako and Bolin, she said, "Wait here, I'll be okay." She turned around to look at Yue. "I'm sorry, but he's right. I have to go at this alone."

Yue rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders. "Alright, alright, do what you gotta do."

"Good luck," Mako told her as she turned back around. She gave him a nod of thanks and started forward. She did not take Naga with her. She truly felt that she had to go in there alone.

(Location: Training Ground Five)

Arashi stood in front of the three holes, waiting. He hadn't been waiting for long, perhaps a half hour or so. But each minute he waited felt like a long one. He was going to do something drastically stupid and he was hoping to Agni or Kami (whichever one was closer now) that it would pay off.

"Just breathe," he told himself again and again as he waited. He was feeling nervous. How could he not? He was fairly certain that this was probably one of his more insane ideas. But it had to work. If it didn't, odds are the three of them would be going back to the Academy. He hadn't crossed the sea to just stay in school. "Just breathe."

"I certainly didn't expect this from you, Arashi," Rin said as she finally came out into the open grass.

He silently exhales, letting out all the air he had been unconsciously holding. "I don't really like hunting games," he told her. "I figure it was best to get it out in the open. I'm just surprised that it took you this long to get me."

"Well, I had to take care of your teammates when they came after me for the bells. Do you think that you could do any better?"

"Let's find out." He moved into the Gōken's opening stance, folding one arm back behind his back and extending the other out towards her. He knew the stance, having been forced to stand in it for hours on end.

"This is going to be fun. Shall we keep it to just Taijutsu then?" she asked him.

"If you feel like it, you're the sensei here."

"Yes, I am." She moved into her own opening stance and held it. The two of them stayed there, waiting for the other to make the first move.

"Hmm, he's not instantly attacking," Rin thought to herself as she watched him. She was a little surprised by that. She had known enough Genin (including her two recent victims) who attacked right away. She had been one of those Genin and had gotten kicked into a tree by her sensei for doing it. But Arashi was waiting for her to move first. "His grandfather must've trained him not to make the first move. That was smart of him." Now it became a waiting game to see who would flinch first.

The wind blew through the grounds. Neither one of them moved. The trees rustled from the wind. Neither one of them moved. The leaves on the ground danced in the wind. Neither one of them moved. One leaf blew free and came high up into the air. Arashi's eyes flickered at the sight of it.

Rin launched herself right at him, her fists raised into double punches. His eyes flickered back into focus and widened in brief surprise. He lifted his hand to intercept the left fist but still got the right in his side. "Ah!" he gasped in pain.

"First lesson: never lose focus," she told him, looming over him like a giant. "You lose focus in battle, you die in battle." She swept his legs out from under him with a kick.

At least, she tired. "I know that," he replied as he blocked the kick with his own leg. With his free hand, he grabbed hold of his right and released the left. The sudden move gave him enough seconds to swing his free foot at her leg. She stumbled and went down to one knee. The bells jingled.

"Now's my chance!" he thought, reaching down to grab them both. His hand was an inch away from grabbing both.

But then she recovered and buried a fist in his stomach. He bent over the punch as pain coursed from that point and through the rest of his body. "Second lesson: see through the deceptions," she told him, making it sound like they were just having a conversation. "What you might see probably isn't the case." Using the force behind the punch, she drove him up and then back down into the ground.

He felt pain on both sides of his body. It was enough to make his mind say "Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow," on a loop. But when he saw the kunai in her hand coming down right at him, his senses cleared and he quickly rolled out of the way. "I thought you said no weapons," he protested.

"No, I said we keep it to Taijutsu," she replied, pulling the kunai out of the earth. "I never said anything about not using weapons."

He pulled out a kunai of his own just in time to block hers. The blades met and made the air ring with a Clang! Again they held each other in deadlock, trying to push against the other. It didn't take long for Rin's superior strength and experience to give her an edge. She gradually began to push Arashi, making him lean back and back until she was again looming over him like a giant.

He kept pushing back, trying to throw his own weight against hers. But it wasn't working and he kept getting pushed back. He looked to the sides with quick whips of his head, looking for something. "Any time now, guys!" he shouted aloud.

Hiro and Tsukiko burst out of hiding, leaping right at Rin and the bells at her waist. To her credit, the Jōnin reacted to their presence quickly, stopping Tsukiko with her free arm and fending off Hiro with her foot. She looked like some kind of odd statue fending off the three students at the same time.

She was doing it well but they had been opening for that. Tsukiko clamped down on the arm and held it tight. Rin tried to move it but found that Arashi's nickname for her proved to be apt. Hiro dodged her kicks and dove for her kunai-wielding arm. He got hold of it and used his momentum to push it away from Arashi. Once he was free, the dyed redhead once again moved in for the bells.

This time he used his kunai. This time, he was successful. The bells fell into the palm of his hand and he closed it tight around them. "I've got them!" he declared. At his words, the other two back off from Rin and then away from her. He followed them until they were good distance from their sensei. There they stood, watching her as much as she was watching them. Nobody made a move. The bells did not jingle in his tight fist.

(Location: South Pole)

As she walked through the ice-covered trees, Korra felt like they were all watching her. She knew that they had no eyes, but that did not stop the feeling. It was like a constant feeling on the back of her neck and shoulders, watching everything she did. When she climbed down into the actual glacier itself into a tunnel carved out from the ice, she thought it would disappear.

