Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, the Last Airbender, or the Legend of Korra.
Paragon of Korra
Chapter 53: Hunting and probing
"Talking"
"Thinking"
"Bijū/spirit talking"
"Bijū/spirit thinking"
(Location: Zaofu)
Asami's world was darkness. That was because of the blindfold she wore over her eyes. She struggled through what Naruto-sensei and Gāng wanted her to do. "This is completely ridiculous," she told them.
"You want to learn this technique," Gāng told her, his voice drifting in through her left ear. She had thought he was on her right side. Did he change positions? "This is how my sifu taught me."
That might've been the case but she still felt it was ridiculous. "I'm crawling on all fours here!"
"I know. Did you think you were going to start walking around?"
"Actually, I had." It made sense. If they were going to teach her to walk around seeing the world through the earth, she would be walking! But here she was, crawling around on all fours like she was some baby. "I feel like a toddler here."
"That makes sense," Gāng remarked. If she had her eyesight, she was sure that he would've been nodded. "You have to crawl before you can walk. Now, continue the exercise."
She grumbled underneath her breath but did as she was told. She kept moving forward, trying to feel the earth through her hands, to feel its vibrations. Like before, she felt no reaction. "What am I doing wrong?" she asked herself. She had done everything both Paragons had told her. She was trying to feel the earth through her hands but all she got was nothing.
"Where are you going, Asami?" Naruto-sensei asked her, right from behind.
"What the…?" She turned around, trying to sense him. But she still got nothing. "I thought I was going right to him!" Did he move when she was talking to Gāng? She turned around and started for him.
"Wrong way, Asami," he told her, this time to her right. She spun around and followed the voice. "Where are you going?" he asked from her right again.
"Argh this is annoying!" she mentally raged, turning once more.
"Just so you know," called out Gāng, "you're running out of time."
"Damn it!" She didn't know where her mentor was. He could be anywhere around here! She had to find him. The only way she could do that was if she looked through the earth. "Come on, help me out!" she pleaded with the earth. It didn't answer her.
"And time is…up!"
She stopped moving around and sat down, tearing off the blindfold. The garden they were in came back in clear, bright focus. "Spirits take this damn thing!" she growled. She looked up at the men standing over her. "You were enjoying that," she accused the both of them.
They glanced at each other. "Perhaps," said her sensei.
"There's no perhaps," she said, getting back to her feet. "You were enjoying it." She tossed the blindfold at them with more than a hint of disgust.
Naruto caught it with ease. "You wanted to learn how to see through the earth," he told her. "This is how you learn, Asami."
She was still too annoyed to care about that. "Were you even moving around or were you just throwing your voice around?" she demanded.
"Of course we were moving around. Neither of us can do everything."
"Could've fooled me," she remarked. It seemed like everything they did, they did it easily. Meanwhile, the apprentices struggled.
Her teacher came up to her. "Asami, have you ever seen me work on a machine?" he asked her. He asked her like it was a question that belonged in a classroom but also as a friend to another.
She knew the answer instantly. "No."
"Have you ever seen me repair something broken?"
"No," she said with a shake of her head.
"Have you ever seen me take something and make it better?"
For the third time she said, "No."
He smiled at her. "Can you do those things?"
"Yes," she said, the word coming out of her mouth automatically. She didn't think about it because she didn't need to think about it. She knew she could do all three (the third not as well as the first two but still).
And his point was made for him. "See? You have your skills, I have mine."
"None of them deal with being a Paragon."
He waved that off. "It's the same principal, Asami. I am not as skilled in diplomacy as Gāng."
The Earth Paragon said, "You're not skilled in diplomacy at all, Naruto." There was a definite smirk on his lips as he said that.
He ignored that remark and continued, "Neither of us can handle the public media like Yue can. And Bumi is the same as me when it comes to dealing with a military strength. The point is we all have strengths and weaknesses. Once you know what they are, you become a better person."
She listened to what he said. She knew there was a truth in it. She was good with machines. Perhaps as her skills got better, she would be able to use it in her own life, talking to workshops. It would also help her in business transactions. She was good at that but she could be better. And she would still have to work what she could be as a Paragon.
"Now, time for something else," her teacher declared.
Whenever he said that, she had to be prepared. She stepped back and instantly went on the defensive. "Good form," said Gāng approvingly. "You've been training her well, Naruto."
"I should hope so," he replied. "After all, I gave you the same lessons."
Asami glanced over at the blind man. She had a feeling she knew what her sensei was talking about. "Did he ambush you from out of nowhere too?" she asked him.
He nodded. "He did it to aide me in seeing. I thought it was cruel then." Now he knew it had been a way to help him, and a little fun too.
Naruto looked at his student. "We won't be doing that," he told her.
She didn't relax her form. He could still do something out of nowhere. "So what we will be doing?" she asked him.
"Some two-on-one training," he said. Gāng came forward and joined his side. They started to move to opposite sides.
She tried to watch them both but doing so started to make her feel cross-eyed. "Can I hope that I'm not the one?" she asked.
"You can hope," her sensei replied. "It's not going to get you anything." He moved forward and struck her with a hard fist.
She saw it coming and twisted out of the way, just like an Airbender. The world suddenly turned upside down as she crashed to the ground. She wondered how that happened and then saw Gāng crouching down beside her. He had kicked her legs out from under her. She spun in a twirling kick, trying to get him back. He stepped off while Naruto caught her leg and flipped her over.
While her front and back were saying that hurt, she had to wonder something. "Are Korra and Bolin going through the same thing?" They probably weren't. After all, they were only learning how to Metalbend.
Korra stood in another garden, facing off Wing. He stood confidently with a cocky smirk. It said that he knew what he was doing and she didn't have a good chance. A part of her was tempted to knock that smirk off his face and show him what her past battles had taught her. "Don't do that, Korra," she told herself. "He doesn't know what the world is like outside Zaofu. You don't need to disabuse him of it."
The twin bent two meteorites from behind and sent them flying at her. She bent them into her control and rotated them around her body, missing her completely. She bent the cables at her waist at him, the length snapping through the air.
He dodged with a flip and waited while she came after him. As the cable came close, he stomped down, pinning it to the ground. He bent the rest of the cable up, looping it and then twisting it back at her. The force of it sent her down to the ground in a rolling thump. She brought her head up and looked at him. "Okay, he got me with that last one," she admitted.
Wing pumped the air, high on victory. "I can't believe I'm sparring with the Avatar!" he proclaimed. This was probably the best experience he could ever have!
His brother, on the other hand, had a different attitude. "I can't believe I'm stuck with her friend," Wei said as he continued to watch Bolin trying (and failing) to Metalbend a meteorite.
While Wing and Korra continued to spar, Bolin tried to bend the meteorite. "Hang on, I think I got it. Let me just try this," he told Wei, still failing. The meteorite slipped out of his hands and fell to the ground. "Nope, okay maybe—" He got cut off when two of the slabs sprang up and slammed into his sides, hard.
"Trial by fire," Wei said, bringing the slabs back down. "It's the best way to learn Metalbending." He emphasized this further by bending the fallen meteorite up and sending it right at his opponent.
Bolin saw the space rock coming at him and yelped, ducking down. As it flew overhead, instincts born on the streets and honed through Pro-bending kicked in. He didn't bend up a large chunk of rock. Instead he bent a pebble up from the ground and at Wei. A pebble wouldn't do much if it was sent to a random body part. But if it was a specific target, it could provide a good distraction. Such as getting said pebble to the forehead. Wei felt a quick pain to his forehead and it blinded him. He had to step back and rub his forehead, stopping the pain.
His brother, along with Asami and her teacher, saw the last move as they walked into the garden. "Whoa. Nice shot, Bolin!" said Mako, impressed. "But I thought you were supposed to be practicing Metalbending, not Earthbending."
"Yeah, cheater," Wei agreed, glaring at the other Earthbender.
Naruto looked over at him. He saw a cocky kid who knew what he could do and thought no one could beat him. "No need to get rude, Wei," he told him. "You'll find that cheating will save your butt one day."
"Yeah right," the twin said, not believing his words.
"You should listen to him," Asami told him. Naruto did speak the true words.
He looked at her. His expression might've been condescending if he looked and acted more arrogant. "Come on. Why would I cheat in a fight when I know I'm good?" he asked her. That was another thing about the twins. They weren't boasting about their Bending skills. They were simply stating what they thought was the truth.
It was quite amusing, especially since she remembered Amon and Unalaq quite easily. "These guys think they're the best but they're just little turtle-ducks in their safe pond." She glanced at Mako and Naruto. They saw the same thing she did. "Wei, your uncle beat you and Wing easily," she reminded him.
"That's because he cheated," he retorted.
She nodded. "Because he wasn't a Bender and he weren't? Because he's blind and you're not?"
He stopped. It felt like a trap but he didn't know how. "Well, yeah."
"Of course he cheated," Naruto said. "You have advantages that he doesn't. Did you think he would take in a fair fight?" Wei didn't answer him so he continued. "Here's a little advice for you, Wei. There's no such thing as a fair fight. One side is always going to have an advantage over the other or one side will cheat to win. Remember that."
Mako listened with half an ear. He kept his full attention on Bolin, who had picked up another meteorite and tried bending it. After a few minutes, he stopped. He gave the space rock a hard look and let it fall to the ground. "So," asked his brother, "How's it going?"
He glowered as he walked over. "Mako, Metalbending is extremely difficult. No one gets it right away, if they can get it at all! It's not normal!"
That was the moment when Korra beat Wing by tripping him up with her cable. "Woo-hoo!" she crowed in victory, flexing her muscles, "Metalbending champion!"
He didn't have to look at his brother to know that he was throwing a look at him. "Oh sure," he said, "She's the Avatar." That was always an excuse to use.
"Guys, it's time to get cleaned up," Asami said to them all. "Tonight is Opal's farewell dinner." They wouldn't want to miss that.
Bolin just remembered that and now he was sad too. "Oh, now I have to say bye to Opal? This is the worst day ever!" He walked away with slumped shoulder, making pitiful sounds with each step he took.
Wei watched him go. "Uh, is he always like that?" he asked Mako.
"He could be worse," the Firebender said, glancing over at Korra. She knew what he was talking about.
Naruto leaned close to both the twin and the brother. "You might want to keep an eye on him," he said quietly, "Just in case he decides to try to follow Opal out of Zaofu."
That got both their attentions, Asami's too. "He wouldn't," Wei objected.
"He might," Mako said. Korra and Wing came over to them, readying to clean up. They heard the conversation and listened.
Asami looked at the Firebender. "You actually think he might?"
"You didn't see him back when he was infatuated with Korra."
"Wasn't that also—"
"Yes, yes," Korra said quickly, cutting her off. "That was also when I had that crush on Mako." The less they talked about that in company, the better. It was an embarrassing couple of days, for all three of them.
"So yes, Asami, Bolin would do that," Naruto assured her. "You'll find that people will do crazy things for the ones they love."
"Like what?" She might've been training for a position that dealt with a lot of mystical things but she was also a mechanic and a businesswoman. She wanted facts, details, and proofs. Doing something crazy didn't seem like a smart move. Although, seeing Korra in action, she knew that smart and crazy didn't go hand-in-hand.
He smiled nostalgically. "There was the time when Xiu was giving birth to Arashi. Sozin was on the other side of the city when he got the call. He caused a lot of traffic jams driving fast through the streets to get to the hospital, ignoring all the cops trying to direct traffic."
Wei and Wing shared a look. They didn't like what was being implied. "We're keeping an eye on Bolin," Wei said.
"Right," Wing said with a nod.
(Location: Konoha)
As Tsukiko climbed the steps up to the second floor, she heard the shower running. "Huh, wonder who that is," she thought. She didn't think about it too long. It wasn't important. She walked over to Arashi's room and knocked on the door. "Hey, backwater boy, you in there?" she called out.
"What?" Arashi shouted back. But it didn't come from his room.
She turned back to the bathroom. "You in the shower?" she asked, walking over to the door.
"No, I'm in here because I like the sound of running water."
She rolled her eyes. "Rough training?" she asked.
"Let me clean out the rest of the dirt before I tell you, okay?"
"Dirt?" she repeated. "Did you get knocked to the ground that much?"
"Would you let me clean in peace, Iron Claw?"
"Alright, alright, hurry it up. I want to talk to you." She walked back to her room. The thought of her being outside the bathroom door while Arashi was showering inside came to her but she quickly dismissed it. "One day at a time, Tsukiko. One day at a time."
Closing the door behind her, she walked over to her desk and pulled out her map of the village. She unrolled it and looked at it. "Alright, where is it?" she asked. Where would Naruto Uzumaki put the Toad summoning contract?
She grabbed a pencil and started dangling it over the map. She circled the apartment he had lived in as a kid, the Academy, Ichiraku Ramen. Those were places she thought he could hide it. But there had to be other places he could've hidden it. The Hokage building could be another spot. But where would be the other places?
She was still focusing on that when she heard the knock on the door. "Tsukiko, you in there?" asked Arashi.
"Yeah, come on in," she said, putting the pencil down and facing the door.
He walked, his hair still a little damp from the shower. She could also see little streaks of yellow in the red. The dye must be wearing off. "You need something?" he asked her.
She leaned against the desk. "I do, but now I'm curious about the dirt. Did the training go well?"
He grimaced as he closed the door. "I wouldn't have called that training. It was more like a fight for my life."
"You actually sparred against Jūgo?" She was actually a little impressed. But she did wonder how much the old man was holding back. Probably not a whole lot considering her teammate looked like he was dead tired even after a shower.
"I wish that's what we did," he said. "That probably would've taken a lot less time and be less terrifying."
"What did you do then?"
"He dropped me into a network of tunnels full of snakes with barely any light and told me to try and find the way out."
She paused in her leaning and looked at him. "He did what?"
"You heard me."
That she had. She just wanted to be sure she heard it right. "He really made you do that?"
"Yeah, he did. The snakes got smarter as time went on, chasing me for longer and faster. I couldn't do anything to fight them off. Not only that, but the tunnels weren't a uniformed size. The tallest one I could crouch in."
"Whoa," she thought to herself. She couldn't even think of doing something like that. "How did you get out?"
"I stumbled across the summoning contract and was able to write my name in it."
"…That's it?" That just sounded way too easy.
