The next morning I was woken up by Ty Lee who, already awake and her head supported on her hand, was smilingly playing with my hair which had become somewhat longer during my stay in the monastery. I smiled back, raised my head and kissed her gently.

I said: ''You know what? I had the feeling that last night was something very special, even better than the previous ones we've spent together.''

''Yes, I had a similar feeling''

''Well then, let's get up.''

We both got up, left the tent, took a morning bath in the sea together and then lied down on the beach in front of the tent again, hand in hand, our eyes directed to the sky.

After a couple of minutes I stood up again and said: ''As beautiful as it is here, I need to set off soon.''

''Where to?''

Although I loved Ty Lee above all else and had shared all my secrets with her until now, this time I had to lie to her, I simply could not tell her that Aang was still alive, Azula would find it out eventually and then our entire mission would be done for!

That's why I said: ''I have a mission to do on the mainland. The Masters want me to retrieve an old relic from some cave and then bring it to the monastery so they can study its secrets. Since this is not very important, I decided to make a quick side-trip and meet with my love.''

Ty Lee stood up smilingly, wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me.

Then she said: ''Then go, but watch out for yourself.''

''Sure, I always do. But wait, there's a little something I wanted to give you.''

I got two small flat stones, about as big as a person's palm, out of my bag, both had a heart-shaped piece of red volcanic stone embedded into them.

I handed Ty Lee one of the stones. She looked at it with a questioning look in her eyes, I explained: ''These stones symbolize the connection between us. When one of them is heated, the heart on the other one lights up, look.''

I heated my stone in my hand, the heart on Ty Lee's stone began to pulsate red.

She looked at me with wide eyes, then hugged me and said: ''Thank you. But what is this good for, except that it always reminds us of each other?''

''Well, I thought that we could use this to contact each other. Whenever you want to see me again, all you have to do is heat your stone, then I will notice it on mine and come to you as fast as I can.''

''Oh! That sounds very convenient. I think this will help us a lot.''

''I think so too. But you definitely have to keep it in a safe place. Otherwise everybody could use it and lure me into a trap, for example.''

''Don't worry, I'll take care.''

''I know. I trust you. But now I really have to go.''

I whistled and Pagan came out from behind the near cliff coast shortly afterwards. He landed on the beach, Ty Lee walked over to him as well and petted his head.

I climbed onto the dragon's neck, looked down to Ty Lee and said: ''Bye for now, I hope we can see each other again soon.''

Then Pagan rose to the air and we set off.


In the air Pagan told me that he had been able to locate Aang and the others during the last night. They were near a large city on one of the many big Fire Nation islands, we wouldn't need long to reach them.

A good two hours later I was already able to spot the city in the distance, our friends' camp was situated a little away from it, as usual.

I told Pagan not to land directly in the camp but a little further away. The dragon obeyed and silently landed a few hundred meters away from the camp.

On foot I, silently as well, began to approach the camp. While I was still a good distance away, I already noticed that Katara and Toph were once again having a heated argument. This basically implied that nothing had changed and I was pleased by that, since I honestly had missed all the squabbling quite a bit.

When I was only a few meters away from my friends, the argument was still in full swing, I said aloud: ''You two are never going to change, are you?''

Immediately the heads of all four turned towards me, their eyes became huge, their mouths stood wide open.

I spread my arms out and said: ''Surprise?''

After this, the state of shock finally ended, Toph ran towards me and threw her arms around me.

Aang, Katara and Sokka approached me as well, Katara said: ''Yulizan! You're still alive? But we all thought that after the incident in Ba Sing Se, you...''

''To be honest: I was. But I returned and now I'm better than ever before!''

Sokka smelled a rat: ''Wait a moment! Did you just say you had been dead, but came back to life? That's impossible!''

Aang cleared his throat loudly, but Sokka just said: ''You're the Avatar, that's something different! He is an ordinary human, and they just can't ... you know!''

I interjected: ''Never underestimate the powers of the Spirits, Sokka. I'm the living proof that it is possible if you only have the right faith.''

Sokka looked around confused until his gaze eventually fell on my new katanas. With big eyes full of interest, he grabbed one and pulled it out of its scabbard.

''Hello! Who is this beauty?''

''Pretty impressive, right? I forged them myself''

Sokka unsheathed his own sword, the blade was as black as the night.

I uttered an impressed whistle: ''Not bad, sir! May I ask what it is made of?''

''You will hardly believe me, but it's the metal of a meteorite!''

''Oh my! An actual gift from heaven, really impressive. But is it also effective?''

''Huh? What do you mean?''

''Does it cut as well as it looks?''

''To be honest: I haven't really tried it out yet.''

''Then how about a little comparison? Let's see whose sword is sharper. Do you have anything lying around here that can be cut safely?''

Aang ran to the camp and returned with two melons in his hands.

''What about these?''

''Perfect! Could you please place them so that they lie at the right height for our arms?''

Aang bent two earth pillars out from the ground and placed the melons on them. Now everything was ready, Sokka wanted to begin.

He positioned himself in front of the left melon, unsheathed his sword, took a swing and sliced through the melon with a powerful blow like it was butter. I was impressed, apparently he had not exaggerated, the meteorite sword really was a powerful weapon.

Now I stepped in front of the right melon. I unsheathed one of my katanas, looked at my work once again, traced the golden phoenix on the hilt with my fingers, then grabbed said hilt firmly with both hands, took a swing and let the katana whirr through the melon.

The cut was virtually perfect, so good that the two halves of the melon remained on one another instead of slipping to the side like they had done on Sokka's melon.

I wiped the melon juice off my katana's blade and said: ''The sharpness is equal, I would say, but I still have the better technique.''