But it didn't. In fact, it seemed to get heavier. What was more was that she now heard the wind blowing through the tunnel, making it sound like a lonely soul crying. "Why?" the wind seemed to call to her. "Why? Why? Why?"

She was tempted to looked up and asked "Why what?" But she kept going forward. She seemed to know instinctually where to go. Even when the tunnel split off into multiple ones, her feet did not stop. They kept her walking down the path she already knew. It was like, even though the place looked different, she knew the way to her destination, having traveled there before.

She didn't know what it was that made her stop in her tracks so suddenly. It might've been the slight change in the wind that she heard or the faint scuttling against the snow. She turned around at what she had walked from and saw nothing. "Maybe it was just imagination?" she asked herself. It seemed likely. She didn't know what exactly to do here and yet she was still walking towards it all. Tensions were running high all over the place and it was probably getting to her. She just needed to take a breath for a moment.

It was in that moment two dark spirits, shaped like snakes, flew through the air and coming right at her. Caught off-guard, she stared at them in surprised horror. "Don't just stand there. Move!" she told herself. She turned back around and started running.

Her moment of hesitation was enough for the dark spirits to reach her and twine themselves around her body. She fell down to the ground with a hard grunt, rolling a few inches due to her momentum. She was able to keep her arms free so when one of the spirts rose up and descended onto her, she threw her right arm into its mouth and bent fire into it. Its skin bunched up from the fire it was ingesting a couple of seconds before finally exploding.

Now she only had to deal with one spirit. She could feel its grip on her legs loosening. She took advantage of it, swinging her legs up into a helicopter kick, bending air into a virtual gale that shook the last spirit free. She landed on her feet, free of them. But the first spirit was reforming and the two were regrouping.

She chose to make a break for it, running down the tunnel and not looking back. It didn't take her long to reach the end of the tunnel. It was covered in ice save for a crack in the middle that looked it could fit an elephant-rat through. But she was the Avatar and as such, a Waterbender. Ice could be bent to her will.

She bent the crack wider and leapt through it. Before the spirits could follow her through, she bent up a new sheet of ice to block the crack and they bounced against it, repelled. They stared one another through the ice for a moment. Then the dark spirits left and she could breathe easier.

When she turned around to look at the area she was in, she found that she was standing on ice and that tree roots had tunneled through the domed roof to dangle in the air around her. In the center of the room, beneath the ice, was a large, white glowing orb that seemed to hum in her ears. "The spirit portal," she said as she walked towards it, knowing what it was right away. "Amazing."

---

In the Southern Air Temple, Jinora shared a room with Ikki and Meelo. While they shared a bed, she had her own. She was sleeping peacefully, enjoying her sleep. But then she awoke. At first, she was a little confused. Why did she wake up? Then she realized something was calling her, urging her to come. She sat up on the edge of the bed, unsure of where she had to go. But as soon as she thought about it, she had the answer.

She got out of the room and walked towards the statue room. It wasn't a long walk from where she had been sleeping and so, she was still a little sleepy, yawning loudly as she walked. But when she reached the room and looked again upon all the Avatars, she paused and looked around in confusion. What was she supposed to do next?

The answer came to her as soon as she asked the question. She had to go back through the line, all through the Avatars. So she started walking past all the Avatars, walking and looking at all of them. She saw the cycle repeat itself again and again. The clothes changed and the faces changed but the basics of their culture stayed the same. She looked upon the names of each Avatar she passed, Tonar, Koz, Jian, Leke, Sokka (not Gran-Gran's brother but the Water Tribe Avatar he had been named after), O'lina, Atl, Teiluc, Baichu, Koa, Atiya, and Lee.

She had been climbing the room and had almost reached the top. She walked past Yuriko, the first Fire Nation Avatar, a wild child raised by dragons. She walked past Del, a man who was born to a wealthy merchant family and was discovered to be the first Avatar of the Earth Kingdom. She walked past Shiya, a girl who became the Water Tribe's first Avatar. She walked past Nubia, the monk who was the first Avatar of the Air Nomad.

But then she came to a stop, having reached the end. She stared at the last statue there with a gasp of surprise. This one was different. All the others had been made of stone but this one was made of wood. It was old wood, aged and pale in the morning light. The other statues only had the Avatar themselves but this Avatar had some kind of spirit-like creature (it had to be a spirit because no actual animal she knew of looked like that. She couldn't even tell what it was) hovering over it. Chunks of the wood were missing, like the hands on the Avatar or pieces of its clothes, some of the tendrils of the creature, and most of the Avatar's face. Only the eyes were still visible.

But there was something else about the statue and it made her ask one question. "What Avatar is this?" She had read as many books as she could have on all the Avatars she could find. There weren't many that had escaped her eyes (mostly, according to the Paragons she knew, they were most the heinous of Avatars who failed and fell). The statue was one of those few. Which raised the question: was he one of the fallen Avatars or was he so ancient that he had been forgotten?

---

"The light in the dark," Korra said as she looked down at the portal. So that was what her uncle had meant. But how was she to get to it? The ice protecting the orb seemed unnaturally thick. She had tried bending it apart but it did not budge. Perhaps if she tried one of the other elements, it might work.

She took the stance of Airbending, drew back her fist, and then slammed it right into the ice. The air she bent with the punch blew up and around her, but the ice still remained solid and unyielding. "Okay, that didn't work," she thought to herself. She felt a little bit stupid for trying it in the first place. How would air work on ice? They weren't even opposites of each other.