He frowned. "Don't make it sound like I did as soon as I picked up the scroll, Tsukiko. The snakes didn't stop chasing me when I had it. I had to find the time to open it up, look through it, figure out what it meant, find something to write my name, and then write my name. None of that happened all at the same time."
Tsukiko listened and had a bad feeling emerge in her stomach. What happened to him could possibly happen to Hiro or her. It sounded like Arashi could've died in that process. Would the same happen to her? "Why did Jugo make you do all that?" she asked. There had to be a reason.
"He said it was to make me think more like a snake."
"Huh?"
He waved it off. "Don't worry about it."
"I will most certainly worry about it."
"You're not the one who's going to be trained as the next Snake Sannin."
Hearing him say those words, even if it with a tired annoyance instead of bragging, it gave her a punch in the stomach. He only had one training session and already was Jūgo's apprentice? What she was going to do? Would she even have a teacher? She stopped herself before she got consumed with those questions and focused on what really mattered. "No, I'm the one who's trying to figure out where the summoning contract for the Toads and now I'm starting to wonder if that's a good idea."
He stopped what he was going to say and looked at her. "You serious?" he asked. He shouldn't be surprised. She was never one to let him get ahead.
"Yes, I'm serious. Now come over here and help me out," She turned around and focused on the map again.
"Help you with what?"
"Finding the contract," she told him, sounding like a kid should've understood that. "Get over here."
He did as he was told. There wasn't enough room at the desk for them both to stand side by side so he had to stand behind her. He was glad for the growth in height so he could look over her shoulder.
She felt his body really close to hers. She glanced back. "What are you doing?"
"Looking at the map," he told her.
"You don't need to be this close."
"If I want to see the map, yes I do."
The worst part was that he was right. This was the only way he could see the map fully. Her throat felt a little more than dry just then. "Breathe, Tsuki," she told herself. "Don't think about it. Just breathe." She could do this. "Alright fine," she told him, trying her best to smell the shampoo he used. It smelled nice.
He looked at the map again. "What's with the scribbles?"
She grabbed the pencil again. "I'm trying to think of the places your grandfather might've hidden the contract."
"His old apartment, Ichiraku Ramen, and the Academy," he read off the places she had scribbled.
"You know of any other places he might've hidden it?"
He gave it a quick thought as he looked at the map. "How about his parents' house?" he asked her.
That was a good place to look at. She started scanning the map for it. "I didn't think he knew where that was."
"It was how he left the village when he was here." He had only learned it was his great-grandparents' house when he asked Sasuke about it. He had spent the next day in it, trying to see how they and his grandparents had lived in it.
"I met you in the street afterwards, right?"
He nodded. "Yeah, you did."
"Okay, where was that?" She could not remember the street's name. She could remember a treehouse off in the distance but there were plenty of those in the village.
He reached out his hand and tapped the map. "Right here," he told her.
She turned the pencil that direction. "Thanks for that." She traced the spot quickly, her arm brushing close to his. It was a brief contact and she did her best not to pull her arm away too quickly. That would've been odd. They were trying not to be odd. "Where else?" she asked him.
"Have you thought about the Hokage building?"
"Why would he put it there?"
"Good place for it."
She scoffed. "Come on, you don't seriously think that he would put it in there, right?"
If he was looking at her face, she would be getting quite a look. "I'm sorry, which one of us is his grandson and knows him the best?"
That might be true but it was also beside the point. "It would be too obvious."
"How would it be too obvious?"
"It's the Hokage building. It's the first place anyone would look. I'd be willing to bet you money that when people have looked for the Toad contract, the first place they would've looked was the Hokage building."
"Going by that definition, why do you think the other places are any different?"
She started to object but stopped. He was right. Those would be obvious places too. "Damn." The pencil traced the map. "Is there any kind of hope that he took it with him when he went back over?"
That came out of nowhere for him. "Why would you ask that?"
"It's just a question."
"You don't have a lot of hope for it?"
She shook her head and said, "Not really. It's out there but a girl can hope." She glanced quickly back at him. When did he start to get tall? "Did you see it when you lived there?"
He thought back to the apartment, remembering all that he could about it. If the contract for the Toads anything like the one for the Snakes, big enough to be held in two hands but still light enough to hold in one, he probably should've seen it. But the more he looked through his memory, the more he was drawing up a blank. "Nope, sorry," he told her. "It wasn't there."
She sighed. "Like I said, out there," she remarked. The pencil came to a stop. "Alright, so where do you think he would hide it?" She kept talking even though he was about to speak. "Better yet, why don't you call him and ask him where he put it."
Again, she got a look at the back of her head. "You really think I could call him?"
"Can you?"
"…Technically speaking, yes."
Hope rose in her chest. It was stilled by how he said it. "Technically?" she repeated.
"I can call him on his telephone or his cellphone—"
"Cellphone?" she asked. "He got a cellphone? Did he get it when he came here?"
"Yeah, he did. I can call him on either but only in emergencies. Sorry, this doesn't count as one."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I am. Our lives are not in danger. Besides, I know what he would say in this situation."
"And what would that be?"
KNOCK-KNOCK
They sprang from the desk at the sound of the door. Arashi spilled onto the bed. Tsukiko cast a nervous look at him before calling out, "Yeah?"
"Tsuki, it's Mom," Mito said from the other side of the door. "You said that you were going to help with dinner tonight."
"Oh, right, I'll be right out."
"…Are you okay in there?"
"Yeah, everything's fine. Nothing to worry about in here," she said quickly.
"Okay then. Please come down as soon as you can."
She breathed a silent sigh of relief. They were safe. "Gotcha," she told her mom. "I'll be right out."
"Good. And Arashi, I know that you've just took a shower but I do hope that you didn't leave a great mess in there. Otherwise you'll be cleaning it out."
They both froze at those words. "She knows?" they asked in panicked silence, "How?" They looked at one another but neither of them had the answer. Arashi figured it was the best thing to stay silent. If he didn't speak, she could possibly be proven wrong.
"Arashi, I know that you are in there. There's no reason to stay silent," Mito's voice told him, not changing its tone or pitch. He still felt like he had just gotten into more trouble. "Now, did you leave a mess in there?"
He had to answer or she might come in. If she came in, that would be the worst. "No, I didn't leave a mess in there."
"Thank you."
Tsukiko raced over to the door, opening it so her mother could only see her. "Mom, he was just helping me with something," she said quickly.
"Of course he was," Mito said without blinking. "Now please hurry up. We have to get dinner ready so we can enjoy the next Exam." She walked for the stairs without a backwards look. Arashi and Tsukiko shared one look before they left the room at a quick pace. Whatever it was that just happened, they weren't going to talk about it. They were given a blessing and they weren't going to question it.
(Location: Zaofu)
The feast was done in Opal's honor and as such, she sat beside her mother at the head of the table. As the chef put the food down in front of her, she told him, "Thanks for making my favorite meal."
"I'm really going to miss you, Opal," he said back to her. "No one appreciates my raw veggie wraps like you do." He kept walking around the table, putting the food down on it.
Bolin had the seat right of Opal, so he was the closest to her. "Every time I eat raw kale, I'm going to think of you," he told her.
"You're so sweet," she said with a smile.
That smile just made it hurt all the more. "This stinks! We were just starting to get to know each other, and now you're off to the Northern Air Temple."
"We'll be together soon. You guys are coming up after finding more Airbenders, right?"
"Yeah, but that's…in the future. Ugh, I hate the future!"
"Until then, we'll always have kale," she declared, holding out a piece for him to eat, which he did.
Varrick watched the whole scene from the other side of Bolin. An idea came to him. "Kid, can I give you some relationship advice?" he offered the Earthbender.
Now Bolin might not be so quick on the draw as his brother when it came to people, since he always tried to see the good before the bad, but even he knew that love advice from Varrick was not a good idea. "Umm, no," he said.
"Well, your loss," the inventor said, shrugging off the rejection like it was nothing. "Zhu Li!" he called out with a snap of his fingers, "bring the, uh, thing." His assistant appeared almost out of nowhere, opened the bag she carried, and handed him a box-like contraption. He looked at Asami with it in hand. "Check out my latest invention: an Airbender finder."
That got Korra's attention. She leaned over Asami's shoulder for a better look. "Wait, that can find Airbenders?" she asked, pointing her fork at the contraption. If it truly did, it would make finding new Airbenders a lot easier. But since it was made by Varrick, she had her doubts about it.
Asami took the thing from Varrick and held it at Korra. Since she was the Avatar, she should be an Airbender. Going by that definition, she should get a reading. But as she waved the thing up and down, she got nothing. Korra looked confused too (although her expression looked quite endearing). "Uh…I think it's broken," she finally told Varrick, handing it back to him.
He got angry at the implication. "It's not broken. She needs to Airbend into it!" He snatched the contraption out of her hand. "How else do you expect the thing to work?"
Mako, being on the other side of the room and at a different table surrounded by the Metal Clan, tried to listen in on what was happening. Needless to say, it wasn't working very well. "What's going on? I can't hear anything. I hate sitting down here!" he proclaimed, slumping back into his chair with his cup in hand. Then he noticed Aiwei looking at him. "Uh, not because of you," he said, trying to backpedal.
"I can tell you're lying," said Aiwei dryly. Mako just slumped down a little further into his chair.
But Gāng heard every bit of the conversation between Asami and Varrick. "Su," he said.
Everyone held their breaths for what came next. No one, not even Lin, knew what happened between the two of them. All anyone knew was that they had gone into a private room, locked the door, and stayed in there for over two hours. When they came out, the animosity Gāng had for Suyin had dwindled to a point no one could see it. If there had been any punches thrown, the bruises were well hidden. They seemed to be on better terms but everyone worried it wouldn't last.
Still, no one said anything as Suyin looked at her brother. "Yes?"
"I think Varrick's bored with whatever it is he's doing. He's getting redundant."
Varrick actually looked insulted at that remark. "I am not!"
"I would say that you are," Naruto agreed with Gāng. "You're getting redundant."
"You take that back right now!"
"It's the truth and you know it, Varrick."
Gāng nodded. "He's right. You invented a machine that's supposed to find Airbenders but it needs to have Airbending going into it to work. That's redundant. Like I said," he told Suyin. "He's getting bored. You're going to have to find him something new."
"Alright," she replied. She might consider Varrick a friend but even she knew the dangers of him being bored.
Opal looked at her mother. "What's so wrong with him being bored?" she asked.
"A bored Varrick is a redundant Varrick," Su told her with an air of recitation.
"And a redundant Varrick is a dangerous Varrick," finished both Gāng and Naruto with the same air.
Varrick looked at all three of them. He was trying to remain nonchalant but it was a little difficult to maintain when they were being this insulting. "You guys are over-exaggerating," he declared. "I'm not that dangerous."
"Ba Sing Se," said Gāng. It was the only thing he did say. It had probably been one of the few (if not the only one) times he and the Earth Queen had agreed on something: a strong desire to kill Varrick.
"Okay, so that was one time—"
"Omashu," Naruto added.
He looked at the old man. "Oh come on, that—"
Suyin said, "Whaletail Island."
"That was not—"
"Ember Island," said Naruto.
"I apologized for that already!"
He paused in his eating. "So you admit that it did happen?" he asked, even though it wasn't really a question. Varrick didn't answer that. He just clamped down on his mouth. "I thought so."
The kids were looking at the adults with confused curiosity. It felt like they were missing something. They wanted to know what was happening. "I guess that something happened there?" Bolin asked.
"Varrick got bored," Gāng told him.
"What happened?"
Again, the adults shared a look. Then they looked at Varrick, silently pouting. "We'll not go into details," the Earth Paragon finally said.
"Oh come on, not even a little hint?"
He could tell the others were just as curious as the Earthbender. "Well, if you're that interested, I guess I can give you one detail. In Ba Sing Se, Varrick got bored and decided to 'improve' the monorail." That was all he would say on the matter.
"…That's it?"
"You wanted a little hint, Bolin," said Naruto. "He gave you that little hint. If you want to know more, just back to Ba Sing Se and look it up. They still have the records."
Suyin stood up and tapped her glass with her spoon. The ringing echoed through the room. "Everyone, if I could have your attention, please?" she asked, getting it. Tonight, my beautiful little girl leaves for the Northern Air Temple." She looked down at her daughter with a mother's love. "Opal, none of us could be more proud of you. You're an incredible daughter, sister, friend, and soon to be Airbending master." She leaned down and kissed her hair. Standing back up, she raised her glass and said, "Here's to Opal. May she help lead us into the new era!" Everyone raised their glasses to that and drank deeply.
Once dinner was done, it was time to see Opal off. They gathered at the dock where the airship was waiting. There was one last round of hugs and goodbyes from everyone. Even Gāng gave his niece was hug. She hugged Bolin probably longer than she should've and the twins had to break it up. She kept waving goodbye even as she got onto the airship and it took off. She stood at the window, still waving.
As Suyin kept waving back, her captain of the guard came up behind her. "Ma'am," she said quietly.
She glanced back at her. "Kuvira," she said with a slight chastisement, "What have I said about that?"
She corrected herself. "Suyin, I got a call from the outskirts. Someone's coming in looking for your brother and Lord Naruto." Both Paragons turned their ears to that conversation once they heard their names.
"Who is it?"
"Someone claiming to be Yue, the Water Paragon," she answered. "Do we let her in?"
"Of course you do," Naruto said, walking past her. "Come on. Let's go." Gāng followed. The two women, one bemused and one slightly confused went after them once Suyin had told her husband she had to go somewhere.
While Zaofu was approachable, most people came via airship. But there was a road that led into the outskirt of the city. It was barely more than a dusty road and people coming from it were always a surprise. Naruto and Gāng arrived on the outskirts to find Yue making sure her ostrich horse was watered and fed. The guards that had been stationed at the gate kept a healthy distance from her. She must've threatened them as soon as they tried to stop her.
"Did you kill that bird coming here?" Naruto asked her, eyeing the ostrich horse. It looked like it wanted to sink to the ground and not move. It didn't because it was too busy drinking water like it wasn't going to find any again.
She turned to look at them. She was tired, it showed in her eyes. "Just about," she admitted. "He was on his last legs when Zaofu came into sight. Hey, Su," she greeted.
Suyin gave her a welcoming smile. "Yue, good to see you again," she said. "Why did you ride an ostrich horse here?"
