Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, the Last Airbender, or the Legend of Korra.
Paragon of Korra
Chapter 55: Freedom and fall
"Talking"
"Thinking"
"Bijū/spirit talking"
"Bijū/spirit thinking"
(Location: Si Wong Desert)
When the dawn came, the airship crew moved the prisoners. They pushed Korra, still restrained to her board, to the airship and kept Asami under close watch. Korra was trying to get free. "You have to let me out!" she shouted through the muzzle. The Earth Queen is in danger from a group of terrorists calling themselves the Red Lotus." When she had thought about what Zaheer had said, the fact that he and the other would go after the Earth Queen made sense. "I talked to one of them in the Spirit World yesterday. He's insane!"
The airship captain rolled his eyes at her as she was pushed past. "Screaming about terrorists in the Spirit World?" he asked, rolling his eyes and his toothpick. "You're the one who sounds insane." Once she was inside, he looked to a crew member. "Is everything ready?"
"Just about, Captain," he replied.
"Good."
The crewmate opened his mouth, only to not say anything. He struggled with himself, trying to figure out if he should speak or not. Finally, he braved himself and spoke. "Permission to speak, Captain?" he asked.
"Go ahead."
"Are we doing the right thing here?"
"The right thing?" he repeated, looking at the man questioningly.
"Well, Captain, we're taking the Avatar prisoner."
"Ah, that problem," the captain thought. He had thought about that problem too. But he also knew what he had to do: his duty. "The Earth Queen has ordered her capture," he said. "We are doing what is commanded and returning her to face trial."
"But, Captain, she's the Avatar!"
"I'm well aware of that. But I will do my duty. You should do the same." The crewmate wanted to protest but he would not hear it. He turned around and walked into the ship.
Once everything had been put into the ship, the main hatch closed shut and the ship took off. Asami and Korra were placed in a cell with no windows. The only way Asami could tell they were flying the floor vibrating subtly beneath her feet. "Okay," she thought, "They're taking us back to Ba Sing Se. It's going to take a couple of days to get there but we don't know if they're going to trade us off at any point." That meant they were going to have to escape while they were still on the airship. She quickly took in the room.
There was a way to get them free. But she was going to have to some sweet-talking. Fortunately, that was something she had gotten good at. It helped in business the crewman who came in with them finishing locked Korra in place, she made her move."Do I have to be chained to the floor the whole way?" she asked him as he looped the chain through, forcing her to her knees. "It's going to be so uncomfortable."
"Sorry, ma'am," he told her, "I'm under orders."
She looked at the back wall, where a railing was. "Can't you just chain me to that railing? I mean, where am I gonna go?" He wasn't sure so she went for the kill. "Please?"
"Well, as long as you're chained up, I guess it doesn't make a difference," he conceded. He brought her and the chain up. They went over to the railing and she was chained there.
"Thank you, sir," she told him.
Korra wasn't sure what Asami was doing. She had to figure it was some kind of plan. She had to come up with something of her own. "Can I have…some water?"
The crewman reacted instantly. "No water. We're also not going to bring you any rocks or fire, so don't ask." He stopped and thought about the last element. "I guess there's air, but there's nothing we can do about that. We're not opening your compartment 'til we reach Ba Sing Se."
They watched him leave the room and then looked at each other. "I hoped Mako, Bolin, Gāng, or Yue would have shown up to save us by now," said Korra. "I wonder if they're okay."
Mako eyed the Waterbender and Earthbender across the trunk. He was tied against Bolin but they were still better off than Gāng and Yue. Gāng was unconscious and Yue had a fresh bruise on her face from where her sister struck her. Still they had to think of something to get free. It was clear what was going to happen to them. He had to think of something that would change that.
So he went with a fact he hoped they'd think was obvious. "If you think holding us hostage will give you some leverage against the Avatar, you're gonna be very disappointed," he told them.
Ming-Hua looked down at him. "Can't we just enjoy our time together in silence?" she asked. She didn't have her tentacles on but that didn't mean she was any less intimidating to him.
"You should've thought of that when you removed my gag," Yue said, glaring at her sister.
She returned the glare. "I was trying to be considerate to you."
"Yeah, I've got your 'consideration' right here on my face," she said, showing the bruise on her cheek.
"It's what you get when you try to attack me."
"Story of my life, huh?" the Water Paragon asked with a spitting voice. "I do something that you don't want, you beat me down."
Her glare was scary to the brothers. "I beat you down because—!"
"Ease up there, Ming-Hua," Ghazan told her, stopping her before she could get out of the seat. "You know what she's doing." She calmed down at his words. She kept to her seat but still sent a foul look at her sister, something that was returned.
Bolin watched all of this happened. There was bad blood between the sisters, enough bad blood to make them want to kill each other. "What could've it have been?" he wondered. He shuddered to think what would happen to him and Mako if something like that happened to them. Would they want to kill each other? Or would they not want to see each other again?
Mako had wondered the same thing but he was also concerned about what had happened to them. "And why did you need Korra alive back in Zaofu? You had her paralyzed. Why didn't you just take her out when you had the chance?"
Ghazan fixed him with a level look. "Look, all you need to know is that the world is about to change, for the better," he said. Gāng groaned slightly, moving around where he lay. Ghazan looked to him. His eyes softened slightly at the sight of him but they hardened quickly enough that someone not looking wouldn't see it.
But both brothers had noticed it. Bolin also realized that Mako wasn't getting anywhere with his questions. It was his turn now. "So you guys were like locked up for fifteen years, huh? It must've been like crazy boring," he remarked.
Ghazan looked at him. "Actually, it was only thirteen years. But it felt like thirty."
"I mean, what did you do with all that time? Did you sing songs, work on crafts?"
Ming-Hua looked at the Earthbender kid like she was questioning his sanity. "Not a lot of craft supplies in a volcanic prison cell," she told him.
Her fellow rogue agreed. "And I must've renamed the constellations about a thousand times. When it rained, that was a big event." It sent every one of the guards running for cover. It made him laugh.