She tried fire next, figuring that since it was the opposite of water, it would work. Bur she bent a continuous burst of fire at the ice but it didn't work. She didn't even get a dent in the ice. "Why isn't it opening?" she asked aloud. She was trying everything that she could think of and none of it was working.

Then she heard the sound of ice breaking, but didn't see any, and the sound of spirits hissing in the air around her. When she looked up, she saw them start come through the ceiling. There were too many of them for her to fend off alone. She had to get the thing opened. She turned back around and started slugging the ice with Airbending. "Come on portal, open!" But it still remained closed.

The spirits broke through the ceiling and congealed into one giant spirit. It swooped down and pinned Korra with its mouth. Once she was held, it split into many spirits again. Tendrils lashed out and wrapped themselves around her, pulling her up away from the ice. Her skin and clothes hurt where the spirits tightened against her. They pulled her up to the roof, away from the ice.

She tried Firebending again but the ice still remained frozen. The tendrils grabbed hold of her arms and forced them to stay still as she was pulled further away from the floor. "What am I doing wrong?" she asked herself, still fighting but getting nowhere. Her bending should've worked. It had to have worked. What else would?

As she asked herself that question, the answer came right to her and she felt like an idiot. It was a Spirit portal, a Spirit portal! She was dealing with spirits! She didn't have to rely on Bending; she had to use the Avatar State! "I am an idiot!" she chastise herself.

She reached into herself and activated the Avatar State. Her eyes glowed brightly with white and the whole room seemed to hum. The spirits broke away from her, letting her drop back down to the ground. But one held on and stopped her from reaching down completely. It then expanded and held onto her more tightly. She hung there, her fingers a couple of bare inches from the ice.

She stretched them out, trying to reach it. "Come on," she told herself, using all she had to move her restrained hand. "Just a little bit more…"

She was able to reach out with one finger and touch the ice directly above the portal, a ring of energy escaping from her touch. In that single second, she heard a single bell chime and it coursed through her entire body. The room darkened but the portal burned brighter than ever. The ice cracked and then a gigantic beam of light burst out of the portal and shattered it. The spirits that held her vanished. She flung off to the side, slightly hurt but safe.

The beam of light shot upwards into the sky, piercing through the clouds of the Everstorm as it rose up. The clouds themselves faded away once pierced, leaving nothing but clear and starry night skies. Everyone for a thousand miles could see it go higher and higher into the sky. When it reached its zenith, it stopped. From there, it split into many streams of light, glowing green against the dark and making everything seem to come alight.

Korra had a good spot to see it all happen. All she had to do was look up at the sky and see the Southern Lights. "The spirits, dancing in the sky," she said to herself, remembering her uncle's words. She was unaware that at the same time she was staring at the lights, the statue Jinora was standing in front of in the Southern Air Temple glowed as well.

From the outside, the group watched as it all happened. The Everstorm vanished and the glacier disappeared too. They saw the forest more clearly now but their attention was more focused on the lights. "I can't believe it," Mako said, looking up at them.

"It's beautiful," his brother declared, rubbing tears out of his eyes before they could spring up.

"Whoa," Asami said as she stared. She had seen many things that were wonderful and beautiful in her time in life. But they had been things made by humans, paintings, sculptures, or even inventions made by her father. What she was seeing right now was something that was made by nature. It eclipsed everything that she thought had been beautiful and wonderful. She doubted that she would see anything like it again.

"Hmph, bit much, wouldn't you say?" Tahno said but he couldn't keep the wonder out of his voice. Yue just rolled her eyes at him. Unalaq stared up at the sky, smiling at the sight.

Meanwhile, Tonraq was still driving back to civilization on his snowmobile when the lights occurred. He saw the light out of the corner of his eye, making him stop. He turned around, standing up, and saw the lights more fully. "She did it," he said with pride in his voice.

(Location: Training Ground Five)

The Genins stared down the Jōnin and vice-versa. Arashi was still holding the bells in his fist. "We win," he declared.

"You sure?" asked Rin.

"Yes, we are," Hiro told her.

"I don't think so. There are only two bells and three of you. Arashi already has one, so he's fine. But one of you will be going back to the Academy." She smiled darkly beneath her mask. "So, who's it going to be?"

"No one," Arashi declared. He tossed the bells back at her.

She caught them without blinking or flinching. "Now that was dumb of you, Arashi. You'll have to fight me again to win them back and we'll be back to where we are now."

He shook his head. "This test wasn't about the bells. It was never about the bells. It was a feint, a trick to confuse us."

"And it did," Hiro added.

"Yeah, it did," Tsukiko muttered, throwing a dirty look at Rin.

If she saw it, the Jōnin didn't say anything about it. "And what makes you think that it was a trick? Did all of you figure this 'trick' out?" she asked, making air quotes with her hands when she said trick the second time.

"No, I did," Arashi said to her.

"So tell me."

"The test didn't make sense to me at first." He gestured to himself and his team. "We're three Genin fresh out of the Academy and we're supposed to take you on alone? That's basically asking us to lie down on the ground and die peacefully. It didn't make sense; especially since I get the feeling Konoha isn't the kind of place to throw their new shinobi to the wolves right off the swing of the kunai. Then I remembered a crucial lesson from Pro-bending."