"I took the express train out of Republic City to Senlin and took the ostrich horse from there." She looked sternly at Suyin. "You guys really need to connect to the express train line. It would've saved a lot of trouble."
She ignored that. "Why didn't you take an airship here?" She knew there scheduled flights to Zaofu from other cities in the Earth Kingdom.
"I missed the last one in Senlin and waiting for the next one would've taken too long."
Gāng was all business when he asked, "What's the problem, Yue?"
"Zaheer and the others were in Republic City."
Kuvira was puzzled by those words but Suyin looked horrified. "What?" she asked her. "They're out? All of them?"
"Yes. I don't know what they were doing there but once they were discovered, they got out quickly. They could be coming this way for all we know. Is Korra still here?"
Naruto nodded. "She is."
"We've got to get out of here, tonight."
"Whoa, hold on," Kuvira said, finally joining the conversation. "Ma'am, I'm sure that these criminals are dangerous but Zaofu is one of the safest places in the world. Even if they get through our defenses, I'm sure that the guards will be able to subdue them."
Yue gave her one long look before she said to the others, "She has no idea how bad this is, huh?" It would've been funny if it was a different situation.
"She's never known," Suyin told her. "I never talked about them. I thought they were locked up."
"Suyin, are they Benders?" Kuvira asked her.
"They are."
"Then I'm sure we can handle them."
"You can't," Naruto told her bluntly.
She eyed the old man. She respected him but he didn't know what she could do. "Frankly, sir, say that after I've faced them."
"No, he's right, Kuvira," said a grim Suyin.
The captain looked at her. She was hurt by the lack of confidence. "Su!" she protested.
She stopped her before she went any further. "It's not that I don't have a lack of confidence in your skills, Kuvira. I know your abilities in Earthbending. I trained you. But these people are dangerous, more so than what you could fight."
"How could you know that?"
"I've taught you to fight to protect. They've learned how to fight to kill, Ghazan in particular. Even before he could start Earthbending he was a skill fighter, able to kill his opponents."
Kuvira looked a little sick at those words. Not for what they meant but what they implied. "He would've been a kid!"
"Yes, he was. It didn't stop him." She looked back at the Paragons. "This is bad."
"It gets worse," Yue told her.
"How?" she asked her, "How could it be worse?"
"Zaheer's an Airbender now."
Those words stunned her. It showed on her face. "What? Are you kidding?" she demanded.
The Water Paragon shook her head. "I'm not. I wish I was but I'm not."
"Oh spirits preserve me." This was looking worse with each sentence spoken. "How long have they been free?"
"We learned about it in Ba Sing Se," Naruto told her.
"And you didn't tell me?"
"Technically speaking, we did," remarked Gāng.
She gave her brother a long look. "When was that?" she demanded.
"Remember when Korra said that we were being chased by a 'crazy bunch of criminals?' That was them."
"Holy crap, you're talking to each other," Yue said, staring in wonder at the two of them.
"And you've just noticed. Nice going there."
She looked past the sarcasm. "When did this happen?"
"While I was here, obviously," he told her.
"Can we stay on topic here?" Suyin asked them both. "Yue, do you know where they are right now?"
She shook her head. "No, the last I saw of them was their getting out of Republic City."
So there was a chance that they were still outside Zaofu. "Kuvira, proceed with the usual procedures," she told her. "And keep a watchful eye tonight."
"Yes, Su," she replied, going for the radio at her side. "Lock it down for the night."
(Location: Konoha)
The morning was bright and cheerful. But the Genin of Team Seven didn't feel that way. As they met up at the usual location, they looked once at each other and knew. "You saw the Exam last night too, huh?" Hiro asked his teammates.
Arashi and Tsukiko nodded. "Yeah, we did," she said, "It was brutal."
"With most of our guys getting wiped out in the process," Arashi said. "Trying to find your way through a swamp with no map and only what you brought as protection while others can attack you?" He shuddered. "That's a way to go that I don't want to go."
"I hear that."
Rin leaned against the wall, looking relaxed. She listened to her students talk about the Exam with a bemused expression. "If you ask me, I think Kiri was plagiarizing us," she said.
All three of her students looked at her and said, "Huh?" at the same time.
"Whoops, almost that let slip out." She couldn't let that happen. If she had listened to the grapevine right, they were planning to bring back that test the next time Konoha had the Exams. It might years off but she was training them to be shinobi. They would probably remember it. So instead she just said, "Never you mind."
"Oh come on, sensei," Hiro protested. "Don't leave us hanging like that." His teammates nodded in their agreement.
"Sorry, can't tell you," she said, "Trade secret."
That didn't make sense to Tsukiko. "We're a part of that trade," she told her.
"And there are secrets we can't tell you. You're still Genin."
She frowned. Was that supposed to be some kind of slam against them not joining the Exam? "I'm just glad our guys lost only because they ran out of time," Arashi said, steering away from that point of conversation. "Maybe Tsume's team will win."
"We'll have to wait to see," Rin said. "It won't be for another month."
Arashi was puzzled by that. The first two Exams happened next to one another. Why would the third take a month before happening? "Why so long?" he asked her.
"The third Exam is always a tournament. Giving them a month allows the remaining Genin to train and prepare and also allows attendees to reach the Land of Water."
"Will anyone from Konoha be going?"
"I think my grandmother is going," Hiro remarked, "Along with Tsume's parents."
"Are you going to?" Tsukiko asked.
He shook his head. "No, Mom and Dad want me to stay here, keep training." He had asked them only because Tsume's team had made it to the finals.
"That's not surprising," Rin told him. "The village doesn't have good terms with Kiri since the war ended. We don't want to risk our Genin who aren't in the Exam." She pushed off the wall. "Now, let's get to it. We have a training mission today."
They looked at each other. "So, are we on a mission or are we training?" Arashi asked. It couldn't be both, could it?
"We're on a training mission," she said again.
"What does that mean?" Tsukiko asked her.
"You will be training and you will train like it is a mission."
That she understood. She relaxed and asked, "What will we be doing then?"
"You will be looking for a scroll in the village. You have until sunset to find it."
That seemed simple enough. It made them cautious. They didn't know where the scroll was or what was holding it. More than, Tsukiko had a sinking suspicion about the item they were looking for. "Rin-sensei, are you…?"
"Talking about the Toad summoning scroll?" she finished the question. "Yes, I am. You three have to find it."
Hiro eyed his teacher suspiciously. "That's it?"
"Of course that's not it," Tsukiko told him. "Why would it be just that?"
"Tsukiko, be nice," Rin said.
She looked at her. There was always something more. There had to be. "Are you going to tell us anything else?'
She smiled underneath her mask. "Now why would I make it easier for you?"
"Knew it, I just knew it."
Arashi looked at his teammate. She was getting quite frustrated. "Ease up, Iron Claw," he told her.
"Don't tell me to ease up, backwater boy," she snapped back.
He didn't back down. "Look, we were already starting the search for it last night. All she's done is make it official and given us Hiro too."
The Hyūga amongst them wasn't quite fond of that remark. It made him sound like he had forced to join the mission. "Hey, I would've joined you guys even if it wasn't a mission," he told them both. "Don't make it sound like I had to join."
They had made it sound like that. They both gave him a sheepish look. "Sorry about that, Hiro," Tsukiko apologized. "We were actually going to talk to you today after training was done."
The apology made him feel better. "Thank you."
"Well, you guys have fun," Rin said, walking away from them.
They stared at her in surprise. "Wait, you're not going to supervise or anything?" Arashi asked her.
She stopped and looked back at him. She looked confused but he knew that she was playing. "Why would I do that?"
"You said it was a mission. You've always led us on the missions."
"True. But I also said it was training. This kind of training is best done without me giving you help. If you succeed in your mission, I'll be there when you find it. If you don't succeed, you'll find me at my clan's compound." She turned back. "Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a clan brunch that I am missing and I do not want to miss anymore."
She left them and they watched her go. "She serious about that?" asked the dyed redhead.
Both Hiro and Tsukiko nodded, "She is," she told him. "One thing you learn about the Hatake clan and gatherings with food, the food disappears fast. If you don't fight for it, you don't get it."
"They're almost like the Akimichi clan in that aspect," Hiro added, "Although the Akimichis are the true masters in eating."
Tsukiko snorted. "Ain't that the truth?" She had never been invited to an Akimichi meal and she was quite fine with that. She had seen Chōichi go through food and that was enough for her.
Arashi got to business. "Alright, what do we now?"
She pulled out the map she had stuffed in her bag. "Now, we get to it. Come on." She started walking and they followed.
(Location: Zaofu)
Naruto slept easily but lightly that night. It was nothing different from the other nights he had slept. He had never been able to sleep deeply like a kid for years. He could sleep somewhat deep when he shared the bed with Azula. But since he lost her, he would keep vigilant even as he slept. The lightest sounds could wake him. Thankfully, his years of experience had taught him how to register what sound was what and sleep through it.
That was why when he heard a little voice saying, "Jiji?" he was awake instantly. It was only the sound of the voice, a voice he knew, that made him stop from reaching the kunai he had hidden beneath the pillow. He looked through the darkness of his room and saw a little girl standing at the foot of his bed. "Natsumi?" he called out to her. "Is that you?"
She came around the bed and hugged him tightly. "I'm really happy to see you again!" she said into his shoulder.
His shoulder started feeling damp. She must've started crying. He hugged her all the same, turning on the lamp so they could have some light in the room. "Agni, you had me worried, Natsumi!" He had felt like he was watching Sozin's house burn down all over again.
"I'm sorry. I didn't plan for it to happen." She meant the words, still hugging him tightly. But when she broke the hug, she looked questioning and annoyed. "Why didn't you tell me that I had an aunt?"
"She met P'Li."
The fox inside him huffed. "Don't sound so surprised, Naruto. You already knew that," Kurama told him. "Don't tell me that you're getting senile on me."
He wasn't getting senile. More importantly, that was beside the point. He looked at his granddaughter. "What has she told you?"
"Only that she was in that ice prison because she and her friends made a choice." She frowned. "Wasn't it cruel to put her in that prison? It was freezing down there."
"That was the point. It was to prevent her from Firebending."
"I know that. Uncle already told me that. It was still cruel to put her in that prison, Jiji. She was freezing in there!" Her scowl reminded him of him as a kid. They had the same scowl.
"I know it was freezing, Natsumi. It was why we put there…" He stopped when he realized that they had glossed over an important fact. "Natsumi, how are you in Zaofu?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. I just followed Aunt P'Li and the others. They're the ones who knew how to get in."
She made it sound like what happened was nothing important but his brain went into overdrive and his sleepiness vanished entirely. "They're inside." He threw back the covers and came out of the bed. "Natsumi, stay here," he told her, grabbing his Zanpakutō.
But she did something unexpected: she threw herself against his leg and held it tightly. "No!" she said vehemently.
He looked down at her. "Natsumi—"
"No! I'm not going anywhere. I'm not staying behind. The last time I was told that, I would've been kidnapped!" She looked up with big, terrified eyes. "Don't leave me alone, Jiji, please. They could find me here."
"Are they the third party Zuko told me about?" If they were, she might have a point. He wouldn't lose her again. "Alright," he agreed. "But you stay close to me and you do what I say, alright?"
She nodded quickly. "Okay, I will."
He took her hand in his and led her out the door. "Where are they?" he wondered. He got his answer when he heard the alarm start to wail and the sounds began. He followed the sounds.
A few minutes earlier, Pabu had seen something move through the dark outside the window. It had been a little fast so the fire ferret couldn't see who it was. But he was worried that something was happening. He did the first he always did when such a situation arose: he alerted Bolin.
The Earthbender was asleep, so the fire ferret woke him up by chittering loudly in his face. "Huh? What?" He came awake again for the second time that night. He realized what woke him and said, "Oh, Pabu." The fire ferret hopped over to the window and waited there. "It's not play time right now. Okay, we are seriously going to have to have a talk what the heck?!" he suddenly shouted when he saw four people running past the window when Korra slung over a shoulder. "They've got Korra. They've got Korra!"
Mako was awake when he heard his brother shout his question. He threw off his sheets and ran out of his rooms with his brother right behind him. "Let her go!" he shouted, coming out the front door bending fire at them. Bolin followed up with a rock pulled from the ground.
The kidnappers heard the shout and turned that way. P'Li caught the fireball with ease and broke it apart just as easily, letting the heat and energy disperse around her. Ming-Hua shattered the rock with her whips. She didn't stop there, bending a whip at them. Mako kicked a fire stream at it, deflecting it with the heat.
The other three joined in the attack, bending their own elements at the brothers. Bolin went on the defensive, bending up a small wall. It wasn't to defend them, just to slow down the attacks so he could pull himself and his brother to safety. They hid behind a column while the onslaught continued. They were safe but pinned. They couldn't move out of there without getting overwhelmed, not without help.
Mako looked up at the nearby guard tower. The guards were coming out into the open, trying to figure out what was happening. "They've got Korra!" he shouted up to them. That was all they needed to hear.
The kidnappers froze as the alarm started to wail and spotlights found them. "So much for the element of surprise," Ming-Hua remarked as they kept their backs to each other.
P'Li felt the same. "Thank Agni that Nat is away from us." She didn't need to see what came next.
Ghazan declared, "Back-up plan."
They all knew what that was. If they couldn't get out in stealth, they would get out causing a huge wreck. P'Li started it off, blasting the spotlights and destroying them. The lights were off them and they were able to move a little better now. There was still the matter of the two Benders close to them. She turned and bent a curving blast at them. It detonated not between them but in front of them.
They had some wounds but it was more the force of the blast they were concerned about. It knocked them back to the ground, stunning them. Mako came out of the daze and saw Asami standing over him, dressed in a shirt and pants, much like theirs (just with longer pants). "We can't let them take her," he told her.
"I don't think they're going to get far," she told him. "Look!"
The Zaofu guards were already engaging them but it wasn't an even fight. The guards were still coming together to try and fight. As such, their response was staggered and varied. More than that, they had been trained to capture and subdue mostly civilians, not fight in an actual battle. The kidnappers, on the other hand, could and would fight together and they knew how to fight in a battle. They were able to cover the others' weaknesses.
So as they moved across the courtyard, they were able to beat back any guards that came at them easily. But then their good luck disappeared. Three metal slabs sprang up from the ground and blocked their route. Lin bent those slabs to form a circle. Suyin and her twin sons added to that circle, even adding a roof on top so they wouldn't get out that way.