"I would've killed for some rain. Mostly I just made up stories about the guards: who was having trouble with his girlfriend; which one secretly wished he'd become a pastry chef." It had actually been a great to pass the time. With each guard change, she would have the new opportunity to make more stories. The tricky part was making sure she didn't get them mixed up.
Bolin pounced on that idea. "Ooh okay, that sounds like fun. Let me try that on you guys." He looked at Ghazan intently. "You were raised by an older sister, your mustache grew in when you were ten and I'm sensing—just sensing—an unspoken attraction between you two."
Both rogue Benders looked at each other for a moment. But then they looked away with Ming-Hua looking a little uncomfortable. "Two out of three," Ghazan remarked. "Not bad."
Yue saw the look on Ming-Hua's face. She knew that look and instantly gagged. "Him?" she said, looking at her sister.
Ming-Hua was irritated. "Shut up."
"Him?" she said again. "You slept with him? Were you drunk or something?"
"Or something," Ghazan said.
Ming-Hua glared at him. "We agreed that we would never talk about it again," she hissed. "And I'm not the only one who had a little too much that night, remember?"
"Oh fuck me, have you no taste at all?" Yue asked her sister, disgust plain in her voice.
She wanted to so badly punch her face in. This was getting to be too much. She glared at her sister. "Like you were any better sleeping with Varrick."
Yue was embarrassed and outraged. Both showed in how red her face got. "How do you know about that?"
"You didn't think that we weren't watching you while you were training under Sokka." She scoffed. "It figures you became a Paragon, Little Goody Two Shoes."
"Fuck you, Daddy's Girl," Yue spat. Her sister got just as mad as she was at that insult.
"Whoa, calm down, you two," Ghazan said to them both.
The Paragon of the two sent an utmost look of loathing at him. "I've got nothing to say to you, murderer."
He felt a surge of anger rise up from his belly. He squashed it down hard. She wasn't worth it. "You've got no right to call me that," he told her coldly.
"What about me?" Gāng asked, turning all attention onto him. "Do I have the right?"
"Gāng, you're awake," Bolin cried happily. "I was getting worried for you, man."
"Thank you, Bolin. By the way, you should know that he was lying." Even though he was blind, he turned his eyes to Ghazan. "It wasn't an older sister but a younger brother, wasn't it?"
The Earthbender couldn't look him in the eyes, blind as he might be. "It was an accident," he said.
"It was an accident," Gāng said, mocking each word. "That excuse again? Is that what you say to yourself when you have nightmares about what happened?"
"How would you know if I have nightmares?"
"I don't. But I hope you do. You deserve to remember what you did, over and over again." The hate wasn't as heavy as Yue's was for her sister, but it was still there and it could still be heard.
Bolin looked at them both, swinging his head back and forth. "So, I take it you guys have something of a history together?" he asked.
"You could say that," Ghazan said shortly.
"Is that all you're going to say?" Gāng asked him. "Are you so ashamed that you don't want anyone else to know? How about I tell him the truth?" He turned his head to Bolin. "We do have a history, Bolin. After all, I should know my father's big brother."
Bolin couldn't stop his eyes from going wide at that. "Wait, you guys are related?" He swung his head towards Ghazan. "Does that mean you're Lin's dad too?"
"What?" he said, "Toph's oldest kid? Nah, I'm not her uncle. I was Gāng's and Su's uncle."
"Wow, so you must've met Toph? What's she like?"
"Bolin, would you stop making friends with the bad guys?" Mako asked his brother pointedly. This wasn't going anywhere.
"Sorry!"
"Ghazan, gag them," Zaheer ordered from the front. "We're almost there."
Yue looked out the window from where she laid. The Outer Wall of Ba Sing Se dominated her sight. "We're already?" she thought to herself. "How could that have happened?" Just how long had they been driving?
(Location: Ember Island)
Teja handed Natsumi back the paper with a frown. "Wrong."
She took the paper back. "What I'd get wrong?" she asked. She had been certain that she had gotten the answers right. Then again, she had thought the same thing the last four times she had taken this test.
Tarek leaned down so they could look at the paper at the same eye level. Having him so close to him made her heart stutter a little. She hated herself for letting that happen. The man already had a girlfriend. "Right here, here, and here," he told her, pointing out the wrong answers.
She looked at them. "They're about history and Firebending."
"So it looks like that's where you need to brush up."
"Alright," she agreed, frowning at the paper. "I still can't believe they would ask me for the exact temperature my Bending has to be an effective welding too." It just sounded ridiculous to her.
Both Teja and Tarek exchanged a look. It was their turn to tutor their friend. She was proving to be a good student, if a little stubborn about certain things. "You never know what you'll be when you grow up, Nat," Teja told her. "You could be an engineer and as such, you would have to know what the temperature your Firebending would have to be at to be a welder."
As she explained it, Natsumi understood. She still found a little stupid but she wanted to get into this school. "Alright, I guess it's time for more studying."
"No." Tarek declared.
She was reaching for a textbook when he said that. She paused and looked at him. "No?"
"No," he said again.
"Why?"
"You, Nat, need to take a break. You've been going steady at this for three hours now. Another important aspect of studying is knowing when not to study. If you study too much, you'll do more harm than good to yourself."
She looked at the textbooks that surrounded her on his kitchen table. There were certainly alot of them and she had been going steadily through them. If she was being honest, they were starting to blur together a little bit. Maybe he had a point. "Alright." she agreed, "I'll take a break."
Teja pulled her chair out from the table for her. "Glad to hear that," she said. "Anyone else feel a bit hungry? I could use a snack."
"That sounds good to me," said Tarek.
Natsumi nodded. "Yeah, I could something too."
They all went to the kitchen, an impressive looking place to the girl of the group. Everything she saw was clean and all the kitchenware was polished and sharpened. If she didn't see the dishes drying next to the sink, she would've thought that nobody ate in this kitchen. She sat at the counter next to Teja and watched Tarek go into the pantry.
From behind, she heard the front door open. "Hey, Tarek, I'm back!" shouted Hema, her voice coming close as she spoke. She was walking towards them.