"Yes, the sport we've never heard of or seen before," Tsukiko said with sarcasm.

"Tsukiko, hush," Hiro told her, "Arashi, keep going."

The blonde did keep going. "In a match, if there's one member of the opposite team stronger, faster, or just plain better, you don't try take him on yourself. The entire team works as one to take him down. Those two bells are meant to be a distraction to keep us from realizing that crucial detail. They were supposed to try and have us fight one another rather then you. They didn't matter, beating you did."

Their would-be sensei thought it over, taking an obvious thinking pose. "Hmm…alright, you've got it," she said suddenly. "But the fact remains that you still don't have the bells."

"The bells do not matter," Hiro said to her. "Us using teamwork to beat you does."

"And guess what? We did," Tsukiko said triumphantly.

"But I am the Jōnin and I say what you have to do to pass this test. I could say that you broke the rules in fighting me and then giving me the bells." She changed completely, going from thinking to serious in less than a second. "And I have to say that…" She strode up to them all and loomed over them. The sun was behind her, making her seem to darken so that only her shadow was left. But then she leaned forward out of the sun, with a genuine smile beneath her mask (and one in her eyes). "…You pass!"

Tsukiko had been ready to fight again but stumbled slightly when she heard those words. "What?" she asked.

"You heard me. The three of you pass the test."

"We do?"

"Of course you do. You were right, Arashi," she said to the dyed redhead, looking at him. "The bells were to deceive you. But you were able to figure that out. Well done. You are right, of course. Konoha is the not type of place that will throw new shinobi out to the wolves like that. We must ensure that you are able to survive out there in the world. To do that, you have to have learned the most crucial thing."

"What is that?" Hiro asked her. He thought he knew, but he wanted to be sure and so, he wanted to hear it from her.

"Teamwork," she told him. "You have to work together if you want to accomplish something you cannot do on your own and you must be willing to admit that."

"Like fighting you," Arashi said.

"Exactly," she replied. But then her expression turned serious again. "I know that you three have passed the test but don't go thinking that you're better than me because of it. You're young; you still have a lot to learn."

"Yes, sensei," the three of them said together.

"Good. Then always remember this: those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandoned their friends are worse than scum."

Tsukiko frowned a little bit in concentration. "Why do I know those words?" she asked aloud.

"They are the words my father lived by."

"Oh." Now that made sense. She knew who her father was and not just because he had trained her grandparents. Everyone in Konoha knew of Kakashi Hatake. He was a legend, just like the Sannin and the Konoha Eleven were.

Just as soon as she had been serious, she was easy-going (two out of the three Genin thought that her mood swings were weird. The other one thought that it was something they were going to have to get used to). "Now that's said and done congratulations! You've officially made it! This is probably the first time I haven't had to shove someone into one of those holes. Lunch is on me, shall we eat?"

"That's okay, we're good," Hiro said to her.

She looked at him like he said something foolish. "Are you sure about that?"

"Yeah, we're not hungry," Tsukiko told her.

"But you did not have breakfast, correct?" she asked them all. They certainly didn't look like they were hungry. They were standing easy and didn't have any hint of looks of hungriness on their faces. They could've been faking it but they were Genin. She knew that they didn't have that kind of training (well, she could say that about Hiro and Tsukiko, Arashi was an uncertainty).

"We didn't, we follow your orders."

"So why are you not hungry?"

"You said not to have breakfast," Arashi said. "You didn't say anything about snacks."

She looked at him and then nodded in acknowledgement. "You listened, Arashi. Very good of you, you'd make a shinobi yet."

"Thanks, Rin-sensei." Even though those were words of praise, he felt uncertain. He had helped his team help win the test, but he still felt uncertain. He had become a shinobi, but he still felt uncertain. He felt uncertainty because of what they talked about the previous day. Why was he a shinobi? Was it to get out of his grandfather's shadow? It was here and probably even darker than the Bending countries. Why did he come here if he could not escape his grandfather?

(Location: South Pole)

Bolin was the first to notice that Korra was walking out of the forest. "Hey, Korra, you're back," he shouted as he started running towards. He looked briefly back at the others. "Hey, Korra's back!" He ran right up to her and gave her a big hug.

It only lasted a second before a wave of ice came up around him and held him in place with only his head visible. He was confused as to why it was happening until it drew him back and turned him around to look at Eska. "Why are you initiating physical contact with another woman?" she demanded. Even though she said in her usual deadpan voice, there was something about it that made him feel really nervous.

Fortunately, Asami came to his rescue. "He was just hugging a friend," she told Eska, coming up beside her. "You don't need to worry about anything."

"…I see." The ice vanished from the Earthbender but he still looked nervously at her.

Korra ignored the three of them, walking up to her uncle. "Everything you said was true," she told him.

"Avatar Korra, you have taken the first step in bringing balance back to the South, and soon the whole world," he replied, sounding quite formal.

He might've said something more, had Mako not run up and hugged her. "You never cease to amaze me," he declared after picking her up and swinging her around.

"Thanks," she said to him before feeling rather embarrassed by what she had done before. "By the way, I'm really sorry for being a total pain. Things were really stressful and pretty confusing. It's hard being the Avatar."

"It's harder being the Avatar's boyfriend," he said jokingly, giving her a nudge with his elbow. She just chuckled and hugged him again.