"Asami!" called out Naruto as he came over to them, holding Natsumi in hand. "What's going on?"
"Zaheer's group found their way into the city," she answered immediately. "They grabbed Korra and were trying to get out when the alarm sounded."
Natsumi started looking around. "Where are they?" she asked, trying to see them. But all she saw was a pile of slabs stacked in the middle of the courtyard.
Asami looked down at the little girl, saw her eyes and how she held her sensei's hand, and drew a conclusion. "Sensei, is she—"
He nodded. "Yes, she is."
Yue and Gāng joined the group. Natsumi saw the Water Paragon and her eyes went wide. "You!" she shouted, pointing at her.
Yue looked down at her and smiled in relief. She was safe. "Hello, Natsumi."
The little girl instantly glared. "Don't call me that! My name is Nat!"
Naruto turned his attention to Yue. "You met her?" he demanded.
"Yes, in Republic City, at the marketplace." She looked confused. "Didn't I tell you that?"
"No, you didn't. Why didn't you take her then?"
Natsumi answered that. "I didn't know her. How was I supposed to know she was telling the truth?" And quite frankly, she still had a hard time believing what she was saying was true.
Yue didn't argue with the little girl, it would've been pointless. "She's right," she told Naruto. "She was also with P'Li and whoever else was after set off explosions to create confusion. P'Li took her and ran while leaving me to deal with the guys in black."
"Tell me you got them arrested," Naruto told her.
She nodded almost hesitantly. "Technically speaking, I did. But then they broke out and vanished." She could see the anger and irritation growing on his face. She quickly added, "One of them tried chasing after Zaheer and I was nearby. I was able to kill the guy. So that's one last to worry about."
Perhaps, but that also meant they had one less person to interrogate when they finally caught them. "Worry about that later, Naruto," he told himself. "Focus on what's happening right now."
"We have you surrounded. It's over," proclaimed Kuvira to the metal cage. She and the remaining guards had joined in holding the cage still. "Release the Avatar!"
They didn't get an answer from inside the cage. It quickly became apparent why that was when the ground beneath turned into lava. It spread out at a continuous rate, making the people who were the closest to jump back so they wouldn't get burned. As the ground holding them weakened, the slabs collapsed into the lava, melting into useless slag. Zaheer's group looked all fine, standing with ease in their safe spot. They all stood around Korra, protecting what they had come to take.
Bolin saw all of this happen and could only think of one thing to say. "No way!" he exclaimed as he watched the lava spread. "That guy is Lavabending! That's awesome…ly not good for us," he finished, realizing what that meant.
Ghazan stood back up, done bending the lava. He saw the children of Toph Beifong. They were trying to stop them. Despite the situation, he allowed himself a small nostalgic smile. "Hey, kids," he said quietly.
The moment passed and he soon found himself maintaining the lava so they wouldn't be able to cross. Ming-Hua and P'Li were exchanging fire with the guard and them, preventing from getting closer.
And while all this was happening, Korra woke up. The first thing she saw was her kidnappers. "I'm going to create some cover," Zaheer told them. "We've got to get out of here!" He swung his staff upwards and began spinning it rapidly. Steam rose up from the lava, coming to the staff, rotating and growing stronger.
His plan was ruined when one of the guards saw an opportunity and took it. He bent a cable at Zaheer's hands, tying them together, and yanked him out of the island. To his credit, Zaheer bounded back up and bent the air to loosen the cables, freeing him and letting him fight the two guards attacking him.
Naruto took one look and snapped out commands. "Yue, Gāng, assist them!" Both Paragons moved as soon as they heard their names, going after Zaheer.
Meanwhile Lin, Mako, and Bolin were trying to fight the kidnappers. There wasn't much they could do except exchange the salvos. Asami never felt more useless in that moment. She was in a battle of Benders and there was nothing she could do. "How does Naruto-sensei think we could possibly fight something like this?" she wondered.
Lin had a different concern. She tried to figure it out as she fought the kidnappers. P'Li curved a blast around their shield of slabs. It was blocked when another slab was placed down in front of it. When the explosion stopped, all four looked at who had saved them: Suyin and her sons. Lin was glad to see them but that concern was still on her mind. "How did they get in here?" she demanded of Suyin as she joined them.
"I don't know," she replied. "But we're not letting them escape!"
On the other side of the lava moat, Kuvira were putting her people into action. While a few of the guards distracted the kidnappers, the others were bending metal slabs forward, arching them form a bridge to the island.
It was a good plan and would've gotten the drop on the kidnappers. But Ghazan noticed them and ruined the bridge with one surge of lava. The slab extended over the lava was shot upwards with a lava geyser. One was able to stay aboard but the other fell off. If it hadn't been for the other guards grabbing him and pulling to safety, he would've ended right in the lava.
Asami saw it happen and was worried. "There's no way to cross that moat," she told the others. She looked over at her teacher, keeping his granddaughter close behind a column. They made eye contact and she looked at the moat. He shook his head, glancing down at Natsumi. He wasn't going to leave her alone.
Suyin had a different idea, as she glanced up at the dome. "We don't need to cross it. Lin and I can drop in from the dome on cables."
Lin looked at her sister. "That's a great idea," she said sarcastically, "Except we'll get blown up the second P'Li sees us."
She did see the problem there as another explosion rocked their shield. "She's a combustion Bender." She looked at the others and said, "If one of you can stun her, her powers will be knocked out temporarily."
Mako knew who should do it. "Bolin can land a shot."
"I can?" Bolin asked.
"You have to take her out right before we drop down," Suyin told him.
"I do?" He wasn't quite sure what was going on. She didn't tell him anything else before her and her sons left. Lin followed.
Naruto watched them go. "They've got a plan." Whatever it was, he hoped that it would be enough to stop them. Zaheer was holding his own against Yue and Gāng. If it went for any longer, he would beat them back and escape.
Natsumi started tugging his pants. "Jiji! Jiji!" she whispered in a near panic, her eyes wide.
He instantly looked down at her. "What is it?" She didn't say anything. She only pointed a nervous finger up at the dome wall.
He looked up at the wall. Three people were walking across it like only shinobi could. They were trying to come around to their side. He couldn't see their eyes but he knew what they were focused on. They were coming for Natsumi. "They want to harm my granddaughter."
"Are you going to hurt them?" Kurama asked.
"Are Meelo's farts a great accelerator?"
The fox made a face at that. "Not what I would've used, but I guess it works." In spite of what he said, he felt his Jinchuriki's anger as his own. They were here to harm Natsumi, to take her away again. That would not happen.
He expected Naruto to go after them, stop them before they could even reach Natsumi. Instead, he called out, "Asami!" His apprentice pulled herself away from the barricade and ran low to his side. "Watch Natsumi!" he ordered her.
She didn't ask why. All she said was, "Yes, sir!"
Then he did something truly unexpected. He walked out of cover and shouted, "P'LI!"
The battle stopped. P'Li looked to her father, surprised at his voice. "Is he calling me out to fight him?" she wondered. She would love to put that old man down. But she also knew that it was more likely he would do that to her. The silence dragged for another second but it felt like much longer.
He raised his arm and pointed with his weapon. "Three o'clock, on the dome wall!" She looked and saw the same thing he did. "Take them down. I want them alive!"
She didn't hesitate as she blasted the wall around them. She could imagine their surprised faces as they fell off. Once she was sure they were falling, she turned her attention back to the fight in front of her.
Naruto saw them fall. "Natsumi, stay with Asami," he told his granddaughter. "She'll keep you safe."
She didn't want to but she also knew that he wouldn't want her in danger. And he was going straight to the danger. "Come back," she said.
He nodded. "I planned to." He walked off, away from the obvious fight to the one that was about to happen.
When he found the three, he hid within the shadows and waited. They were garbed in black from head to toe, covering everything but their eyes and even those were darkened by the night. "Okay, what the hell was that?" the tallest of the three demanded, looking up at the dome wall.
"Were we shot down?" asked the smallest, a woman's voice clearly confused.
The middle looked at them both. "What could've hit us? We were moving quicker than anyone could see."
Naruto mentally scoffed at that. "Please, you weren't moving that fast." If anything, they looked like they were taking a casual run. Although that did beg the question of how Natsumi could see them. Maybe it was something left over from her years gone.
"So what happened?" Tall demanded.
Middle probably glared at him (it was hard to tell when he could barely see the eyes). "How the hell should I know?"
"It's not important," decided Small. "We're here."
That stopped the fight before it could even begin. "Right, let's find that little brat," Tall declared.
Naruto went to cold inside. "Brat?" he repeated inside his head.
Middle started leading them away. "The lord wants his pet back, we get his pet back."
"Pet!?" he roared inside his head. His tenant didn't complain about the volume of his roar because he was just as angry.
"How does one lose a pet?"
Small gave Tall what was probably a sneer. "Don't ask stupid questions. The lord's pet was taken from him before she was ready. Now we have to find her and bring her back."
Middle ignored them. "We've got that battle overshadow her. Let's grab the girl and get out before anyone notices that she's missing."
At that point, Naruto decided enough was enough. They wouldn't get any further than this. But he wasn't just going to kill them right away. No, no, that would be too easy. "You're a cruel bastard, gaki," Kurama said, seeing what he was planning. "I approve."
He came stumbling out of the shadows like he was an older man woken up, leaning heavily on his Zanpakutō. In this sparse lighting, it would look like a cane. "Huh? Wha's that?" he asked, faking a yawn. "Whose there?"
The three did not look happy to see him. "Shit, a problem," muttered Tall.
Middle had an opinion already. "Kill him and let's be done with it."
"Whoa now," said Naruto, pretending to be surprised. "There's no need to go killing anyone. We're all good folk here, eh? I just came out to ask if you knew why the siren was wailing. Damn thing's so loud I couldn't hear myself think."
"No small loss there," Tall remarked quietly. He was trying to be silent but Naruto could still hear him.
Middle walked up and got in his face. From this distance, he could clearly see that it was a man underneath all that clothing. "Go away, old man. Go back to sleep and forget that you saw us," he said in a menacing voice.
Naruto pretended to consider it. "While how can I argue when you put it like that? I'll leave you youngsters to your late night shenanigans." He turned around and started walking off. "Don't let the guard catch you. You wouldn't to get in trouble."
He kept walking until he heard them start walking themselves. He stopped and looked back at them. "Oh, by the way, you said something about a pet? Any chance I can help you find it?"
"Shit, he heard us," Tall said. "You should've kept your mouth shut, old man. Now we have to kill you."
He turned around, looking shocked. "Kill me? Over a lost pet?" he asked, fearing coating his voice. "L-Listen, kiddo, I get that your parents might get mad with you losing the family pet, but there's no need to kill a person over that. Come on now."
Small started for him, a kunai in her hand. "Like he said," she told him, "You should've kept your mouth shut. We can't let anyone know about us being here."
"Why?" he asked, his voice losing all his faked emotions, "because you don't want people to see you kidnap a brown-haired, blue-eyed girl?"
That froze them in their tracks. They all had the same question. "How did he know that?"
"You're wondering how I knew that." He shifted from his slouched position to stand up straight. It made him taller and less feeble. "I'm the girl's grandfather."
Middle didn't bat an eyelash when he heard that news. "And now, you're going to be dead, old man. Do you really think you can take on the three of us?"
He stared at the man, figuring him out. And then he laughed. "Oh aren't you precious? You have no idea who I am, do you?" As Small came close, he grabbed her and threw her back at them, breaking her arm in the process. "The girl's name is Natsumi Uzumaki," he said, talking as if he was simply explaining the weather. "My name is Naruto Uzumaki."
They froze once again, this time in realizing fear. They had heard that name before. They would've been fools if they hadn't. But they never considered the possibility they would ever encounter him. Tall tried to remain confident, despite the shaky feeling in his stomach. "What of it?" he asked. "You're an old man and there are three of us."
The old man gave him a long look. "You think that because I'm old, I'm weak? Allow me to reeducate you on that." He reached for his Zanpakutō and drew it out slowly. "Shatter the chains that bind you and stand in defiance against those who would shackle you," he chanted, "Jinchūriki!"
They watched as the dangerous presence cloaking him grew even more dangerous and the sword changed into a naginata. They didn't know how that happened but as they looked at that snarling fox with the blade emerging from its mouth and the nine rings hanging from its lower jaw, they could only hold onto one thought. "We're going to die."
"Don't worry," he told them. "I'm not going to kill you." He shifted the naginata into a ready position. "I'm just going to make you regret ever coming here. Then I'm going to have you tell me everything. Fight back if you want. I could use some venting."
While Naruto was delivering some much-needed justice (in his opinion), Lin, Suyin, and the twins were on top of the dome. They came to a hatch that would open up just above the kidnappers. "Open the hatch," Wing ordered, using the radio he carried.
The hatch doors slid down into the dome and then parted, giving them a clear sight of the lava moat below. Suyin and Lin already had the straps on and the cables attached. They were ready. "If we get in trouble, Metalbend us up," Suyin told her sons.
They nodded. "We're in position," Wing said through the radio.
"Copy that," Mako said through his own radio. He looked at his brother. "It's Bolin time."
The Earthbender felt a small nervous worm in his stomach. It didn't help that they were still being fired on with explosions. "All right," he said, trying to psych himself up, "Bolin time. Bolin time!" He stood up and bent a big rock right at P'Li.
But she saw it coming and ducked it easily. The next few rocks she fended off while Ming-Hua and Ghazan came to her rescue. They turned their attentions onto Bolin, forcing him to be defensive instead of offensive. They ducked back down behind the barricade and Bolin looked at his brother. "I can't get a clean shot!
"You have to!" Mako told him.
The radio came to life with Wing's voice. "Are we a go?"
The Firebender spun around and grabbed the radio. "No go!"
"Copy that, we're a go."
"I said no! Wait!" It was too late. Lin and her sister were already falling through the air to the kidnappers. While two of the kidnappers were busy with the guards, he saw how the Firebender took notice of the sisters. "Bolin, take the shot!"
Bolin saw her getting ready to fire. "She's going to kill them," he realized. If he didn't do something, Lin and Suyin would die. His instincts told him to stop her. Those instincts, honed by the streets of Republic City, also told him not to throw big. He bent a pebble from the ground and sent right at her forehead. Like Wei that same morning, she didn't expect such a tiny thing to come at her.