"Don't turn around," Natsumi told herself. "Don't turn around." She kept facing the kitchen, watching Tarek as he folded meat on pieces of bread.
"What the…? What are you doing here?"
"Don't turn around."
Tarek paused and looked at his sister. "I'm making a couple of hot meat sandwiches, Hema," he said. "Would you like one too?"
She scowled at him. "That's not what I'm talking about and you know it, Tarek."
"Oh, than what are you talking about?"
"What's she doing here?" she demanded, pointing her finger at Natsumi.
Now she could respond. She turned around in her chair. "Hello, Hema," she said with a politeness that was half-forced, half-mocking. "I didn't see you there."
She was practically spewing smoke from the anger she had. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm waiting for Tarek to make a couple of hot meat sandwiches."
"That's not what I meant and you know it!" she burst out screaming. Her entire face was red. It made her look very unattractive.
"Hema, calm down," Tarek told her, using his big brother voice. She stopped yelling but her face was still red. She looked to him for an explanation. "Nat is here at my invitation."
"But why?" she asked, her voice almost whining.
Natsumi watched the both of them. "Does she act like when she doesn't get her way or just in the house, period?" she wondered. She was glad for the relationship she had with Arashi. With him, she didn't like a whiney brat who didn't get her way.
Teja said, "She's studying, Hema."
It got her attention and also made her puzzled. "What for?" she asked.
"So she can get into school."
She frowned, trying to understand what it was she had just heard. "She's studying to get into school?"
"Yes."
Hema looked at Natsumi. "What is wrong with you?"
"Huh?"
"You have the chance to stay out of school and you're not going to take it? How stupid can you get?" Her voice was so full of scorn, it was a wonder that it didn't spill out of her mouth when she spoke.
Natsumi looked her up and down. "You're not a good student, are you?" she asked.
"What you say?"
"You heard me. You call me stupid because I'm trying to get into school. That has to mean you're not a good student."
Her face was getting redder again. "I am a good student, probably better than you."
She shrugged her shoulders and said, "If you say so." She turned back around and watched Tarek still making the snacks.
Hema stared at her back in shock. She couldn't believe that just happened. She was ignored. No one her age group did that. The upperclassmen could because they were upperclassmen. But in her grade and her age, she ruled as queen. As soon as she became an upperclassman, the school would officially become her kingdom. And it wouldn't do to have someone ignore her. "Hey, I'm talking to you," she said to the other girl.
"Food's up," Tarek announced, placing the sandwiches on plates and handing them out.
Natsumi took the offered plate and grabbed the sandwich. She took a bite. The warmness of the bread and the hot sweetness of the meat contrasted with the coolness of the vegetables he had layered on. There was also a salty taste to it all that made it all the sweeter. "Wow, this is good," she said.
He smiled. "I'm glad you approve."
"Hey, I'm talking to you," Hema said again, still glaring at Natsumi.
Teja finished her snack promptly and politely. "As always, you make an excellent meal, Tarek," she told him.
"Thank you, I try."
"Are you still going to be cooking for us on the trip?"
He looked offended at the implications. "Are you saying that I wouldn't?"
"It is a camping trip. You sure you wouldn't want someone else do the cooking?"
"What? Like Akane or Takumi?"
She frowned. "Okay, first off, she was frustrated that day and took it out in the kitchen. As for Takumi…well, you have a point."
Natsumi looked at them both. "What's this about a camping trip?" she asked. "You guys going somewhere?"
Hema was starting to see red again. "I am talking to you!" she shouted at Natsumi.
She paused, looking back at the woman. "Do you mind?" she asked, putting the sandwich about to go into her mouth down. "I'm trying to eat here, enjoy my break."
"Then look at me when I'm talking to you."
"Why? I was done talking to you."
"Nat," Tarek said reprovingly, "please don't be so rude to my sister."
She looked at him. She wasn't surprised when he said that. But she wasn't going to apologize. "I will when she does."
Teja sided with her. "She's got a point, Tarek," she said. "Your sister is quite mean."
Hema look at her, surprised that she would do something like that. "Teja, you know me," she protested.
"You're right," she replied. "I do know you. That's why I can say what I just said."
Natsumi was getting annoyed with Hema being there. She sent a desperate plea at Tarek, silently asking him to send her away. He saw the look and sighed. It always had to be him that sent his little sister away. "Hema, we're a little busy trying to Nat up to standards for the entrance exam. Do you mind?"
She did mind. She minded very much. It didn't look like they were studying. "You're eating hot meat sandwiches."
"We're on a break right now. Please?"
She stifled an irritated sound and walked out of the room. Natsumi listened until her footsteps were replaced by the sound of a door closing sharply. "Thank you," she told Tarek.
He didn't look happy. "I don't enjoy doing that to my sister, Nat."
"She wasn't going to leave." She would've just stayed there and kept yelling at her. It was annoying, enough so that she would've hit the girl just to shut her up.
"She's right," Teja agreed.
He looked at them both. "I still don't like doing that to my own sister." He wasn't going to budge on the matter.
Natsumi probably should've apologized for her attitude with Hema. But she was never going to apologize for it. That girl had rubbed her the wrong way ever since they first met. She thought herself better than anyone else and didn't hesitate show it off. She saw Natsumi and had instantly tried to command her to obey her. She didn't like her for that. Then she made the mistake of insulting her dad. Natsumi made her pay for that and they've hated each other since.
Teja knew the look the little girl had on her face. It was a look of pure stubbornness. She wasn't going to give up on having Hema being her enemy. And honestly, she couldn't see any reason to stop her. "How about we finish the break and get back to the studying?" she suggested. "We need to keep prepping Nat for the entrance exam."
"Sounds like a good idea," Tarek agreed. Natsumi sent her a look of relief. They took a little time finishing their food, stretching the break out as long as they could. But then they got back to it.
(Location: Konoha)
Rin opened the door and looked down at her students. "Seriously?" was the first word of Arashi's mouth. "It's this early in the morning and you're wearing the face mask?" His teammates didn't say anything to that. They did shift their feet a little so they would make it back to the elevator faster.