"Yes, yes, very pretty, very illuminating," Yue said, getting their attention. She walked over to the three of them, looking at the light. "But it's also very bright. If you guys don't want to get attack by predators, I'd suggest you leave now. That light's going to bring in every animal in a thousand miles."

"You're not coming with us?" Korra asked her, confusion tinging her voice.

She just smiled widely. "Nope, we're going to stay out here in the middle of it all." At her words, Asami looked a little bit green and gulped nervously. "You have fun heading back to the city."

"I thought you were supposed to keep an eye on me."

"We won't be gone too long. I can trust you to not make a mess, can I?" she asked, looking the younger Tribeswoman in the eye.

"She will be fine, Yue," Unalaq spoke for her. "You need not concern yourself with her wellbeing."

---

It had taken them a little less time to go back to the city then it had to reach the Everstorm. Dawn was breaking over the horizon, filling the ground with light and warmth. But as they crested the last hill over the city, they all came to a stop. Unalaq and his children watched impassively the events in the city while Team Avatar shared looks with each other. They watched in confused silence as the fleet from the Northern Water Tribe sailed into port and docked, soldiers disembarking and marching into the city.

Korra got down off of Naga and walked a little further to better see what was happening. "What are all your Northern troops doing here?" she asked her uncle. She couldn't see the looks on everyone's faces in the city, but she could imagine them.

"Opening the spirit portal was only the first step in getting the Southern Water Tribe back on its righteous path," he told her. "There's more difficult work to be done before our two tribes are truly united."

She was still uneasy as she looked down at the city. The only thought she had going through her head was "You probably should've stayed around, Auntie Yue."

(Location: Konoha)

"CONGRATULATIONS!" roared everyone inside the Uchiha clan complex, directed to the guests of honor. They sat in the biggest room that they had, with the clans seated together (although people kept moving back and forth between tables). Arashi, Hiro, Tsukiko, Shikatsuno, Chōichi, Tsume, and Inoji all sat at the table of honor at the back, the majority of them enjoying the party and the praise. This was a typical thing for the clans of Konoha, to celebrate their children actually becoming Genin. They would celebrate with a big party and give gifts. But since this was a party to celebrate their newfound status, the gifts had to be something practical to the life of the shinobi. For the clans, they had that in spades.

Everyone at the table had gifts piled around them. New kunais, new shurikens, maintenance kits for weaponry, medical packages in case of injury in the field of battle, practical clothing, new techniques that would be beneficial to new Genins, and everything in between. The new Genin were all smiling but they kept glancing over at Arashi.

The dyed redhead sat at the far end of the table. His place was surrounded by the least amount of gifts. It wasn't for a lack of trying on the gift-givers' part, but they had been more focused on the honorees they actually knew. The gifts he had received were generic and he only got one of each while the others got gifts with more history to them, being passed down from their elders. But despite all that, he wasn't bitter about it. He just wished he had something that could be a bit more…personal.

"You okay, backwater boy?" Tsukiko asked him, looking down the table from where she sat at the center.

He snapped himself out of the funk he put himself at her voice. "Yeah, I'm fine," he told her. He looked down the table to look at Tsume, who was pointedly not looking at him while Aoimaru was happily chewing on a bone in front of her (no one said a word about a dog being on the table). "Tsume still mad at me, I see."

"I hardly think that she can be blamed for that," Hiro said, joining the two in conversation. "I think she still hates you for what you did."

"She offered me the challenge and I took it. Besides, didn't she offer that challenge to everyone?" He was certain that she had. She had given him the offer a couple of days before graduation and he took her up on it.

"Yes, but that doesn't mean she likes what you did."

He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm surprised that someone else didn't do it before." Tsume's hair problem was legendary from what he had been told. It sounded like a challenge that was too good and too easy. So when she offered him the chance to try and fix it, he took her up on the offer. He knocked her out and while she was unconscious, he took out a kunai and started sawing off her hair. When she came to, he had her hair cut down to two inches off her head. She fought him off of her and then bolted. Every day since, she gave him a dirty glare whenever they saw each other.

"You know, you should probably apologize for that," Inoji told Arashi, joining the conversation from where he sat between Hiro and Tsukiko.

"Hey, she offered and I took her up on it," he said back.

An Uchiha man and a Hyūga man came up to the table, holding a set of kunai in their hands. "Lady Tsukiko, I've had these kunai since I was a Genin myself," the Uchiha told her, holding the kunais out to her. "It would honor me if you would carry them now."

"The same to you, Lord Hiro," the Hyūga said to Hiro. He bowed low and held out the kunais to him.

"It sounds like a contest of outdoing each other," Arashi thought to himself as he watched his teammates stand up from their chairs and take the gifts from their clansmen. He would've found it humorous if he didn't feel like an outsider here. He still felt uncertain about what he was doing here. It was a niggling thought that stayed in the back of his mind, refusing to go away.

"Oi, backwater boy, eyes up!" Tsukiko whispered at him, getting his attention.

"Huh?" He looked up and saw the head of the Uchiha Clan and his wife standing before the table. "Oh crud," he thought to himself. He should've been paying attention. Were they going to start a speech?

"Not paying attention, are we, Arashi?" Sasuke asked him with a hint of amusement in his voice. Both and his wife were wearing formal robes, his (for some very weird reason) was in a light pink while Sakura wore one in dark blue that looked black in a certain light.

"Sorry," he apologized. "I didn't miss anything important, did I?"