It struck her clean in the forehead, knocking her head back. The explosion didn't hit the sisters but instead the pillars nearby. The shockwave knocked all three of the kidnappers down just as Lin and Suyin landed on the island.
Mako grinned. That was exactly what he wanted to happen. "Yes! Good job, little bro!"
Ghazan shook off the shockwave and saw the sisters land amongst them. Lin grabbed Korra and hefted her over her shoulder. Her attention was completely on the Avatar. Suyin's eyes found him. As soon as they made contact, he watched her eyes burn with hatred, hatred he half-felt was deserved. The old protest started to form in his throat. "I didn't mean to do it. It was an accident!"
She wouldn't hear it, just like she and her brother would never hear. She bent a column to jut out, hitting him in the chest and knocking him back down to the ground. The sisters started their ascension, getting away from the fight. Ming-Hua tried to stop them, grabbing Lin by the foot. Mako blasted her tentacle off the leg with a fire blast. As the Waterbender turned to him, he started bending fire at her.
Zaheer was still fighting Gāng and Yue. The guards had been able to hold their own against him but they were still beaten and knocked away. The Paragons were a tougher thing to get rid of, as he thought they might be. They consumed his focus so much that he didn't see what was happening to the others until he saw Lin ascending with Korra on her shoulder. "No!" he shouted in furious outrage.
He jumped back from his attackers and took off into the air. His target was Lin and he would reach her. She saw him coming. There was nothing that she could do. She ran the risk of dropping Korra if she did. When he bent an air blast at her, the only thing she could do was swerve out of the way. That didn't stop him from getting closer.
Just as he came close, Suyin reached out and pulled her away. He flew past and she bent a couple of knives at his glider, tearing holes through them. Lin watched him flew back down to the ground. "Thanks," she said to Suyin.
Zaheer was able to land in the island amongst his compatriots. "We've failed!" he declared. With a raging shout, he bent all of the smoke caused by the lava, all of its heat, and blasted it out in a windstorm. It was so fierce and strong, with heat that could sting the skin, people had to take cover to avoid it. When it finally died away and they all looked up, the kidnappers were gone, vanishing without a trace.
(Location: Konoha)
The three of them sat in a burger joint, looking over the map that Tsukiko had made. "Alright," she said, looking at her teammate. "Where do you think it is?"
Arashi already had this talk with her so he let Hiro take the lead. He chewed on a fry while the Hyūga looked at the map. "Where do you think it is?" he asked Tsukiko. They kept their voices down to keep the conversation private.
She pointed to the locations. Glancing at Arashi, she remarked, "Of course this would be a bit easier if we could simply talk to Naruto."
"I already told you, Iron Claw," he told her, swallowing the fry and getting another. "It's not happening." If they called his grandfather for help, they might as well give up now.
Hiro took his attention away from the map to look at him. "You sure about that, Arashi?" he asked.
"Positive," he said with a nod.
He sounded like he was positive. Hiro let it be. He looked back at the map. "Hmm," he said to himself. "This is just me, but I think that we should look in the Hokage Building."
Arashi gave Tsukiko a triumphant look, something she ignored. "Are you sure about that, Hiro?" she asked him.
He nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure."
"What about the other places?"
"I thought about them but it just wouldn't be logical."
Both his teammates looked at him when he said that. "Logical?" asked Arashi.
"Grandmother has been giving me lessons in logic," he told him. "She said that it will help me keep calm under pressure."
"How's that working?"
"Considering she usually asks these questions when we're sparring? I'd say rather well." He was getting fewer bruises each time they sparred. He liked to think he was improving.
Tsukiko was a little vexed that this was where the topic was going. She had to bring it back on course. "Alright, use that logic," she told Hiro. "Why's the Hokage Building better than the others?"
"Shall we start with the obvious?"
She gestured for him to go on with her drink. "Go ahead."
He took a bite out of his burger, taking a moment to savor it. Truly, this place did good burgers. They had a way to balance the meat against the cheese and vegetables. He swallowed and said, "Ichiraku Ramen. It's too obvious. Anyone could just break in and steal the scroll if it was hidden there."
"But he was their favorite customer," she protested.
He countered, "When he was living here. He hasn't been here for well over half a century."
"He's right," Arashi said. "When we went to Ichiraku's, Ms. Ayame was waiting for us with a frying pan in hand. She was going to hit him with it. That's how mad she was for him not visiting. I don't think he would leave the scroll there when he left."
"What if he left it when he came this time around?"
He shook his head. "Didn't happen," he told her. "I was with him the entire, same with my sister and uncle. He didn't have a chance to leave it there."
"What about a clone?"
He didn't have a good answer to that. "I didn't see him make any."
"Excluding the clones," Hiro said before Tsukiko could make any progress, "it's not likely that Naruto left the scroll there. The same goes for the Academy."
"Too obvious?" asked Arashi.
He nodded. "Someone else could find it there, especially if they did a poor job hiding it."
Tsukiko couldn't believe that happened. It was the summoning contract for the Toads. How would they do a poor job hiding that? Hiro looked serious about what he said, though. "You really think that would happen?" she asked.
"It's possible."
"Alright, fine. But what about his apartment?" she prodded him.
He shook his head. "Where would he place it in there? Anyone could search it. No one owns the building to prevent people from trespassing, at least no one willing to say they own the building. Anyone could wonder in and find it."
"But what if he had hidden it somehow?"
Arashi gave her a look that said he couldn't believe her. "My Jiji is not a carpenter," he told her. "Every time something broke in the apartment, we'd have to call the repairman to fix it." He was just glad that his grandfather was able to explain what ever happened with a straight face. Some of those incidents were just embarrassing, especially when he hadn't been the one to cause it.
"Thank you, Arashi," said Hiro. "So that just leaves us with the Hokage Building."
Tsukiko frowned at the map as she chewed on a fry. "You got any ideas on where the contract is in the building?"
"Not a clue."
She turned the frown at him. "That's not helpful."
He didn't back down from her frown. Instead he looked her in the eyes. "I haven't gone looking for any secured part of the building whenever we're in it. Have you?"
Admittedly, she had not. Whenever she had gone to the Hokage Building, it was to go straight to her dad's office. She didn't try to look for other places. She had no need to. "Alright fine, I haven't."
Arashi looked at the map, mentally seeing the building. But his view of it was limited to going through the front door to the Hokage's office. "Does anyone have any blueprints of the place?" he asked the others.
"No, we don't," she told him.
"Are they under lock and key?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "It could be in the library records."
"Then we should take a look at them."
Hiro thought about it. It was a sound idea but he saw a problem with it. "We can't rely completely on the blueprints. They're likely to have left things out to protect any secrets they'd place there."
"Like the Toad scroll," Tsukiko said with an annoyed snort.
He nodded. "Exactly that," he agreed.
Arashi looked at both of them. "So we need to get inside the Hokage Building, figure out where they would hide the contract, grab the contract, and get out of there without causing any kind of alarm, all before sunset."
It seemed a lot of trouble but they didn't back down from it. "Should be easy, right?" Tsukiko asked him with a slight sense of sarcasm.
He gave her just as much back. "Oh yes, we should breeze right through it."
Hiro smiled. "It's nice to see we're all on the same page," he told the both of them with the same sarcasm. "But can we focus, please? We need to figure out how we're going to get in there and know where we're going."
Arashi looked at the map once more. "I think I have an idea."
They looked at him. "What is it?"
"Well, it's going to depend on something."
"What's that going to be?" Tsukiko asked. He looked right at her.
Madara was working on the paperwork when his door opened. "Hey, Dad," Tsukiko said as she strode in.
He looked up at her with a surprised eye. "Tsuki, this is a surprise."
"Not really. You forgot to grab your lunch on the way out." She held up the wrapped bento box for him to see.
He was glad to see it. He had forgotten it this morning and was concerned that he would have to eat out for lunch. That wasn't bad, per se. But he always preferred to eat in the office. He was able to get a little more work done that way. "Thank you, dear." He took the bento from her and placed it on his desk.
"There're chopsticks inside," she told him.
"Thank you."
She looked at the desktop. The paperwork just engulfed the table. "How's the work coming?" she asked.
"It's coming along perfectly fine." In fact, the way he was working he would probably be able to get home a little early today.
"Good, that's good."
He stopped and looked at her. She had done what was asked of her, delivering the bento box. She didn't have any other reason for being here. It was all rather suspicious. "Do you need something else, Tsuki?"
She looked surprised but he could tell that it was faked. "Why would you ask that, Dad? Can't I see my own dad at his work place?"
"The last time you did that, you got so bored that you wanted to leave after five minutes."
She wished that he hadn't remembered that. Mom had been upset the rest of the day because of that. "I was six," she told him. It was a weak defense but it was all she really had.
"Do you need something else, Tsuki?" he asked her again.
She didn't say anything in protest or at all. She closed her mouth and looked over at the door. Was she waiting for someone to come through? She looked back at him and asked, "Can we talk, Dad?"
"I believe we're already doing that."
She frowned. "You know what I mean."
He did but that would be too easy. "I'm afraid that I don't."
"Dad!" she huffed frustratingly. It was still adorable even when she was this old.
He smiled and shrugged his shoulder helplessly. "I'm at a loss here, Tuski. Help me out."
"Come on, Dad." She knew that he was faking it. Sometimes she thought that he did it just to irritate her. She decided to cut through it all. "Can we talk privately?"
"We are."
"No, Dad. Not this kind of private." She looked at the door once more. "Can we talk in private where no one will come in and interrupt us?"
"Ah, now we're getting to the meat of this." He tapped the intercom. "Yuki, please ensure that no one comes into my office until I say so."
"Of course, Lord Hokage," his secretary replied. His daughter went over to the door and closed it quickly, than coming back.
He turned his attention back to her. "So, what is it? Are you here to ask about the Toad contract?"
"You know about that?" As soon as she asked that question, she felt like an idiot. He was the Hokage. Of course he would know about something like this. "Why don't you think, girl? Think!"
Her father just looked at her. "Of course I know about it. I have to warn you, Tsuki. If you try asking me for help, your chances of actually becoming the Toad Sage dwindle."
She scowled. "I wasn't asking about that. Jeez, Dad, what do you take me for?"
He smiled at that. She was his daughter and he couldn't be prouder. "I'm sorry that I asked, Tsuki. But what are you here for if you don't want to talk about that?"
"I want to talk about the Slug contract. Oba has it, right?"
Madara knew what she was doing. She was asking for her teammate instead of her. He leaned back into his chair and looked at her. "She does. Are you going to ask where it is?"
"No, I'm not going to do that," she told him, standing a little easier. "I just wanted to be sure about who has it."
"And you're not going to tell Hiro?"
"No, we already guessed that she had it. This was just me confirming it."
"Clever girl," he thought to himself. She was learning. "Is there anything else you'd like to know?"
She nodded. "Actually, yes," she said, "Do you know if Oba plans on giving any kind of test for the contract?"
"If I tell you, are you going to tell your teammate?"
"Not directly."
He looked at her with a suspicious eye. That could have a lot of meanings. "Care to explain that one?" he asked her.
She eased her weight back and looked a little unsure. "If I was to tell Hiro what the test is, you or someone would find out and tell Oba. Then Oba would change the test completely and catch Hiro by surprise, probably even failing him."
"What's wrong with failing?"
That, she didn't know what he was saying. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked.
"Exactly what I said: what's wrong with failing?"
"Uh, everything?" she said. Kami knows just how many times she had failed in the Academy. She could still hear the laughter from whenever she made a mistake. It was something that both embarrassed her and urged her on.
"Why's that?"
"Nobody wants to fail. To fail means that you did something wrong and there's no coming back from that."
He shook his head slightly. "I wouldn't go that far as to say that."
How could he say that? He was the Hokage. He had to be careful of what he did because the mistakes he might make could be disastrous. "Dad, one wrong mistake on the battlefield could cost someone their life." She had seen it nearly happen to Tsume and the sight still haunted her.
"True, but what about the other kind of mistakes, the ones that are less dangerous?"
"They're something that still should be avoided."
"Wrong, Tsukiko. It's not that you avoid mistakes that will define you. It's what you do after the mistake is made. Do you deny that the mistake had been made and refuse to acknowledge it at all? Or do you learn from the mistake and try to make sure that it doesn't happen again?"
Tsukiko knew the answer to that one. It was how she was able to say, "The second one," fast and easily. Not acknowledging one's mistakes was stupid. No one learned anything from it if they did that.
"Then why would you want to avoid mistakes?"
She stopped, realizing that he had caught her. "We're getting off-topic here," she said quickly "Could you tell me what Oba might have planned for Hiro if he trained to become her apprentice?"
"Unfortunately, that's up to your Oba and not me. If she has anything planned for a test, I wouldn't know about it."
She sighed in defeat, even though she knew this was probably going to be the case. "Well, I had to ask."
"Why did you ask?"
"I heard about what happened to Arashi during his test. If Hiro was going to be tossed into a tunnel to be chased by slugs, at the very least I want to make sure he's prepared." She didn't think that it would actually happen like that, since it would be stupid to have the same kind of test for different contracts. It just felt like an appropriate example.
Her father understood what she was saying and nodded his agreement. "That's good of you, Tsukiko. You're a good teammate."
"I try."
"So, care to tell me how your own search for the Toad scroll is going?"
She was fast to say, "Nope."
There was a fake look of hurt on his face when he heard that. "Oh, are you so sure?"
"I'm sure. Sorry, Dad. But if I tell you know, I just know it would get more complicated." She didn't accuse him as she spoke. She was stating the truth as she saw it.
But he lost the look and smiled approvingly at her. "Smart girl," he told her. "Keep it up."
She turned for the door, taking that as a dismissal. "Alright, Dad, see you at home."
"See you, Tsuki."
She opened the door and walked back into the hallway, closing that door behind her. She walked through the hallway, going down the stairs, and then out the front door. As she stepped out, Arashi appeared by her side, walking beside her like it was completely normal. "Well?" she asked in a whisper.
"I think I know where to look."
"Thank Kami for that." She didn't think that her distracting her dad while her teammate looked through the building would've actually worked. But it did and they were both, no one the wiser. "Alright, let's regroup with Hiro and plan this out."