Sokka agreed with a slightly sour expression on his face.


After this little performance we all sat down in the camp together and started talking about many different things.

I told of my experiences in the Spirit World, my training in the monastery, but once again nothing about the time I had spent together with Ty Lee. Although the others knew about my relationship with the girl by now, they still only thought of it as some sort of little fling that had happened in Ba Sing Se. I would tell them only later, if ever, that it really was true love.

In return, I once again heard of the events that Pagan had already told me of during my time in the monastery, only this time in greater detail, basically straight from the horse's mouth.

After all the stories were finished, I rose to speak and said with a solemn voice: ''At this point, I would like to say that I'm really glad that we're still together and doing well, even after this flood of bad events. Let's hope that we can finally achieve some lasting successes from now on!''

The others agreed with me but the festive mood didn't last long, because only shortly afterwards Katara and Toph resumed their argument from before, this time it escalated and eventually caused Toph to walk away in anger once again.

I decided to completely stay out of things that didn't concern me from now on, so instead of trying to mediate between the two girls, I talked with Aang about various things, for example the Spirit World, we compared our experiences and realized that we perceived the Spirit World very differently. I could justify this with the fact that my soul had to be quite darkened because of all my doings, therefore I didn't always see the ghostly blue glimmer around every creature and object, only on special occasions, like when I had met the souls of my family.

We were still talking when Sokka suddenly came back to the camp as if stung by an adder, a messenger hawk on his shoulder, he had gone into the city to buy one of those, and a rolled up piece of paper in his hand.

''You have to look at this!'', he said wheezily and unrolled the paper.

My face turned serious immediately: It was a wanted poster with a picture of Toph! Written underneath the picture was in big letters: ''The Runaway - High Reward'' plus some additional information. I was slightly unsettled about how much the Beifong family was doing to bring Toph back.

When Toph returned to the camp a little later, Sokka and I explained the new circumstances to her. Toph however remained completely calm and said that the only thing we had to take into account was that Katara wouldn't find the poster. I was skeptical about what the girl was up to.


But of course everything played out different than planned, but in such different ways that even I was surprised: Katara eventually found the poster and was upset about it, but after she had calmed down again, she talked with Toph for quite some time.

After their conversation was over, they both seemed like entirely different people, they said that they had talked about their problems and had put an end to their dispute. I was both glad but also confused about this sudden change of mind.

But of course the two had not only talked about their problems but also worked out a shrewd plan: Toph should be handed over to the city guards in pretence so that we could collect the bounty, only to free her again afterwards of course.

I was surprised by Katara's sudden cunning, it was a really well thought-out plan, I would definitely help my friends with this.

After all: There was nothing like a nice old-fashioned fraud.


We executed our plan the next day. At first everything seemed to go as planned, but the whole thing eventually turned out to be a trap!

First Katara and Toph were locked in a large wooden box, then a mysterious man appeared.

I had never seen someone like him the flesh before, but I had read about people like him: The giant had an eye-shaped tattoo on his forehead, a combustion bender!

Sokka called: ''Oh man! Not him again!''

I called back: ''What do you mean, 'again'?''

''This guy already attacked us a couple of nights ago. Watch out, he shoots energy beams from...''

Sokka wasn't able to finish his sentence, because suddenly a beam of concentrated fire was fired at us, the source was the tattoo on the giant's forehead, as I had guessed. Luckily I knew exactly what to do to neutralize this type of bender.

I said to Aang and Sokka: ''Distract him! I have to get close to him!''

My two friends immediately initiated an attack and the giant actually took the bait, he seemed to focus entirely on Aang.

I was easily able to sneak up on him from behind and jump onto his shoulders. Only then did he seem to realize what was going on but it was already too late! I extended my right arm blade and cut a little wound into his tattoo. He probably didn't feel any pain but that wasn't my intention.

I jumped off his shoulders again and ran back to my friends who were about to initiate another attack.

Katara and Toph had been able to free themselves in the meantime and wanted to attack as well but I held all four of them back and said: ''Wait and take a look at this!''

My friends seemed visibly nervous but still did what I said. The giant grinned at us diabolically as he prepared another energy beam of concentrated fire. My friends tried to take cover behind me but they didn't need any.

Because when the giant was ready to fire his beam, his now slightly bleeding tattoo flashed red for a second before he himself was catapulted backwards with enormous force, directly into a large brick wall which then collapsed on top of him. The power of the impact rendered him unconscious before he was buried by a large amount of bricks from the collapsed wall.

My friends looked at me with wide eyes and asked with one voice: ''What was that?''

''Don't worry, I will tell you, but first we have to get out of here before he wakes up again!''

No sooner said than done! Only a few minutes later we had reached the camp again, packed our things in no time at all and rose to the air on our animals.


In the air I began to explain: ''I damaged his tattoo by cutting a little wound into it, thus he was no longer able to use his powers.''

''And how did you know that you had to do that?''

''Oh, there have always been benders of his type and the Assassins of course keep records of them and their powers, it's just another page in our great book of knowledge.''

My friends once again showed me their respect for my outstanding abilities, I of course felt really glad that I was always able to help them like this.

Later in the evening, Toph, with Katara's help, wrote a letter to her parents which she then sent away using Sokka's new messenger hawk. I was glad that the girl was at least trying to keep her parents up to date on her whereabouts.

Thus, as we had done many times before, we simply flew across the country without a real goal. Although ... without a real goal wasn't really true: In a few weeks was the Day of the Black Sun and we of course didn't intend to forget the Invasion we had planned for that day.

But until then, we just flew, and flew, and flew...


Next chapter: Morally correct?