He laughed. "No, you didn't. But you're more like your Jiji then you'd like to think."

"…Was that an insult or a compliment?" He was going to go with compliment. They had been nice to him the entire that he had been here in the village. Plus, they like to reminisce about his Jiji (which he made a point to avoid the room they were in when they did that). Then he noticed that the rest of the Konoha Eleven, excluding Rock Lee (he apparently passed up on the invitation to come), stood before their table.

His eyes found Lady Hyūga first. She wore a kimono of what pale lavender, the same as her eyes. Just like her eyes, in certain lights the kimono looked white. She held her hands in front of her, an old practiced motion for her. Her eyes seemed to see everything but when they came onto him, he would swear that there was a hint of hardness in them. He couldn't blame her for that, he brought it on himself after their initial meeting turned into a conversation about his Jiji (and it went rapidly downhill from there).

Lord Nara looked like a typical old man. His clothes were a little outdated, even if they were tailored to his exact fit and size. His white hair hung around his head, falling to just above his jawline. He looked bored and almost sleepy. He looked someone one could easily hold against his will and even though he had been told that it was just an act by Shikatsuno, he still had trouble believing it sometimes.

"We are all proud of you," Sakura said, looking at the table and the new Genin sitting there. "Some of us may be related to you by blood and some may not, but our clans have a history together and that is all the difference. I wish the rest of our own were here to look at you, to see how much you've grown."

"We wish the same," Sasuke agreed with both Hinata and Shikamaru nodding in agreement. "But you didn't want to hear us speak."

"You don't know that," Tsukiko told her Jiji.

"Oh, but I do," he said with a smile. "We've yet to give our gifts and that's what you've been waiting for. Since you are our grandchildren, we decided to go with sentimentality instead of practicality."

"So, what are we getting?" Tsume asked.

"Patience, Tsume," her grandmother told her sharply but not unkindly.

"It's alright, Hinata," Sakura told her. "Why don't you go first?"

She shook her head. "No, I'll let Shikamaru do that." All eyes turned to the head of the Nara clan, waiting for him to give his gift.

"Troublesome," he groused loud enough for everyone to hear. But even as he said, it got smiles from his old teammates and from the Nara clans (everyone else just rolled their eyes. It was something he always said). He stepped forward to the table and looked at his grandson and his new team. "Boys, there are going to be times when you wonder why exactly you decided to become a shinobi. You will be doubtful and you will be unsure. When you do, just pull these out." He reached into the pocket in his jacket and pulled out something. They didn't what it was until he unclenched his hand and revealed three shogi pieces, each with the kanji for "King" inscribed on them. "Remember, shinobi of Konoha protect the king."

He gave one to each of them. They took them and looked at them with confusion in their eyes. "But who's the king?" Inoji asked him.

He just smirked. "Us old people can't give you all the answers, can we?"

His grandson rolled his eyes. "What a pain in the butt." That made everyone laugh, especially the Nara clan.

As he stepped back, Lady Hinata stepped forward. She first walked over to Tsume. A Hyūga clansman fell in behind her, holding two packages in his arms. She took the first one and held it out to Tsume. "Your grandfather wore this jacket when he was your age," she began. "Every day I see you, you remind me more and more of him, Tsume. It's been refitted to fit you."

"Thank you, Grandmother," Tsume said, taking the package with the most care Arashi ever seen her do. But she practically worshipped her grandfather, so he wasn't that surprised by it. She held the package close to her chest. Aoimaru sniffed at it and barked once at her. Whatever that meant, it must've been good.

Lady Hinata took the second package and walked to her grandson. "Hiro, I am aware that you have been tormented by others and hadn't done anything about it until someone helped you." She cast an obvious glance at Arashi when she said that. "But I am glad to see that you've done something about it much quicker than I did." She held out the package. "I used to wear this jacket. Take it knowing that you're not alone in feeling out of place. Don't worry," she added with a small smile, "it's been refitted to your size."

"Thank you," Hiro said, taking the package. He probably didn't hold as tenderly as Tsume had with hers but he didn't refuse it either.

"Tsukiko," said Sakura as she and Sasuke stepped forward. "We had a long talk about what we would give you. In the end, we're happy about our choice. It was the right thing for you." She pulled out a small box from inside her robe and handed it to her granddaughter.

She took it and opened it. "Gloves?" she said in surprise, taking the gloves out and holding them up for everyone to see. They were full-fingered black gloves that would cover her wrists as well.

"These are not just any gloves, they used to be mine. They will give you a good grip on your weapons and protect your hands when you punch someone." She smiled. "We suspect that it'll be more punching then anything. You've gotten my temper, after all." Tsukiko flushed as the Uchiha clan chuckled good-naturally at her.

But then the chuckles faded away as all eyes turned to Arashi. And once again, he suddenly felt like he was in the awkward spot again. "Um…you guys didn't have to get me a present," he finally said, waving it off. "It's not like I'm related to any of you." Even as he said it, the joke sounded bad.

"There was no need to," Sakura told him.

Sasuke pulled out a package from inside his robe and placed on the table. "That came for you today. There wasn't a return address."

It was weird, but his curiosity was aroused about what was inside. He took one of the kunai by his hand and cut open the packaging paper, using swift clean cuts to make less of a mess. Under the paper was a wooden box. There was no fine detail on the box itself, it was just ordinary. He reached out and took off the lid. His hand disappeared into the box for a second before coming back up.