"Lead the way." They both walked through the village with a quick and determined pace.
(Location: Zaofu)
They brought Korra to Suyin's office, laying her down on the couch. She could see her friends on the other couch, looking at her worriedly. Yue and Gāng stood at the window behind them, looking angry but controlled. She wanted to say something, anything. But her body just couldn't move.
Aiwei knelt down beside her, a bottle in his hand. "This should neutralize the shirshu toxins," he told her, pressing the bottle against her lips.
She felt the liquid flow into her mouth. It tasted bitter, almost rancid. If she could, she would've spat it out. But it went down her throat and she swallowed. The numb feeling all around her body began to fade away. She started to feel that she was in control. She tried to move her arm. Her finger started to rise shakily.
As soon as she saw the Avatar trying to move again, Lin turned on her sister. "How could you let this happen?!" she demanded. "You assured me this was one of the most secure places in the world."
"It is," Suyin protested. "I don't know how this happened. Obviously this was a well-planned operation, so don't blame me."
Kuvira appeared at the office's door with clanking iron. "We searched the entire estate," she reported. "There's no sign of them."
Lin barked an order at her. "Well, keep looking!"
Aiwei stood up from his checking of Korra. "It would seem they had some inside knowledge of Zaofu," he told the sisters. "They must've been working with someone."
Korra felt enough strength in her body to try moving again. She did so slowly but she still rose up. "The," she said, trying to make sure she didn't pass out again, "the guards. It had to be one of them."
"I agree."
Suyin looked enraged at the mere idea of it. "Question them all!" she ordered. "Whoever betrayed my city will suffer the consequences!"
Aiwei looked at her with a cautious look. "Do I have your permission to question all who might be involved?"
"Didn't she already say that?" Asami asked herself.
"Yes!" she said, storming out of the room.
Aiwei didn't start his interrogations right away. Everyone was simply too tired for that. They all slept that night (this time, Asami shared a room with Korra) and the next morning, Aiwei started having the guards brought to him while Mako, Korra, Suyin, and Lin watched in silence. He asked them all the same questions, not a single one changing.
"What is your full name?"
"Where were you last night?"
"Do you have any knowledge of the people who tried to kidnap the Avatar?"
Each guard that came answered honestly. They knew that because each time Aiwei would look at Suyin and shake his head. As the questionings went on, Aiwei decided to change it a little and bring in people other than the guards. His first choice was Varrick, which quickly proved to be something he wasn't expecting.
"What was I doing last night?" the businessman and inventor asked. "Same thing I always do. From nine to ten, I checked my body for ticks. Lyme disease is a serious killer. Then I did my nightly Varrick calisthenics," he got out of the chair and leaned against it, showing what the exercise was, "followed by thirty minutes of breath holding. I filmed the whole thing if you want to watch it."
"Don't laugh, don't laugh," Korra told herself, covering her mouth so that the giggle wouldn't get out. She looked at Mako, who was pinching his nose in irritation. They had both known this was coming when the truth seer didn't. She had to wonder if Varrick did this kind of thing on purpose, acting like the situation wasn't serious.
"That won't be necessary," Aiwei said, clearly exasperated.
Lin watched Varrick leave, his assistant right behind him. She was tempted to cuff him and haul him back to Republic City for what he did there. But she did nothing. She had more important things to worry about. "Maybe it wasn't a guard after all," she told the others. "Maybe it was someone a little higher up the food chain. Aiwei, why don't you question Su?"
Korra couldn't believe that she just heard that. She had thought their fighting was over. "Lin, stop!" she said, getting between the two of them. "Your sister was not involved!"
"No," said Suyin, walking around the table. "I'll gladly be questioned. I have nothing to hide." She sat down across from Aiwei.
The truth seer hesitated for a moment but still asked her, "What is your full name?"
"Suyin Beifong," she answered. "I'm the daughter of Toph and sister to Lin and Gāng, and I had nothing to do with the attack last night."
He looked back at the others. "She is telling the truth."
Korra was getting frustrated and it was showing. "This is a waste of time! Just bring in the next guard!"
Mako wasn't so sure it was a waste of time. He wondered why his chief did that. Why would she have her own sister submit to the testing? "Hang on," he thought to himself. "If the leader submits to the testing and comes out clean, like everyone knew she would be, it makes it easier for everyone else to do it too." Was that what Lin did? He looked at his chief with the question on his face. She nodded once.
The next guard was practically a kid, the same age as Korra and Mako. "Give me your name and tell me where you are from," Aiwei told him.
"I'm Hong Li. I was born and raised here in Zaofu."
"Do you have any knowledge of the people who tried to kidnap the Avatar?"
"No.
Suyin saw Aiwei stiffen and lean forward. He was onto something. "Did you help the attackers enter Zaofu last night?" he asked.
"No, of course not," Hong Li replied.
"You're lying."
"What?!" he asked, shocked by his accusation. "No, I'm not!"
It was all Suyin needed to hear. She stormed around the table and stood over the guard. "How did they get in and out?" she demanded. He didn't answer fast enough so she grabbed him by his armor and shoved him against the wall. "Where are they now?"
He was scared. He had never seen this side of his boss before. "I don't know! I'm telling you, I didn't help them!"
She didn't believe him. "You're a traitor to the entire clan!"
Aiwei had an idea. "I suggest we search his place."
Hong Li's sergeant knew where he lived and directed them to his address. It was an apartment in one of the outer sectors. Aiwei opened the door and led them in. It was a decent place to live but that's not what they were concerned about. They started looking through the apartment, trying to find the evidence that would prove he was a traitor.
Mako was shifting through the paperwork on the desk. It looked a lot like his desk at HQ. He found a piece of paper unlike the others. "I got something!" he called out to the others, picking up the paper.
"What?" Bolin called out from the kitchen, his mouth stuffed full of cookies and his hands holding the jar. He put the jar down and joined the others as they gathered on Mako.
"It looks like it's from them," he said. He read the note. "'Team assembled. Ready to rendezvous.'"
"And look at this," Asami said to Aiwei, handing a book to him.
He took it and opened it. It didn't take him to realize what it was. "These are the guards' logbooks." He looked at Mako, who was reading it from an angle. "All their schedules and routes are in here."
"That guard knows everything," Korra declared as he closed the book. "We have to get him to talk."
"Let's go confront him with this evidence right now," said Mako.
"No," Aiwei told him. "Let's give him a little time to sweat it out. He will talk eventually. If you'll excuse me," he told them as he walked away.
"Where are you going?" Asami asked.
"To continue the interrogations," he told her.
"Why? We've already found the guy."
He looked at her like a teacher looking at a slow student. "He could have accomplices, Ms. Sato. This way, we can shake the rest of them out. Also, it'll give him more time to sweat and be nervous."
It was understandable and plausible. But Asami found herself distrusting him for those words. Mako had a small suspicion about the truth seer.
His suspicion stayed with him as they went back to the battleground. Korra had Naga start sniffing around to find a scent. "I don't understand why we're not talking to that guard right now," he told the others. "Every minute we waste here, those guys get further away. I mean, how does a random guard get involved with a group of super criminals anyway?"
They all gathered on him. "What do you mean?" Asami asked him. She was distrustful but she wanted to hear what he had to say.
"That guard is only eighteen years old and has lived in Zaofu his entire life. Zaheer and his gang have been in prison for more than thirteen years."
"I don't know," said Korra, "but we all saw the evidence. It's pretty overwhelming."
"Maybe a little too overwhelming?" suggested Varrick as he popped up beside them. They all reacted with surprise, Asami even more so. On instinct she threw a punch at him. "Whoa there!" he yelped, ducking the punch. He came back up and looked at her. "What'd I do this time?"
"You appeared out of thin air," she said. "Don't do that."
He realized what she was doing. "Ah, I see. They still are ambushing you?"
"Yes."
"I remember those days." He didn't say it with fondness.
"Hey, Varrick," Bolin said to the man. "What are you doing here?"
He hopped over the ledge that separated them. His arms were full of rocks. "Collecting pumice stones with Zhu Li. That Lavabender did a lot of damage, but he makes a nice exfoliating rock, and when you got callouses like mine, you take all the pumice stones you can get your hands on. Or in my case, feet," he said. While he was talking, Zhu Li was rubbing his foot with a pumice stone.
Needless to say, they were rather disgusted by what they saw. They showed it on their faces. Even Pabu ran off from the sight. Mako shook off his disgust and looked at Varrick. "What were you saying about the evidence?" he asked him.
"I was saying that I can smell a conspiracy when I see one. Look, if I was trying to set someone up, I would tell everyone he's guilty and then plant the evidence in his apartment as proof."
"Oh, you mean exactly like what you did to me?"
"Yes, just like that! Remember how great that worked?" It took him a moment to remember the details. "Well, not for you."
Despite bringing up bad memories, Mako saw his point. "You're right. All the evidence points to this guard, but maybe he's just the fallback."
Bolin asked, "But for who?"
"For the only person who can truly keep a secret in this city: Aiwei." The others thought about it. It made a certain sense.
Naga stopped sniffing and looked up. She didn't outright growl but there was a warning rumble in her throat. It made Korra stop and look at what she saw. It was a little girl coming fast at them, her blue eyes worried. Those eyes looked familiar, but she couldn't place them.
Asami did. "Natsumi?" she called out.
She came to a halting stop with a scowl. "Don't call me that."
She was a little confused. "Isn't it your name?"
"Yes."
"Then why shouldn't we call you Natsumi?"
"Because I don't want you to!" she snapped.
Mako stepped between them. "Alright, there's no need to get angry," he told the girl. "What should we call you then?"
She looked at him for the longest moment and broke eye contact, her cheeks blushing. "Call me Nat," she said, unable to look him in the eyes.
Even though he wasn't that close to his brother or the girl, Bolin could see it all happening and he knew what it meant. Considering Mako's love life and his somewhat involvement in that life, his first thought wasn't amusement or despair. Instead, it was more along the lines of "Oh great, another one."
If Mako was aware of what the blushing was all about, he didn't say anything about it. "What is it you need, Nat?" he asked.
She didn't look at him but at Asami. "I was looking for you. You work with my Jiji, right?"
Asami said, "I'm his apprentice if that's what you mean."
"Then you might want to hurry."
"Why?"
CRASH!
She whipped her head back at where the sound came from. "That's why." She looked nervous and scared. "Jiji's mad."
Asami knew full well what that meant. So did the others. They had all seen what happened when Naruto got mad. Ba Sing Se came to mind. It was enough to make them start running. Asami grabbed hold of Natsumi's hand. "Stay close to me!"
They all ran to where they heard the sound. It was just outside the interrogation room. The guards were already there, trying to stop the fight from going on. At least that was what they were supposed to do. They were more or less standing on the outskirts and watching, perhaps even trying to make sure that it didn't get any bigger.
Asami reached them and pushed through, coming to a standstill when she saw what was happening. Naruto was beating Aiwei senseless. The truth was becoming more and more just a bundle of bruises and injuries. There was anger and fury in her sensei's eyes as he swung his weapon and fist in tandem.
She wanted to stop him but she probably knew better than anyone not to get in his way when he was like this. Apparently, Suyin was braver than her. She pushed through the other side with Lin and Gāng by her side. "What is this?" she demanded, her face showing her outrage.
Naruto stopped his beating and looked up at her. "Suyin, good," he said, coming off the seer and marching up to her. "I've got a question for you."
"As do I," she told him. "What the hell are you doing beating Aiwei to a bloody pulp!?"
"No, I've got a better question: who the fuck gave him permission to interrogate my granddaughter!?"
Whatever anger she had, it faded away at those words. "What?" she asked.
"You heard me."
She was still having trouble believing it. Gāng took over. "Naruto, are you sure?" he asked.
He glared hard at the blind man. "Of course I'm sure!" He pointed back at the man on the ground. "I found him in the interrogation room with Natsumi close to tears!"
"You…you…" Aiwei tried saying.
He glared at the truth seer. "Did I say you could talk?"
He still kept trying to talk. "You…didn't need to throw…me through the window." The broken glass laid out a wide pattern from where it shattered.
The old man's voice was cold when he said, "I didn't need to. I wanted to."
Gāng took him by the arm. "Come on, let's go spar. You could use some venting."
He didn't go easily. "Natsumi, where are you?"
The girl broke free of Asami's grip and raced to his side. "Here, Jiji," she said, taking hold of his other hand. "And please stop calling me that."
"Not a chance."
As they walked off, Asami looked at Korra and the others. "I'll, uh, I'll go after them," she said quickly. "See if they need some help." The very least she could be was a punching bag.
Lin waited until all four of them were out of sight and hearing before she whirled around onto Aiwei. "What the hell were you thinking!?" she demanded.
He was able to pull himself off the ground and looked up at her. He tried to look calm and serene as he had been before. It would've worked better if his face wasn't a tapestry of bruises. "I was given permission to interview any I believed to be involved in the Avatar's abduction."
"His granddaughter!?" she hissed out at him.
"She came in with them," he replied. "She could've known how they did or what they planned next."
Mako couldn't believe what he was hearing from this guy. He was talking about interrogating a little girl about things that were too horrible for her. "And Naruto found you out," he said, narrowing his glare at the man. "When did he throw you out the window?"
Aiwei frowned but said, "After he had Natsumi leave the room."
"That must've been when she ran to come find us." But now he was even more suspicious of Aiwei. Perhaps Varrick was onto something. He looked at Korra and Bolin. They nodded in silent agreement. They had to find out.
(Location: Konoha)
It was late in the afternoon. The Hokage building was slowly beginning to close for the day. It was signaled when the Hokage had left for home. Everyone else was starting to follow him out the door. That was the moment Tsukiko and her team chose to strike.
They were able to walk through the front door easily. It was what came next that would be the most difficult. "Remember," she told her teammates. "Act casual."
"We know," Hiro said. But it was easier said than done. It felt like his palms were sweating.
They walked through the building acting like they were supposed to be there. It seemed to be working since no one was stopping them and asking where they were going. The corridor felt like it was going on forever but they knew it was just their nerves.
The door to the restricted section wasn't guarded. It made them cautious. "Is it locked?" Arashi asked as they approached. It looked like any other door in the building but he knew it had to be the one. No one else had gone near it when he explored earlier and it wasn't the bathroom.