She gave him a long look. She might've been wearing the face mask but she still wore clothes that were worn only in the home. "You didn't come here to talk about my mask," she said sternly. "Now either get in here or get back in that elevator."
He could've asked how they could get in if she was blocking them. But now was not the time for the sarcasm. "Okay."
She went back into the apartment and they followed inside. There was no step at the door where they could leave their sandals at. Instead there was a little cubby underneath the coatrack. They left them there and walked into the apartment. Perhaps it was due to living in a house in a clan compound, but the apartment felt a little small to Tsukiko. Everything looked like they were in easy walking distance. She probably could've gone from end to end in a minute.
Rin walked back to the kitchen, a little alcove that was a part of the living room rather than its own separate part. There was a radio at the corner. Instead of playing music, the morning news was being aired. They waited outside the kitchen while she finished cleaning the dishes. When that was done, she turned off the radio and faced them. "Alright," she said, "You say you're here because you want to know more about Tōitsu?"
They all nodded. "Yes, we are," Hiro said, speaking for all three of them.
"Why?"
"We have to know more about them."
Arashi stepped forward and said, "They could be back. I'd be willing to bet money on it. We have to be prepared. To do that, we need all the information we can get on them. We tried the library but there was barely any information there."
She listened silently, her eyes frowning. When he was done, she said, "And so, you came to me for help."
They all nodded again. "We did."
Her hands twitched as she remembered strangling a slaver that held her captive. The cage came back to her, encompassing her entirely. She closed her eyes and forced those memories back down into the black hole she had shoved them in. "That is a part of me I never want to talk about again," she told them.
Tsukiko said, "We understand, Sensei."
"No," she said with a snap, "You don't. How could you understand when you've never suffered?"
Arashi looked her in the eyes. "I've suffered," he told her. "You can't say that I haven't."
She met his gaze. "This is not a comparison of scars, Arashi. What you've been through and what I've been through are different."
"How?" he asked, standing firm, "how was it different?"
She fell quiet. The silence stretched out for a long couple of moments. The Genin didn't know if she would answer. They kept their eyes on the door, waiting to see if their sensei would tell them to get out. "What I'm about to say," she told them, breaking the silence, "does not leave the apartment. Am I understood?"
"Yes," Arashi told her.
She looked at them all. "I want your promise, from all three of you. You will promise that you will never speak of this to anyone else."
He was quick to answer. "I promise."
Tsukiko followed. "I promise.
"I promise," Hiro ended.
She knew they meant those words. She had trained them so far. She knew what they meant when they made a promise. She took a deep breath. "I wasn't a human with them," she began. "Being called an animal would've been a step up from what I was to them."
"What were you?" Tsukiko dared to ask.
Her answer came like a cold snap. "Property," she told them. "I was property to them, to be used as they see fit. When they didn't want to use me, I was thrown into a cage and left there until they needed me again."
"What—?" Hiro started to ask.
His teammate stopped him. "Hiro, no," Arashi said.
He looked at the dyed redhead. "What?"
"Don't ask that question."
He clamped his mouth shut. He didn't realize what he was about to say. "Right, sorry."
Arashi was relieved. "Let's just be glad you were stopped."
Tsukiko saw an opportunity in what their sensei said. "If they didn't think much of you, did that mean they spoke openly in front of you?" she asked Rin.
"A few did," the Jōnin replied, her hand clenching into a fist. She forced herself to open it back up again. "They saw me and usually laughed at the state I was in."
"Did you pick up anything? Anything that could be useful?" she pressed.
"Tsukiko, anything I heard would be long out of date. You know this." They had to have known that. What happened to her happened before any of the kids she was looking at were alive. Why would they come here looking for information they knew would be old?
She got her answer when Hiro said, "It would be more than what we know already."
"Damn it, he's right." She almost wished that he hadn't been that observant. But then she wouldn't have trained him that well. She wouldn't have been a Jōnin if she didn't know how to lead and how to teach.
They were waiting for her to continue. Their eyes, earnest and wanting to know, bore into her unrelatedly. "I heard a few things," she said. "I was apparently wasn't the only shinobi they kidnapped."
"There were others?" Tsukiko asked, eyes showing her horror. She was going back to that mountain, seeing all those children chained.
"If there were, I didn't see them."
"You…you didn't see them?"
She looked hard at her student. "Watch that tone, Tsukiko," she said shortly. "I don't like it."
The Uchiha pulled back on the incredulous tone that came into her voice. It was hard but she was able to speak with a more controlled voice. "Sensei, you were there. How could you not have seen other shinobi, other kids, captured? Surely they were treated the same as you."
She didn't think about it. It was too slippery a slope. "They might've. I don't know. I didn't see any of them."
"Not even when you were freed?" Hiro asked her.
She shook her head. "No, not even then," she told him. "My last consciousness memory was holding my dying father in my arms, with his hounds all around me. The next I remember was waking up back in Konoha, two weeks after they rescued me."
Arashi got them back on point. "Did you ever learn why they were capturing shinobi?" he asked her.
"Probably for the same reason they had been kidnapping those Bender kids," Tsukiko remarked.
He looked at her. "You don't know that."
"It's still a good guess."
It was but he didn't want to rest on it until he had confirmation. "Sensei?" he asked Rin.
She shrugged her shoulders. It was probably crass of her to do that but she felt the situation called for it. "Tsukiko's guess is as good as mine. Although, I would also say they were trying to breed the shinobi if what they did to me was any indication." Her voice was bitter and laced with hatred.
Hiro didn't understand those words for a moment. They just didn't make sense to him. But then his mind connected the unmentioned dots and draped the answer in front of him like an ugly carpet. "You mean they—" This time he stopped himself from going any further. He clamped down on his tongue so hard there was a danger of him biting it.
Rin looked at her student in the eyes. "Say it, Hiro," she said. "Go ahead and say it." But he kept his mouth shut. So she said it for him. "They raped me, Hiro. They raped me and laughed at my tears." There were nights she could still hear that laughter. It would wake her up and keep her up for a good hour or more. It was also why she had a hard time dating.