He held in his hand a necklace. The cord holding it was thin and black. The main thing was the green crystal sitting between two beads. It was simplistic and yet, captivating to look at. But that wasn't the only reason why he stared. He knew this necklace. He had seen it before and thought that it had been lost. "This is my dad's," he said aloud, letting the necklace pool into his hand. "He wore it all the time." He heard a gasp escape a mouth and when he looked up; he saw the old generation had looks of stunned surprise. "What?"

"That is the Shodaime Hokage's necklace," Lady Hinata said. "It's possibly the rarest chakra gem in the world. But Lady Tsunade gave it to Naruto when he…" She trailed off as she realized the implications of her words. The eyes of everyone else just widened as they realized what that meant exactly.

"Jiji sent this," Arashi thought, staring at the necklace. "How could he have…?" He stopped himself from finishing that thought. What would've been the point of asking it? It was his grandfather he was thinking about.

"…I see that Naruto still looks out for you," Sakura finally said, breaking the silence in the room.

"Hang on, there's something else in there," he said, taking his other hand and putting it into the box once more. It held a piece of paper as he pulled it out. He put the necklace gently on the table and held the paper in both hands.

"Read it aloud, if you would," Sasuke told him. He obliged.

I was a shinobi for barely a year. I helped a bridge get built, stopped a rampaging tanuki, and brought home a drunk of a woman.

Can you do better?

"That's a weird way to boast about things, Jiji," he remarked aloud. "And they don't really sound like something that you should be boasting about." He looked up and saw smiles on the old peoples' faces. "What?"

"He's talking about our first real mission, the Chūnin Exams, and when he brought back the Godaime Hokage," Lady Hinata told him. "They were the missions that made him recognizable to the rest of the shinobi world."

"Oh." There wasn't really anything else he could say about it. Well, there was one thing. Why would he talk of them like that? He made them sound like they were unremarkable. Then he noticed that there was more writing.

If you can do better, then prove it.

Be the shinobi I never was. Be the shinobi they never would've let me become.

"Okay, now what's he talking about?" he asked when he was done reading.

The old generation looked at each other before looking at him. "He's challenging you to become Hokage," Shikamaru told him. "It had been his goal when he was one of us."

"So now he wants me to do it?" He stared at the gift his grandfather had sent him. He began thinking about it. Was it something that he could do?

"How did he know when to send the package?" Sakura asked aloud, looking at the box with a questioning look. "He couldn't have known that you would pass the exam today."

"There's more on the back." He turned it around and started reading it.

I know how to read a calendar, Sakura. I know when the Academy graduation is. And he's not me.

The clansmen and women all looked at each other with surprise in their eyes as he read. "How—" someone from the Uchiha clan began to ask.

"Don't finish that question!" Arashi shouted suddenly. Everyone turned to stare at him like he had lost his mind.

"What? Why?"

"Someone always asks that question and he always has a reply. Just once I'd liked to prove him wrong."

"But how does he do that?" someone else asked. The dyed redhead groaned loudly and then read the rest of the writing on the paper.

To the person who asked the question, I don't tell people I know. Why would I tell you?

---

When the party was done and everyone had left or gone to bed, Arashi was in his own room. He sat on the bed and stared at the crystal in his hand. He had been staring at ever since he came into the room. The light from the moon shined through the window and fell on the crystal. The light leeched enough of the green away to make it a pale blue. He had been thinking about what his grandfather had written to him. Could he do it?

He heard knocking on the door. He broke his attention from the crystal and looked at the door. "Yeah?" he said.

"Can I come in?" Tsukiko's voice asked from the other side.

"Sure."

The door opened and she walked in. She had changed out of her clothes into her pajamas, which had cartoon bunnies on them. They might've been a bit ridiculous but he also found them to be cute on her. She walked over to the bed and sat down beside him. "You good?" she asked him.

"Yeah, why do you ask?"

"You got a gift and a challenge from your grandfather, someone you don't really talk about."

"I do too," he protested slightly.

She gave him a look that spoke volumes of her disbelief. "No, you don't. You barely ever talk about him and that's if someone pushes you." She would know she was certain that she had done the majority of the pushing. "I'd say that you were scared of him."

She expected some kind of violent reaction, like a loud protest or something like it. Instead, what she got was a chuckle. "Nah, I'm not scared of my Jiji. Respectful of him, sure, as well as wanting to get out of his shadow," he told her before adding with a hint of bitterness, "Fat chance of that happening here." Seriously, how long and large did his grandfather's shadow loom?

Tsukiko heard the bitterness as he turned his attention back to the crystal in his hand. "You're giving up?"

He shook his head. "No, I'm not." He wasn't the kind of person to give up that easily. "Jiji would never let me live it down if I did."

"…Do you…hate him?" she asked, being cautious in her speaking.

He turned his attention to her again. His face showed his surprise. "What the hell gave you that idea?"

"Just the way you've been talking about him." She got that sense and made an assumption. To her, Naruto Uzumaki was a person that his grandson respected but also hated enough to try and get away from him. And personally, she couldn't blame him. Who gets their kid in the morning with a bucket of ice water? Her parents weren't that cruel.