Tsukiko pulled out the lock-pick she had grabbed from the house and activated her Sharingan. She stopped short when she saw the lock. "What the…?"
Hiro almost ran into her when she stopped. "Whoa," he yelped quietly, trying to keep his voice down. "Tsukiko, why are you stopping?"
"The door's unlocked."
"Sorry?"
"The door's unlocked," she said again, a little more insistently.
Arashi looked quickly behind them. There was no one there but it could change at any more. They couldn't waste time here. "Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure." She could see that the lock had already been picked. But why would it be picked? Were they being given a bone?
Hiro wondered the same thing and he wasn't sure what it meant. Every bone in his body was shaking with uneasiness. "I don't like this," he told the others. "Something's not right."
"I'm with him on this one," Arashi agreed, looking at Tsukiko.
She knew what they were feeling. She felt the same way. Something was definitely going on here. But there was another emotion piling into her stomach: determination. "Come on, guys. We can't stop now." They didn't say anything. Her heart fell. "Are you going to give up now?"
They both shared a look of surprise. "Of course not," Hiro told her.
"We're behind you, Iron Claw," Arashi agreed. "We just have to be careful now."
"We're already being careful," she pointed out to him.
He didn't blink at that. "Then we have to be more careful."
"Should go without saying," she retorted.
"Like how we should be getting through the door?" asked Hiro. No one answered that one.
Instead, they went through the door, walking slowly in case they sent off some kind of alarm. Nothing happened. Hiro closed the door behind them. All that was in front of them was a single staircase. They went up it with enough speed to be quick but cautious enough to make sure they didn't rush in.
The stairs led to one door. This was unlocked too. "What's going on?" Tsukiko asked.
"I don't know," Arashi replied.
They went through the door and came out into a darken corridor. The only light came from the windows, shining into shapes on the ground. They looked up and saw security cameras on the walls, focused on the corridor. The Genin saw they were still activated and felt actual relief. It wasn't going to be as easy as they thought. "Okay, a problem," Hiro said.
Tsukiko nodded. "Luckily, a problem we know how to work." They made the assumption there would be cameras to deal with. "You got the can?"
Arashi reached into his coat and grabbed the cans of spray paint and the masks. "Right here," he said, handing the rest of them to Hiro and Tsukiko. They took the moment to put the masks over their mouths and double-checked the cans. "We all good?" he asked. They gave him silent thumbs up.
He went first, walking up to the camera's line of sight. He got close to the wall and crawled up it, going on all fours. As he got above the camera, he took the can in hand and leaned out to the camera. It was a bit of stretch, one that could probably be fixed if he stood on the wall instead of crawl, but he was able to cover the camera with black paint. "That's one," he thought to himself as he pulled himself back.
He looked at Hiro, ushering him forward. As the Hyūga went to the next camera, he came off the wall. "Try doing standing up," he whispered to his teammate as they passed each other. They didn't know if the camera had sound too. It was best not to risk it.
Hiro nodded. "Okay." He went to the wall and then up, getting above the next camera. He stayed on his feet and reached out for the camera. His balance shook but he was able to cover the camera with the paint.
He came down and Tsukiko took the next camera. Like her teammates, she was able to cover it with paint. "We're making good time," she thought to herself as she came back down to the ground.
When discussing the cameras, Hiro had been the one who suggested the spray paint. They would take one camera each. The other two move forward once that camera was covered. While one covered the camera, the others were able to get a little bit of a breather and rest their chakra. In essence, they were leap-frogging through the cameras.
It was a process that took some time but not as much as they thought it would take. Arashi wondered if it was because they were much more confident about walking on something that wasn't a floor. Back in the Academy they all thought that it was impossible to walk on a wall. Then he grabbed that kunai and proved the other students wrong.
That wasn't to say they were all instantly good. If anything, the first couple of times they tried it, all three of them were failing their arms trying to keep their balance on trees. But now, they were able to crawl and walk on walls several times. They were a little winded but they still kept going.
They reached the end of the hallway, each camera spray-painted black. There were several doors on each side. "Which one do we go through?" Hiro asked.
Tsukiko didn't answer. She was too busy focusing on all the doors. Arashi waited for her to say something. This was her mission. She had the first say in what happened. But she said nothing. So he did. "I think that we should try each door."
"What? All of them?"
He nodded. "You take one side, I'll take the other."
He shook his head quickly. "That's not going to work, Arashi. Look," he said with a sharp gesture. "There are too many doors. We'll be opening long after the sun goes down."
"Then we'll open each door and check. If there's nothing there, we move on."
"And what if there's a hallway past the door? We would have to search it and we don't have the time for it."
He scowled and folded his arms. "Than what do you suggest? You got an idea?"
"No."
Tsukiko folded her hand into a seal. "Kai (Release)!"
They both looked at their teammate with surprise. Then the hallway changed. The doors all vanished. There was only left, right at the end. She looked back at them with her eyes alight with the Sharingan. "You guys didn't consider Genjutsu?"
"Uh…no," said Arashi.
Hiro agreed, "No, we did not." In hindsight, that was probably something they should've done.
She smirked at the dyed redhead. "How about that?" she asked, "I did something that you hadn't thought about." That was a good feeling.
He looked at her dryly. "How about we save the gloating for later? We're on the clock."
She stopped instantly. He was right. They went through the door and found themselves standing inside what could pass as a library, if a library was in a single room and only a shelf per row. But the shelves were long and they were all stacked with scrolls and books. "Whoa," said Hiro as they entered the room, looking at everything on the shelves. "That's a lot of paper."
Arashi looked at them all, trying to find the right one. "It's not going to be at the front," he decided. "It would be too easy."
"So farther in the back?" he asked.
The dyed redhead nodded. "Yeah, farther in the back," he agreed.
"Move it," Tsukiko told the both of them.
They went down the room, trying to find the scroll. But nothing stood out. They were walking between scrolls and books that probably held a lot of power or secrets and they didn't want any of it. "If someone else thought that," Hiro silently remarked, "He would've been thought of as insane." Of course, people might think the same of them if they ever told this story.
Arashi's hand struck out and grabbed him by the shirt, making him stop. "Hey, what's the big idea?" he demanded, looking at his teammate angrily.
He pointed down. "Look."
His pale eyes looked down at the floor. On the floorboard he was about to step on, there was a small kanji written in ink. It could've looked like a smudge but it was in the center of the room. "What is that?" he asked, carefully putting his foot back down.
"My guess would be a seal of some kind. One step on it and you would've set off the alarm."
He couldn't take his eyes off it. "So we should be careful about we step then."
Tsukiko look back at him. "We do that, we lose time." They couldn't afford to lose time now that they were here.
"So what do we do?"
"I…I'm not sure."
Hiro looked at her with a disbelieving look. "Are you serious? We're here but we're not going any further because you don't know what to do?" They didn't need the irony.
She flashed him an angry look. "You got a better idea?"
Arashi did and he couldn't believe they didn't see it themselves. In any other time, it could've been funny. "Guys?" he said.
They turned their heads on him and said together, "What?"
He pointed at Tsukiko. "You've got the Sharingan." His finger found its way to Hiro. "And you've got the Byakugan. One of those dōjutsu can see chakra, can't they?" If there were more seals in the room, they were probably powered by chakra.
They didn't say anything. They just looked at each other with surprise. It quickly turned into embarrassment. He was right. They could use their eyes to check for chakra. "Hiro, you can see it better than me," she told him. "You do it."
He nodded in agreement. "Byakugan!" he said, activating the dōjutsu.
Arashi watched the veins popped out around his teammate's eyes. It was a little creepy to watch it happened, even after all the times he had seen it happen. "What do you got, Hiro?" he asked.
"You were right. It does look like there're additional seals on the ground. We're going to have to be careful walking across them."
Tsukiko took that information and thought it through. "Alright, is there any in front of us?"
"Yeah, just a couple of steps forward, on the left side," he told her, bringing his head up. "You're going to need to—" He trailed off as he focused on what down the room. "There's someone else in here."
His teammates became alert instantly. "A custodian?" asked Arashi. "Is this part of the test?"
"Maybe?" he asked back.
Tsukiko moved forward. There was time to wonder later. "Come on," she told the both of them.
They went through the room, careful not to hit any seals. They reached the room's end and found a big man standing amidst fallen scrolls. He held in his hands a big scroll, looking quite satisfied with himself. He looked up, saw them, and scowled. That was all Arashi needed to understand what he was doing. "He's got the contract."
The man snarled his teeth in frustration. Hiro saw how he was ready to move and took an aggressive Jūken stance. "There's nowhere for you to go," he warned.
The man turned around and swung his arm once. The entire back wall fell down, leaving a gaping hole that he leapt out of. Needless to say, the Genin were flummoxed. "I didn't see that coming," said Arashi.
"Me neither."
Tsukiko surged forward, right for the hole. "Guys, he's getting away. After him!" she cried. She leapt out the hole and they followed her.
(Location: Zaofu)
While Aiwei was being treated at the hospital, Korra and the others took the chance to go to his house. Asami went with them since Naruto hadn't any need for her. Bolin looked through the window. "He's not home," he told them.
Mako gave him a long look. "We know he's not home. That's why we're here now."
"Oh, right."
He looked past his brother at Korra and Asami. "We have to get in there and find some evidence that links Aiwei to Zaheer, otherwise Su won't believe us."
The door was unlocked, letting them in easily. Aiwei's house had the same layout as Hong Li's apartment. That's where the similarities ended. Aiwei's was much more furnished, showing how high up he was in the social structure. But as they looked around, they couldn't really find anything. Korra saw Asami flipping through a book on a shelf. "Find anything?" she asked.
Asami shook her head. "It's just an empty book." They both went back to the search.
While the others searched, Bolin got distracted by something he saw on the bookshelf. It was a jar that looked like different kinds of sands. He picked it up and held it in his hand. It was rough to the touch but still look memorizing. "Hmm, it's like a desert on a jar."
Mako looked up from the desk he was searching and saw his brother holding the jar. "Bolin, put that back!" he ordered him instantly. "We don't want Aiwei to know we were in here if we can't find anything." Bolin turned back to the shelves and put the jar back. But he wasn't sure of where it should be placed.
Mako wasn't surprised. "You forgot where it goes, didn't you?" He took the jar from his brother and placed it back where he had seen it last. As he looked back at his brother, he also noticed something on the floor next to the bookcase. "These look like scuff marks," he said, kneeling down so he could have a better look. "I think this bookshelf slides open."
They all gathered on him as he pulled it open. The bookshelf moved easily, revealing a flight of stairs going down to a single metal door. "What do you think is down there?" asked Korra.
"Could be a storage cellar," Bolin offered.
Mako had a different idea. "Or it could be how Zaheer got in and out."
While the Benders were on the staircase, the Paragon apprentice kept a lookout near the door. So when she saw the truth seer coming back, she shouted out, "Aiwei's coming back! Quick."
They bolted out of the tunnel. Mako slammed the bookshelf shut. "I thought he was supposed to be in the hospital."
"It looks like he got out." He didn't look that good either. His glasses were held together with what looked like tape and he was swathed in bandages. Naruto certainly did a number on him. But in her sensei's eyes, he had deserved it.
Aiwei walked through the door and found the four of them standing there. "What are doing in my house?" he asked them, both surprised and angry to see them. "You are trespassing on the property of one of the highest-ranked officials in the city. You'd better have a good explanation."
Bolin spoke first before anyone else could. "We do. We do. We actually knocked on your front door and we thought we heard you say," his voice shifted to a higher pitch, "'Come in, I'm in the bathroom!'" He tried smiling to make it believable but no one was having it. He gave up quickly. "I don't even know why I'm saying that. You know I'm lying, and you don't even sound like that."
That's when Korra took over the talking. "We came here because things weren't adding up, and we thought you might have some answers," she told the truth seer.
He eyed them all suspiciously. For a second, they didn't know what to expect from him. Finally, he gestured to his couch. "Sit. If you want to talk, let's talk over some tea." They sat down on the couch and waited while he made and pour the tea. "Now, what is not adding up exactly?" he asked them. He wasn't sitting down with them. "Hong Li was clearly lying and we found evidence in his apartment."
"But don't you think it's weird how young he is?" Mako asked him. "How did he ever get mixed up with this group?"
He walked over to the bookshelf. "Perhaps through a relative, or maybe he was bribed. We will find out those answers in time. But if wasn't him, who do you think it was?"
They all looked at each other. They couldn't say that they thought it was him, not without evidence. There was the tunnel but he could probably explain it. "We don't know," Asami finally said.
"You don't think I had something to do with this, do you?" he asked, sliding the jar back to its original place. Bolin froze in a small panic.
Korra looked at him quickly, silently assuring him. "We're just looking for answers," she told the truth seer.
"And you think you've found something, don't you?" No one said anything. The air tensed as the silence went on. Aiwei looked back at them. Something changed in his eyes. "You have no idea what is coming for you, Avatar." He turned around fully and bent a metal wall up from the floor, dividing the room between him and them.
Mako was the first to spring out of his chair, bending a fireball at the seer. The wall came up too fast and it blocked the fire. Korra came out of her chair at the wall. She struck it, trying to bend the metal open. All she got was a big dent in it. "Come on, he's getting away!" Mako told her.
She glared at her ex-boyfriend. "I'm still a little new at this, so back off!" He wisely kept his mouth shut.
She took a deep breath and tried again. The dent deepened into a crack. With another breath she opened the crack into a hole. They went through the hole and ran down the tunnel steps. Korra reached for the handle and pushed it down, opening the door.
It swung open and what happened next would feel like it happened in slow motion for the rest of her life. She saw the oil drum wired with explosives in the middle of the room and her eyes widened in surprise. A second later, the entire exploded. It was an explosive that barreled its way up the steps into the house, shattering the glass windows with its force. The sound attracted the attention of the nearby guards. They called it in and ran to the building, hoping that people were still alive in there.
There were. While she had been surprised by the explosive, Korra was able to react fast. She bent the air into a shield, protecting all four of them from the explosion. The force of it pounded at her shield for a long moment, making her fight to hold it. Then it was gone and the explosion was done.
She lowered the shield and they all went into the room, ready for another fight. There was none to have. The room was a complete wreck, destroyed by the explosion. "He's gone," Mako declared.
Korra put down her arms. She saw something at the end of the room. It was a crack in the wall, large enough for someone to get through. It was covered in rubble and debris. "Look, he must've escaped through there!" she told the others. She looked at Bolin. "Help me clear it out."