When Hiro opened his mouth, the first thing he said was "I'm sorry."
"Why? Did you do something that caused me to be raped?"
"I…no," he answered.
"Then don't apologize."
Tsukiko felt bad for their sensei. But she knew Rin didn't want their pity. So she moved on to a different question. "Did you learn anything about who was in charge? Anything that told you about authority for them?" she asked.
Rin thought about it for a long moment. The most she had heard were people complaining about a task or job they had to do, like normal people do. But they weren't normal people, she had to keep remind herself of that. She thought about it some more. "They did complain about the people in charge," she said. "There seemed to be two levels of the authority, the 'they' and the 'lord.'"
Arashi suddenly remembered the night of the fire. He could see how the five strangers seemed to have come from nowhere, surrounding him and Natsumi. Four of them deferred to the fifth man. Was that something or was he making connections when there weren't any? "Sensei, did you get a number for the 'they'?" he asked.
She thought about it, carefully peeling through her memories. "I think the people I overheard talk about them like they were four people," she told him. "But I don't know if it is true."
"It might be," he said. "We met one of them back under that mountain."
She knew instantly who he was talking about. That had been the man who tried to command Arashi into compliance. What he got was a knee to the balls from her student and a slit throat from her. "If that's the case, then they're down to three."
"But who's the lord?" Hiro asked.
"I don't know. The most they would say about their lord would be with laughter, saying how it was genius how he had caused the last war."
That got their interest. "He started the last war?" Tsukiko asked, "How?"
"I don't know, Tsukiko. They didn't exactly go into details about it."
"Then that means we'll have to look into it," Hiro declared, thinking about what they would have to look for. They would have to look at the months that led up to the war and the incident that caused it. Maybe they would find a common factor.
Arashi made a decision. "Time to go back to the library," he said. "Iron Claw, you're coming too."
Tsukiko scoffed. "Like I would try and stay away, backwater boy."
Rin watched her students discuss what they would do next. "They're serious about this," she thought to herself. She knew they had been serious when they had showed up asking about what happened. But now it really showed in what they were planning to do with what she gave them. She felt proud of them in that moment. Then the proudness was tinged with guilt and uncertainty. Should she let them continue? Or should she stop them? She didn't know. She was going to need help.
(Location: Si Wong Desert)
Even though it was futile, Korra still tried to get herself free. The restraints were too tight for her to break free by sheer strength. That didn't stop her from trying. Asami watched her do this, again and again. "She knows that stuff is too tight," she thought. She knew what the Avatar was trying to do but she had to know it was a little pointless.
Eventually, Korra stopped. She knew when to call it quits so her strength wouldn't fail her when it was needed. She looked over at Asami. "We have to find a way to get out of this prison before we get to the Earth Queen," she said.
"Don't worry," Asami told her, "I have a plan. These airships the Cabbage Corp sold to the Earth Kingdom are way cheaper than the ones Future Industries built." It was why she asked to be chained to the railing instead of the floor.
She slowly brought her feet onto the wall, making sure she could balance herself on it. She began pulling at the railing. It resisted, like she knew it would. But it was only a weak resistance, one that she knew she would be able to beat. All she had to do was keep pulling on it. She pulled with all the might she had trying to get it free.
Like she hoped it would, the rail came free. It landed against her back, pushing her back down to the ground. She landed safely and then jumped over the rail so it was in front of her. With a quick toss, her chains were free of it. She grabbed it as it fell and examined it critically. "Now that's just shoddy workmanship," she declared. If she had sold these airships, she would've made sure the railing couldn't get pulled free.
"She says that like it was nothing," Korra thought to herself. She didn't think she could do that, at least not without Metalbending. Asami was something else.
She came over to her and looked at all the restraints holding her. The answer became obvious. "There's no way I can get these locks off. I need the keys." There seemed to be no way out for them, at least an obvious one. She looked around again. Her eyes settled on the floor. They were made up of metal tiles, tiles made by Cabbage Corp.
She pried the closest tile open, revealing an air duct. Now she had the beginnings of a plan. "Give me five minutes, then start yelling for help," she told Korra. She knelt down and began crawling through the air duct.
Korra watched her, completely impressed by what she had just seen. "She's amazing." Why hadn't she noticed it before? She shook herself out of that wonder. There wasn't any time for it now. She took a deep breath and started counting the seconds.
(Location: Ba Sing Se)
The Earth Queen sat in her throne room, quite pleased at how things had turned out. They had received word that one of her airships had captured the Avatar and was coming to Ba Sing Se. "When is the Avatar scheduled for delivery?" she asked her Grand Secretariat.
Gun stood before the throne with a bowed head and a polite tone. "The airship already left Fort Bosco and should be arriving in a few hours."
"Excellent. Bring her to me as soon as it lands." She was going to enjoy making that self-important brat pay for what she did.
"Yes, your Majesty. But first there are some…people here who captured two of the Avatar's friends. They would like to present them to you personally."
She frowned. "You know I don't meet with bounty hunters." They were common people and were absolutely disgusting. It was like they had no idea what a bath was supposed to be.
"And of course I told them that," he explained quickly, seeing how she was about to get into mood. "But they say they have some information that might interest you; about the location of your stolen Airbenders. Not only that, but along with the Avatar's friends, they captured two of the Paragons, one of which is Gāng."
A cruel smile crossed her lips at the mention of the Earth Paragon. "Really?" she asked him. He nodded once. "Fine, send them in." What came next would be most fun. She was quite looking forward to it.
Zaheer's group walked into the throne with their heads held high. They didn't show her the proper respect but she was willing to look past that as they tossed their captives down to the ground in front of her. She looked at the two boys, bound and gagged, and said, "Ah, yes, I remember these two. We'll find an acceptable home for you in prison, with the rest of the dissidents." She looked at Gāng, gagged like the rest of them. She pointed at him. "Bring him forward."