But he shook his head again, this time more vehemently. "No, I don't hate him. I don't think I ever could. He's my Jiji and I love him." He looked at the crystal once more before folding his hand over it, putting out of his sight. But that wasn't enough, he could still feel it. He stood up from the bed and walked over to the nightstand by it. He put the necklace down but looked at it once more. A long second passed before he spoke again. "…Did I ever tell you what my most cherished memory of my Jiji is?"

She was tempted to say something sarcastic in reply, but she swallowed that temptation. The situation didn't call for it. The obvious about he never really talked about his grandfather didn't need to be pointed out either. "No, you haven't."

He turned back to look at her, leaning against the nightstand. "It was the week after my family burned alive. I had been surviving on the streets. I was tired, cold, and practically starving, things I had never really known about until then. I hadn't slept for more than a couple of hours each night and I woke up each day with a gnawing hunger in my stomach."

"Sounds…painful," she said, not really knowing what else there was to say. She knew of the night he spoke, he having told her and her family not long after he had been discharged from the hospital. But she didn't really know of the days he spent afterwards. Now that she was hearing them, she didn't like it but she also couldn't relate.

"It was," he said in agreement. "What's more, I was scared to show my face to public. I hid in the alleys and backstreets. I stayed away from other people. I wanted to go home, but I was afraid to." He had always put that down as an irrational fear of a new kid on the streets. He now knew that he was afraid the people who caused the fire might still be there. "I thought I would be on my own for the rest of my life."

"So what happened?"

"At the end of the week, I was dumpster-diving for food in an alley."

She made a face at that. "Ew, you actually did that?"

"I was hungry and didn't have a lot of food. At that point, half eaten noodles would've been nice. So anyway, I was dumpster-diving for food when this gang of men found me. They dragged me out of the dumpster and held me against it when I tried to run. I didn't know what they wanted from me, but I could see the delight in their eyes when they found me. I could only guess that whatever it was they wanted from me, it wouldn't have been good.

"But before they did anything, something washed over us." He stopped as he tried to remember what the sensation was like. "It felt…cold and angry and vengeful and dangerous all mixed up into something more terrifying. It was like Koh the Face Stealer had come among us looking for new faces. It felt like it was coming from one direction, from the street entrance. When we all looked…there he stood." To this day, he could still remember seeing his Jiji standing there, his hand gripping his sword tightly with a look of utter fury on his face while his eyes blazed blue. He could also remember seeing the giant fox with nine tails looming behind him with a snarl but he always put that down to his imagination and the moment.

"What did he do?" Tsukiko asked him, wanting to hear more of it.

"He only said one thing, 'Get away from my grandson.' They scattered like the wind and I was left alone against the side of the dumpster. That cold feeling vanished as he came to me and picked me up. He held me by his side and told me, 'It's okay now, Arashi. Jiji's here.' For the first time in a week, I actually felt safe again."

"Whoa," she said. It was the only thing that she could say to that story.

That is why I love him, because he reminded me that I still had family."

"Well…maybe he's trying to remind you that you still do with that crystal." She looked at him and the nightstand he was leaning against as she spoke.

"Yeah, maybe," he said, considering it.

"Well, I'm going to bed." She stood up and walked to the door. "Goodnight," she said with a wave of her hand.

"Night," he said absently as the door closed behind her. He pushed off the stand and turned to look at the necklace again. Now that he thought about it, she might actually have a point. He had tried to get away from his Jiji's shadow and thought that the necklace was him reminding Arashi that no matter how far he went, he would still be known. But now, it seemed more like a reminder that he still had family even though he was on the other side of the planet. And his challenge…it felt like he knew what his grandson wanted and trying to give him a chance to do just that. He wouldn't help or offer advice, just give the opportunity.

"Alright, Jiji," he finally decided, taking the necklace and putting it around his neck. "Challenge accepted. But I'm not going to just be Hokage; I'm going to be the best damn Hokage in Konoha." As he made his decision, he found that his uncertainty was gone. He liked it.

End

Author's note: Thank you for all the reviews you've sent me.

I would like to thank the artist Avield from Deviantart for his names, lists, and pictures of previous Avatars. That is some of the best storytelling and pictures I have seen when it comes to the Avatar Cycle. For the record, each name Jinora walked past are from him and there are stories attached to them. I didn't put them in because of two reasons. The first was because they weren't part of the main storyline and the second was because it would've taken too long.

Naruto wasn't likely to forget that his grandson was going to become a shinobi, despite what he might think about it. He would show his support in such a way that was obvious and yet, kept him from actually coming. And he's also right about Arashi. He's not Naruto at age 12 again. That is how he was able to come through and figure out what the test actually meant.

For the whole story about how Naruto found Arashi, I drew inspiration from Power Rangers: Jungle Fury. It was the episode where they go find Master Phant (who has the Elephant spirit, shocker) who's been put out to pasture and doesn't like it or them. But when one of them stays behind and gets attacked because of it, he comes to her rescue. It's an awesome scene to watch.

Okay, I don't know who this guy is exactly but I've been getting one reviewer who, while he likes the story, has been imploring me to keep Mako and Korra together. He's stated to me that having Korra and Asami together is what ruined the show and is, and I quote, "a crime against nature." Well, I'm sorry but this is where you and I differ.

You see, I don't think that them getting together ruined the show, I think it sealed quite well. And I don't know if your problem with same-sex relationships are religious or something else, but I don't share them. Personally, I am Catholic and I see nothing wrong two men or two women loving one another. So this story is sticking to canon relationships.

I'll see you all next chapter!