He nodded. Together they bent the rubble to the side, taking the debris with them. Once it was all cleared, Asami saw the crack was actually a tunnel that had collapsed. She wondered how far Aiwei was now. "He only had a couple of seconds on us, maybe half a minute." That was still enough time to have set the explosive and run. He could've been out of the tunnel before they got halfway through.
Gāng, his sisters, and Naruto ran into the room behind them. "What happened?" Lin asked, concerned. "We heard an explosion."
"Where's Aiwei?" asked Suyin.
Korra looked at her. "Your trusted adviser is the one who betrayed us. He was lying about the guard."
"What? No!"
Naruto, while not as surprised as her, was still a little surprised. Once he got past the surprise, he thought about it. "It makes sense," he told Suyin. "Who would've expected the truth seer to be lying?"
"Not you, that's for certain," remarked the fox.
"Did I ask for your opinion?"
"No. Don't worry, I understand. You were more concerned about Natsumi's would-be kidnappers."
Korra nodded in agreement with the old man. "We confronted him and he bolted through here." She pointed at the hole.
Both Lin and Gāng moved towards the hole. They didn't look at each other to see what they were doing. In unison, they raised their foot and slammed into the ground, feeling the earth and the tunnel. Lin opened her eyes. "He must have collapsed the tunnel behind him," she said.
"And he rigged an explosion to destroy any evidence that might have been here," Mako told his chief.
"This is where Zaheer got in and out," Korra declared. "Aiwei was the traitor."
Suyin couldn't believe it. "I…trusted him."
Naruto looked at her. "That just made it easier for him. And now I know who I can blame for my problem."
Asami looked to her sensei. "What's that?"
"Somebody let my captives out when I wasn't in the room. Now I know who."
She had a hard time believing that. "Why would Aiwei free strangers?" she asked him.
"Who says they were?"
She stopped and thought about what he had said. If Aiwei was a helper of Zaheer's group, it could also mean that his captives were the same. But why would they try to kidnap Natsumi, especially if she was already in the care of them? "What is going on?" She'd wondered if Naruto-sensei was joking but all she had to do was look once at his face to know that he wasn't. He knew that something was going on, something more.
Kuvira came running down the stairs. She saw everyone and immediately asked, "Is everyone okay?"
Lin turned to face her. "Aiwei is a fugitive. Get all available guards to search the mountainside, and find out where this tunnel exits immediately!" she ordered. The captain of the guard saluted and ran back up the stairs.
Suyin was still in shock. She couldn't believe that Aiwei was a traitor. He had stood by her side, helping her run her city. But now that he had done this, she had to wonder if he had truly helped her. "Did I let my own Long Feng into my home?" It wasn't a comforting thought. In fact, it was a terrifying thought.
She felt a solid weight by her side and a hand on her shoulder. The hand belonged to Lin and Gāng. They were silently supporting. She appreciated the thought from both of them. A month ago, she didn't think that they would ever do this. Now they did it without hesitation.
(Location: Konoha)
They chased the thief through the streets. But even as they chased the guy, they weren't sure if he was an actual thief or not. For all they knew it could be a part of the test. Tsukiko didn't pay much attention to that. She was more focused on the fact that the sun was starting to set. "Guys, we're running out of time," she shouted at the others.
Arashi didn't need to glance up at the sky. "We see it," he told her.
"Well then let's do something about it!"
"You got any ideas?" All they were doing right now was just running. She glared at him for a response.
It was Hiro who came up with the idea. "We need to trip him up," he told the others. "Make him stumble or fall. He does that and we can grab the scroll!"
They looked at each other and nodded. It was a sound idea. "Hiro, take the left, Tsukiko, go high," Arashi ordered them. He shifted himself so he started running closer to the right. They did as they were told. Tsukiko fell back a little so that she could leap onto the next building and start running across it.
Hiro didn't asked what they were supposed to do next. It would've been pointless, especially since he was the one who laid the idea. He pulled a kunai out from the pouch and threw it at the thief's leg. The thief sidestepped the kunai like he had seen it coming.
That's when Arashi threw his kunai, making him sidestep again. Together the two of them made the thief start hopping as he ran, making sure that he had to think about it. Their plan worked, to an extent. He started slowing down but he still had some distance on them. The plan also relied on their kunai, which they were going to run out of in a matter of moments if this kept up. They could switch to shuriken but what the hell would they use if they ran out of that?
"We can't keep this up," he told Hiro. "We need to get closer!"
"I'm running as fast as I can here!"
And so was he. "That's it. Next time I go train at Lee-sensei's I'm putting on those weights." The first time the old man had suggested them, Arashi had collapsed when he tried holding one in his hand. How the hell could he have run with something like that around his legs? Now they were looking pretty good.
Hiro saw they were approaching a four way intersection. He didn't need to see the thief's face to see what he was thinking. "He's going to turn."
Arashi saw the same thing he did. "Which way?" he asked.
"I don't know." He couldn't see that much.
"Shit, if we don't know which way he's going to go, we could lose him." Arashi quickly looked at the street, taking everything into account. He quickly saw a way to stay on the thief and possibly even catch up with him. "Iron Claw, I need fireballs!" he shouted up. "Block off two streets!"
He didn't hear Tsukiko reply to him directly. What he heard was "Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!" and saw giant fireballs flying down from above, engulfing the street ahead and to the left.
The thief swore but didn't change his speed. In fact, he looked like he was about to charge through the fire ahead. That couldn't happen. "Hiro, make him turn." He put on a little speed, getting close to the turn.
Hiro started throwing the remaining kunai and shuriken he had on him, forcing the thief to keep side-stepping until he was about to run right into the wall. He swore again and turned right, bolting down the open street.
That was what both Arashi and Tsukiko were waiting for. Tsukiko landed in front of him with her hands already folded in a seal, readying to use another jutsu. At the speed he was going and how close she was, he couldn't turn and if he tried jumping over her, she would burn him. His only choice was to slow down so he could turn.
That's what he did. That was what Arashi had hoped he would do. The dyed redhead ran and jumped off a garbage bin right at him just as he slowed down, tackling him to the ground. For a moment, the world was a confusing blur of earth and sky mixing together when they shouldn't be. Then it stopped and Arashi climbed onto his back, making sure he couldn't move.
The thief didn't want to stay down and tried to get back up. "Geez, this guy is a thrasher," Arashi told the others. "Help me out here. Hiro, grab his legs."
The Hyuga grabbed hold of them and held them down. It was a little hard since they kept thrashing around. "Come on, stay still."
"Tsukiko, grab the scroll!"
She got in close and reached for the scroll. The thief held onto it tight, looking up at her with angry eyes. The intensity of them almost made her back off. But she couldn't back off. She reached out and grabbed the scroll. He held tight and would not let go.
It quickly became a tug of war between them. "Give it to me!" she said.
"No!" he replied.
"Give it to me!"
"No!"
"Give it to me!"
"No!"
"This is ridiculous!" she thought to herself. "Arashi, do something!" Her teammate took off his coat and wrapped it around the thief's head. His struggle became more confused and panicked.
Arashi fought harder to keep him under control. "Does that work?" he asked Tsukiko.
"Yes it does. Thanks."
"Don't mention it. Now would you get that scroll?"
She brought her attention back to the scroll in his hands. She pulled harder and the scroll got free. She had pulled at it so harder it almost flew out of her grasp. She held onto it but fell down to the ground. "Ow," she yelped, landing flat on her rear, "that stung."
"Can we let go of him now?" Hiro asked. His grip over the thrashing legs was beginning to slip. He didn't know if he could hold on much longer.
Arashi was in the same boat he was. He looked at his teammate. "Tsukiko, is that the right scroll?"
"What? You're asking that now?"
He looked back at Hiro. "It just came to me, alright." He hadn't realized that they could've been running on a wild goose chase this entire time. He really hoped that they weren't.
Tsukiko quickly opened the scroll and checked it. She saw a list of names written in dried blood with a bloody handprint beneath. She looked at the last three names and breathed easily. "It's the right scroll," she told them.
"Great, now we have to get it to Rin-sensei."
Hiro saw a problem with that. "How are we supposed to do that when we can't leave this guy?" he asked. If they let go, the thief would be back on his feet and take the scroll back.
"Dude, do you not see the sun?" Tsukiko demanded, pointing at the sky. "If we don't get this scroll to Rin-sensei, we fail." She didn't want to fail this.
"If we get off him, he takes the scroll back, and we'll fail," he pointed out. They were really in a sticky spot.
"Wait, do all of us have to get the scroll back to Rin-sensei?" asked Arashi. "Did she actually say that?"
The other two quickly thought it over. "No, I don't think she did," Tsukiko said.
"I don't remember her saying that," Hiro agreed.
He would've sighed in relief, if he wasn't trying to keep the thief pinned. "Alright, we've got a loophole."
"How so?" asked Tsukiko.
He looked at her. "You take that scroll and you run for Rin-sensei. You find her and give it to her."
She was astounded by what he suggested. That would mean she would have to leave them with the thief. She couldn't do that. "Guys—"
"Just go, Tsukiko! Find Rin-sensei!"
"Or I can just come to you," said the aforementioned sensei as she approached them. By her side was the Hokage and what looked like half the Police Force.
As soon as they saw them all, the Genin breathed in relief. But they also looked at the thief. "Is he part of the test?" Tsukiko asked.
"No," said Madara, looking down hard at him. "He's not."
Rin walked over and knelt down beside them. She took the thief's arm and yanked back the sleeve. There, on the inside of the elbow, was a brand of two circles intersecting. "Tōitsu," she spat in disgust and hatred. The eyes of her students widened in surprise. This was much more than they had thought it would be.
(Location: Zaofu)
They waited in Lin's office. It was only a couple of hours since Aiwei escaped but for some of them, it felt a lot different. Suyin was still processing the whole thing. So when Kuvira ran in, Lin asked her, "What did you find?"
She answered, "We located the end of the tunnel, but there's no sign of him. Just some fresh tire tracks."
Mako knew what that meant. "He had an escape plan all ready to go," he said as Kuvira left.
Naruto stood across the room with Gāng and Yue. Natsumi had already gone to bed, but he made sure that he could get to her if he need be. When he heard what Mako said, he replied, "The smart ones do tend to do that."
"I trusted him with my life," said Suyin. "I thought we were family, but it was all a lie."
No one really knew what to make of that, no one except Gāng. "It happened," he said bluntly. "All we can do is to go after him and the others."
They would probably do that but Mako saw additional worries. "Whoever these guys are, they're more powerful than we thought, and more dangerous." He noticed how the adults weren't really affected by his words. They already knew this.
"That's why we have to find them," Korra declared. "We're going to hold off our search for Airbenders and hunt down Aiwei. Naga can track his scent."
Asami saw where she was going. "And I bet if we find Aiwei, we'll find Zaheer," she added.
Lin was quick to shut the idea down. "No! We're not hunting this group. There could be other secret agents in other parts of the world looking for you right now!" she told Korra. "I'm taking you back to Republic City, where I can protect you."
"If I wasn't safe here, then I'm not safe anywhere," she retorted. "I have to stop them!"
"It's too dangerous! You are not going!"
"Stop trying to protect me! I'm the Avatar. This is my job!"
"Don't lecture me about jobs!" She had been doing hers long before this kid was born!
"Enough!" said Suyin, standing up. "Korra, listen to Lin."
She was surprised by what she had just heard. "But…they…"
"Please," she said. "Lin's only looking out for you. I promise you, Aiwei and everyone he's working with will be brought to justice."
She scowled slightly as she took in the logic behind those words "Fine, if you really think it's best," she conceded.
"I do."
"Thank you, Su," Lin said to her sister.
She looked at all the people in the room. "Everyone should get some rest tonight. I'll have my people prep your airship and you can leave first thing in the morning."
The kids in the room couldn't argue with what she said. They went back to their apartments but found they couldn't rest. They sat around the parlor room, trying to think of something, anything, that could be a plan. They heard a knock on the door. When Korra opened it, she was surprised by who she saw. "Su, Yue, Gāng," she said, trying to show that she wasn't surprised.
"You really think Naga could track Aiwei?" Suyin asked her right away.
She nodded and said, "Definitely."
"Then, here," she replied, handing her a key. "There's a jeep packed with supplies by the east gate. It's all gassed up and ready to go."
"What? Why?"
"Because I want you to hunt down Aiwei and bring him back to me," she answered.
Bolin was surprised by this. That was not what they heard earlier. "But you said—"
"I said what Lin wanted to hear and I bought you guys some time. Go. I'll deal with Lin in the morning."
"Why are they here?" Asami asked, looking at the Paragons.
"We're coming with you," Yue told her. "You guys need the adult supervision."
That was rather insulting. They weren't little kids. "We can handle ourselves."
"You mean like when Avatar Aang traveled the Countries with the others? Please, those guys needed the adult supervision just as bad. Sokka said that some of the things they did, they had gotten away with luck only."
"And besides," Gāng said quietly. "We've got a bone to pick with some of those people." He said it much differently from Yue, much quieter, but his were the ones that made a shiver go up their spines.
"What about Sensei?" If they were doing this, Asami had to assume Naruto was coming along.
Yue said, "Naruto will be coming along once he's sure his granddaughter was safe."
Korra didn't see any problems with them coming along, so long as they could hold their own. "Let's get this guy!" she told her friends. She hugged Suyin. "Thanks," she said. Suyin didn't say anything back.
Within twenty minutes, they were packed and out the gates of Zaofu. Korra led the charge astride Naga while everyone else was in the jeep. Naga had the scent. Aiwei wouldn't get away from them.
End
Author's note: Thank you for all the reviews you've sent me.
Does anyone else get the feeling that Bolin would've gone with Opal? I think he would've. Perhaps Mako pulled him aside before she left and told him that he wasn't following her.
If anyone was wondering where Tonraq was, he's still in Republic City. Yue left after telling him to stay put. I know it might seem a bit for a Paragon to leave her apprentice behind but she was thinking more like an angry sister then.
For the record, I'm not going to divulge what happened between Suyin and Gāng. I thought about it at first but then dismissed it. It doesn't really matter what happened between them so long as they resolved the issues. Lin was right. Sometimes the simplest way is the best.
I'll see you all next chapter!