Gun wanted to ask why, but he got a look from Gāng. It was strange to get a look from a blind man but the look said to do as he was told. He signaled the Dai Li and they dragged the Earth Paragon closer to the throne. "Remove his gag," the Earth Queen ordered. She wanted to hear whatever pathetic excuses he would come up with. As the gag was taken off, she started into him. "Not so condescending now are you, you little blind mole-rat? You don't stand in judgement over me, blocking what I want or say, anymore. You have no power here. You're just a pathetic traitor to the Earth Kingdom. People will mock you as I have dragged you through the streets and beaten. They will know that the Earth Queen answers to no one. It is she who is the Earth Kingdom and will not be hold back. You deluded yourself if you ever thought you could achieve that."
The more Ghazan listened to her, listen to what she was planning to do, the more he wanted to walk up to that throne, throw her off it, and beat the bloody arrogance out of her. His lips curled up into a snarl and his hands clenched. Ming-Hua saw this happened and leaned in close. "Steady," she whispered to him.
"I want to kill this bitch," he whispered back.
"Just wait, it'll happen."
"Nothing to say for yourself?" the Earth Queen asked Gāng. "I thought—"
"Hou-Ting, shut the fuck up," he ordered, his voice ringing coldly in the throne room.
Everyone looked at him but none were more surprised than the Earth Queen. "What did you say?" she asked. No one had ever told her to shut up before. How the pests usually stopped what she wanted was listening to her orders and then ignoring them or changing them so they'd be different. But no one had been so crass as to tell her to shut up.
He raised his head so she could see his face. His eyes were open now. They were eerily cold. "I told you to shut up. I've been having a bad day and you're making it worse. Now shut your mouth before you cause something you won't be able to regret."
If that was supposed to be a threat, it wasn't a very good one. If she didn't regret what might happen, it obviously meant it was a good thing. "You and your fellow Paragon," she sneered, "can join your friends in prison." The matter was done and settled. He wasn't important anymore. She looked to the bounty hunters. "Now, I'm told you have some information for me. I hope this isn't just some ruse to increase your bounty."
"We don't want any bounty, your Majesty," Zaheer said with the utmost respect. "You can consider these four a 'thank you' gift for simply taking the time to talk to us."
"How very magnanimous," she remarked, not believing it for a second. "So, where are my Airbenders?"
"I'd be happy to tell you, once you hand the Avatar over to me."
Her anger rose up at that. "Who told you that we have the Avatar?!" she demanded. That had been a secret known only to her, Gun, and the airship captain who captured that smug little brat.
"How I know is not important." His smiling face became serious. "But if I found out, others will too. And that could put you in a difficult position."
"Is that so?"
"Your Majesty, imprisoning the Avatar will cause the other nations to turn against you and demand her freedom. Before long, we'd be in the midst of a sticky international incident. If you let me take her today, no one need ever know she was here, and you can get your Airbenders back without interference. We both win."
"And what do you plan to do with the Avatar should I see fit to grant your request?" she asked him.
"All I can say is: I have business with her. But she won't be bothering you again. I can assure you of that." Mako and Bolin shared looks with each other and Yue and Gāng. What Zaheer had said didn't have any good implications, none that they could hear.
The Earth Queen sat on her throne, thinking about what he offered. Despite what Naruto had often said, to her face no less, she wasn't stupid. She could think. And the man before her was right. If she kept the Avatar, the other nations would throw a fit about what she was doing. What they thought about her and what she did was none of their business. The Avatar had embarrassed her. She had to be punished.
But it didn't matter how she was punished. If she gave her to these men, she could wash her hands of it and claim that she had nothing to do with it. And in doing so, she could throw it in Naruto's face. "I find these terms agreeable," she declared. "Gun, escort them to the antechamber until the Avatar's arrival." Her Grand Secretariat led them out of the throne room, leaving her to look at her prisoners. "Send these four to the dungeon." Her Dai Li guards stepped forward and bent the trap door open, right underneath the prisoners. They couldn't scream before they fell into darkness.
(Location: Si Wong Desert)
"Guards!" screamed Korra. "Get in here! Something happened to my friend. She needs help."
The hatch on the door opened and the guard's eyes searched the room. From what he could see, all there was in the room was the Avatar, bound and restrained. "Where is she?" he asked.
Asami came up behind him. One hard chop to the neck and the guard fell against the door. She waited for him to slump to the ground to grab the keys and unlock the door. She walked in with a swagger, twirling the keys on her finger.
Korra could admit that it looked good on her. The Avatar had never been gladder to be out of those restraints. Her limbs felt tired from being stuck in one position for so long. "Nice work," she told Asami, taking the muzzle off. "Now let's take control of the ship."
Getting up to the cockpit was a lot easier than it probably should've been. They attributed it to the crew doing their duties, confident they wouldn't get free. The door to the cockpit was metal. Korra opened it with a kick, bending the metal open. The captain and the pilot were alone in the cockpit, both relaxed for a boring day of flying. They were rather surprised to have a visit from their prisoners.
The pilot got out of his chair and charged them. Korra blasted him with Airbending, sending him right into the controls. The airship started to shake uncontrollably, tipping to the earth. The captain grabbed hold of the radio. "Mayday!" he said, "Mayday! The Avatar has escaped. We're going down in quadrant four of the Si Wong Desert." The pilot got back to his feet and tried to attack again.
Korra blasted him again with air. He flew back into the captain, knocking them both unconscious. Asami ran to the controls but saw a problem. "I think you might have been a little over-aggressive with the Airbending. The controls are busted. Also, you broke the radio," she added, holding the broken radio in her hand.
"Sorry," she apologized, "but it's not my fault this airship's a hunk of junk." Asami did say it was sold by Cabbage Corp, didn't she?
The point didn't matter. The ship was already heading for a large sand dune. "Hang on to something!" she cried, grabbing the captain's chair. Korra's grabbed the pilot's chair and held on for dear life.
It was probably a miracle that the glass didn't shatter when the ship crashed into the dune, burying itself halfway into it. The cockpit became dark from all the sand and they both lost in the darkness. Korra bent a small fire in her hand as Asami pulled out a flashlight. They looked at the other's source of light, shared a small smile despite the situation, and that was it. They used both to find their way to the roof hatch.
