Chapter Twenty-Nine:

Visola lifted her aimed a blast of away from herself. "You know this like when we first fought." she said. "They way you looked at me when you found out I killed her."

Kinto sent another blast towards Visola. She waved her hand to redirect it, but Kinto swung her arm further back. He took another shot at her and hit her gut. Visola snarled and rallied harder, she swung water whips at Kinto.

Kinto jumped back and threw waterblasts towards Visola. She dodged them, and took control of Kinto's legs. She pulled him to the ground and menacingly approached him with her whips held high. Kinto tried to grab her arms and hold them up, but Visola swung them down on him.

The whips stung across Kinto's back. He buried himself under the snow to cushion the next incoming blow. He felt a thump above him as the whips cracked above him. "Hiding, are you?" he heard Visola's voice faintly.

Not rising to her taunt, he tunneled around in the snow. He felt thumps around him as Visola tried to find his location with her whips. Eventually he heard one just in front of him. He grabbed Visola's legs with bloodbending, jumped out of the snow, and tackled her.

Kinto grabbed the water on her whips on wrapped them around her neck. He tried to hold her down the best he could but she continued to struggle. Before Kinto knew it, Visola had flipped over and sank her teeth into Kinto's face.

He jumped back and put his hand against the wound. It stung quite badly, and blood dripped down. Visola got up and reformed her water whips. "Fight now, heal later." Kinto thought.

Unfortunately Kinto didn't focus in time. Visola frooze the tip and it hit him in the gut. He quickly grabbed in and broke the tip off before she could drive it in further. Visola grinned as she watched Kinto reel in pain. He used one hand to grab her arm and keep it still, and grabbed the spike in his gut to heal the wound.

The bleeding stopped and Kinto tore out the spike. Most of the pain was gone, but there was still a dull ache. Visola's whips came at him again. He dodged, jumped, and blocked to keep them away. As much as he tried she kept getting closer, grinning increasingly more predatory.

The exertion and pain drove Kinto to his knees. Visola loomed over him. "So I asked you, is this about Mommy?" she asked. "I want an answer."

"Good." Kinto thought. "Kept her gloating and stall her."

He looked up at her. "You took away the only one in the family that cared about me." Kinto said. "She knew are abilities were wrong, dad told her that. Yet you still tormented her."

"Because it was so fun. I told you, she was a toy. That's what everyone is to us. Why don't you understand that?"

"Because I choose not to." Kinto said. "Dad saw our abilities as a cursed art, as something evil. You only prove him right."

"You care about him too?" Visola asked. "Just what till he could see me. He's in charge of some stuffy old men, and here I am in charge of a whole country."

Kinto chuckled. "Don't make me laugh. Father has Republic City under his command."

Visola's eyes went wide in shock. "What!" she cried.

Kinto realized he made a big mistake, but know was not the time to think about that. Hopefully he could solve the problem right here and now. All the blood he bleed he was holding on to. A little liquid would not do much most of the time, but in the right place it can cause quite some problem, and blood is thicker than water.

Kinto threw the blood towards Visola's face, and into her eyes. She threw her hands over her face, struggling to see. Kinto pulled up as much water as he could and slammed it into Visola as hard as he could. The impact knocked her off her feet and onto the ground.

Kinto controlled Visola's arm and spread them wide apart. He wrapped tendrils around her neck and squeezed. Visola tried to get control of her arms, but Kinto pushed down harder. "Is this what you did to mom?" he asked. "No, I'm not going to do it that way."

Visola thrust her head upwards, breaking Kinto's hold of her. She crawled away but he caught up to her. He tried to get control of her but something hit him in the back. It was one of Visola's soldiers.

He reached behind him and felt for the man. At the right time he pushed his arms, making the man strike himself with his own whip. He turned, grabbed the man, and threw him down. More soldiers joined in to the fight. Kinto exchanged shots with them, yanking one off balance when he saw the chance.

His gut started to hurt again. He looked down and saw Visola had crawled away. She was sitting up, among the soldiers. Reinforcements kept joining them. He had blown his chance. He decided to fall back.

He dashed backwards, keeping an eye on Visola and her soldiers. Some of them moved towards him, but most covered Visola. Kinto dodged a waterblast and tripped a man, but kept his focus on running. He kept running till he ran into a group of his fighters. "Fall back." he told them. "Scatter out, and converge at the base. Tell everyone that."

After having being ordered to retreat, I ran across the frigid plains. Letting the resistance fighters lead the way, we eventually came across the base. Kaze and I found Kinto who was lying on a bed shirtless, with a healer attending wounds on his face and gut. The rest of the group was in the room too. "You know better than to pull it out." the healer said.

"I stopped the bleeding." Kinto replied.

"And you did a decent job, but you still need professional work."

Kinto looked over to me, and then to Sela and Genji. He let out a heavy sigh "I'm very sorry."

"What?" I asked.

"I told her, about our father Arashi." he said. "How he rules Republic City."

"Everyone knows that." Sela remarked.

"Not here." Kinto replied. "There's a reason she let us escape."

"What's going on?" asked Genji nervously.

Visola stood up, taking a deep breath. She had nearly died. Her brother Kinto could have killed her. But that was not important, she had to focus on her father. Nao and some troops joined her. "Lady Visola." Nao said. "I am very sorry I let..."

Visola grabbed him by the face and slammed his jaw shut. She leaned in close. "Nao, I am not going to kill you. But you need to stop groveling."

She let him go and he dropped to the ground. "We have new business to worry about." she said. "My father has been ruling Republic City this whole time."

"What about it?" Nao asked.

"I'm going to pay a visit." she said rubbing her hands together. "It's about time I got some quality time with daddy."