As Asami came out of the ship, she looked out and saw the desert. "Well. They say any landing you could walk away from is a good landing," she told Korra. "But, given our location, I'm not so sure about that."
"You're the engineer," Korra said back. "What do you think? Can we get flying again?"
"It doesn't look good. Even if you Metalbend the propellers back into shape, we have to dig this whole thing out of the sand." And they had crashed into a large dune. Even if they were able to dig the ship out, they would have to contend with the shifting sand and possibly the winds changing the dunes themselves.
They heard movement behind them. They looked back and saw the crew climbing out of the hatch. "Is everyone all right?" Korra asked.
Their guard was holding his head as he glared at her. "Like you care," he said shortly.
Another crewmate looked a little daze. "What the heck happened?"
"She said her friend needed help, then they knocked me out!" he said, all the while pointing an accusing finger at the girls.
"I'm sorry," Korra apologized, meaning it. "But I couldn't let you take me to the Earth Queen as a captive. There are dangerous forces at work that you don't know anything about."
"More dangerous than being stranded in the desert?" asked the crewmate, coming out of his daze.
"Don't worry, Kong," said the captain, coming out of the ship. "I've radioed Ba Sing Se before we went down. We just need to sit tight. Somebody will be here to rescue us."
"I'm not waiting around for that," Korra said instantly. They caught her once. It wasn't going to happen twice. "We need to get out of here now.
Asami pointed out the obvious idea. "If we all work together, we might be able to get the ship up and running."
"Not likely," said Kong. "I just tunneled out the engine room. It's like a sandbox in there."
"This ship isn't going anywhere," declared the captain. "And neither are you. You're prisoners and it's our duty to transport you to the Earth Queen."
If this was any other situation, he might've been cute. "You realize that I'm the Avatar, right?" she asked a coy smirk. The smirk vanished into a frown as she pointed at them. "You don't want to fight me."
"I'm afraid you aren't giving us much of a choice. We have our orders."
Asami saw something out of the corner of her eye. "Wait, did that sand dune just move?" she asked, turning her head. She wasn't sure if she saw it right but it made her worry.
"It was probably just a mirage," the captain told her, dismissing it. "The desert will play tricks on you."
"That's no mirage. Look." This time, they all saw the sand dune move. It wasn't coming towards them directly but it was clear that it was making its way closer.
Kong saw the dune and felt very uneased. "I heard that since all the spirits came back, this desert has been haunted by them," he said.
"Oh right, so I guess that's my fault too," said Korra with very heavy sarcasm. Technically speaking, it was her fault since she had opened the portals and let the spirits back. But that was beside the point. She looked at the crew, all four men of them. "Do you want to help us get this ship up and running, or do you want to wait around and meet that thing?" she asked, pointing at the moving dune.
"We want to fix the ship," he said instantly. "Right, Cap?"
The captain looked at his men. His pilot and guard were nodding in agreement. It was clear that he was outnumbered. "Let's get to work," he declared.
Since that was taken care of, Korra could work on the next problem: getting the ship out of the dune. Fortunately, she had an idea. "Everybody stand back," she told them. They walked over and got behind her. She bent the air and proceeded to blast it at the dune, hoping to carve the ship out of it.
(Location: Konoha)
"We're home," Tsukiko announced as she and her teammates walked through the door. They had just spent hours at the library but came away from it excited. This time, their search was a lot more fruitful. They found more than scraps. There were probably a couple of false leads in what they found but they were confident they would be able to find them all.
Mito looked at her daughter from where she sat on the couch. "Hello there, Tsuki, Arashi, Hiro," she said. "Madara would like to see you all in his office upstairs."
They froze in their tracks. They had planned to use the living room to start looking through what they found. When they saw her, they were already planning to make changes to work. But as soon as they heard the Hokage wanted to see them, the thinking froze. "Dad wants to see me?" Tsukiko asked, wanting to be sure she heard right.
"No, he wants to see all three of you."
"How'd he know that I would be here?" Hiro asked himself. There could've been a chance he didn't go with them. That wasn't important though. He was here and the Hokage wanted to see him.
"Oh, okay," said Tsukiko. "We'll just go see him."
As they climbed the stairs to the second floor, they had a quiet conversation. "Why does your dad want to see us?" Arashi asked his teammate in a whisper.
"I don't know," she replied.
"Did he find out?" Hiro asked.
It was a plausible thought. "How would he have found out?" Arashi wondered.
She gave him a long pointed look. "I know you're from the backwaters, Arashi, but we both know you're not that slow. Rin-sensei must've called Dad and told him about our visit."
"I thought that she didn't want anyone to know about what happened," Hiro said as they reached the second floor. If she called the Hokage, wouldn't it have been redundant?
Arashi shook his head. He was catching on. "No, she didn't want anyone else to hear about what happened to her back then. She was perfectly free to call the Hokage and tell him about us coming to her."
"And now we have to face the music," Tsukiko said, looking at her father's office door. "You think this a first talk or first listen kind of scenario?" The way she saw things, it always boiled down to those two concepts.
"Maybe we should go in there and figure that out," Arashi said, looking at the door. Has it always look that foreboding? He couldn't be sure.
Hiro would swear his legs were lead. "I don't wanna go in there."
She looked at him. "You can't just stay out here."
"I know. I still don't wanna go in there."
That didn't matter. She reached out and knocked on the door. "Come in," her dad said from the other side.
They all gulped together as she opened the door. The first thing they noticed when they walked in was that Madara was on his feet, looking at them. His Sharingan wasn't active but the stern look didn't need that to make his face look a little scary. "We're in trouble," Arashi thought to himself. There was no way else to look at it.
"Close the door," Madara ordered. He sounded more like the Hokage than Tsukiko's dad. That just made the bad feeling they all had worse. Hiro closed the door and quickly rejoined his teammates. They stood as a unit to him but that didn't reassure them. "Rin called me after you left," he started. "She told me why you came over."
Tsukiko spoke. "Dad—"
He looked at her. "Tsukiko, was I finished talking?"
"No, sir," she replied instantly, knowing full well that she was on shaky ground. It was best to stay silent until told otherwise.
"Good." He looked at them all. "Normally, I would be glad that Rin is finally talking about what happened, except for the circumstances surrounding it. So tell me, what are you three doing looking into Tōitsu?"
They all shared a quick look amongst themselves. How were they going to answer that question? Arashi stepped forward. "It was my idea," he said. "I felt that we had to look into them."
"You had to?" the Hokage repeated.
The way he repeated it didn't make them feel any more relaxed. They felt like they were more trouble. "Yes, we had to. The way we've been running to these guys, I had the feeling that we would be seeing them again. We have to research them so we can know them better."
He folded his arms, clearly not impressed by what he was hearing. "Others have tried to looking into Tōitsu and found nothing. What makes you think you could find anything different?" he asked them all.
Hiro said, "That's why we went to see Rin-sensei. She knew Tōitsu better than us. She could give us something that we could use."
"And she did," Tsukiko jumped in. "Dad, we might have something on the leader of Tōitsu."
He stopped in his lecture and focused on his daughter. The leader of Tōitsu was just as mysterious as the organization itself. No one had even gotten a hint about him. The chance of getting information would be valuable. "Explain," he ordered.
She did. "Rin-sensei told us she overheard that the leader made the last war happen. That means he had to have been in the countries before the war, talking to people, making them angry. We dug around in the library and found some names that might belong to the leader."
"I see." It was a promising lead. If he had the village's researchers look into it, perhaps they would be able to find something. He was about to order them to hand over the research but stopped. Those determined looks on their faces told him they wanted to do this research. "If I ordered you to give what you found to the professionals, would you obey?" he asked them.
The shock rippled across their faces. It was replaced by confusion and then anger. They wanted to speak out, to protest. It was obvious. Tsukiko looked like she would explode from the anger. But Arashi was the one who spoke. "If you ordered it, we would, Lord Hokage," he said. "We'd just ask that we try looking through it first."
"That would be rather bold of you to ask that, Arashi."
"We found it," Tsukiko muttered. He jabbed her in the side. She glared at him but stayed quiet.
Madara looked at them all. Despite his daughter's little outburst, it was clear the sentiment was shared by her teammates. They wanted to look into what they found, see if they could discover the truth for themselves. He silently applauded their tenacity. They weren't going to give this up. "You have the rest of the day to look into what you have," he told them. "Tomorrow, before you go on your mission, you will hand over everything to Research. Am I understood?"
"Yes, sir," they answered.
"Now, back to why I called you here: what you are trying to get into is dangerous, especially for Genin such as you. Word could've gotten out that you were looking into this. Tōitsu could've sent people after you."
They hadn't considered that. Why hadn't they? The answer was simple, really. "We were just doing research," said Hiro.
"Fighting has started over research, Hiro," he told the boy. "You have to consider what could happen because of what you were looking up. The same goes for you two," he looked at Arashi and Tsukiko, "you should think about what will happen. We're just lucky that we caught you at the beginning and not later. The next time you want to do something like this, you either run it through me or your sensei. Clear?"
"Yes, Lord Hokage," Arashi said. "We just wanted to know our enemy better, show some initiative."
"Try showing initiative on something a little smaller, work your way up," he replied. The dyed redhead took his words to heart. "Now, you three go get to work. You have only until bed time." How they left his office wasn't exactly a mad dash, but it could've been called that.
(Location: Ba Sing Se)
They had been able to lose the ropes and the gags once they landed in the prison. The guards took them off and then dragged Mako and Bolin off to a prison cell. They were tossed in there and left alone. They didn't see where Yue had been taken too, but they had to assume it was the women's section of the cell.
The guard walking the rounds on the cells let his club bang against the bars. Anyone who had their heads there would get a hard thwack. Bolin learned this the hard way when he got the club across his head. "Ow," he yelped. He looked at the retreating guard, angry for getting hit like that.
Mako looked at his brother. "We have to find a way out of here before Zaheer gets his hands on Korra," he said.
The man in the cell next to them heard every word spoken. He took his small mirror and angled it so he could see them and vice-versa. "Take me with you," he pleaded. "I haven't seen my wife and five kids for four years."
Bolin was stunned by those words. "Four years?" he repeated. He could barely imagine being a great distance from Mako for a month, let alone for four years.
"The first few months were great," he said, trying to sound upbeat, "I-I could finally get some sleep, but…now I really miss them." The more he spoke, the more he lost that upbeatness.
While that was nice and all, Mako was more focused on getting out. Right now, that all depended on his brother. "Listen. Bolin, this is up to you. I know you can Metalbend."
"You can Metalbend?" asked their neighbor.
Bolin was quick to say, "No."
"Yes you can," Mako told him. "I believe in you."
"I believe in you too, Bolin."
He looked at his brother with concern. "I appreciate that, Mako, and fellow…" What was he supposed to call the guy next to them? "…prisoner man. But I've been trying and trying and trying and I've never been able to do it. Not even a little."
"You've always had the ability deep down. You just haven't had the motivation. But this is your time! Get us out of here to save Korra. You can do it!" He turned to the bars and started a rally cry. "Bolin! Bolin!"
The other prisoners took up the cry with enthusiasm. "Bolin! Bolin! Bolin! Bolin!" they all chanted, hoping to encourage the kid who get them out.
As he listened to their chanting, Bolin felt something move inside him. It was confidence. He could do this. "You're right," he told his brother. He got into the stance he learned in Zaofu. Okay, here I go. Metalbending," he cried like he was about to go into battle. He threw his arms and focus at the bars, trying to make them bend to his will. But it quickly proved fruitless. No matter how much he tried, the bars would not move. He ended falling to the ground, tears in his eyes. "I can't Metalbend."
The prisoners groaned in disappointment and went back to their own business. "Hey, you guys didn't happen to bring any toilet paper, do you?" the brothers' neighbor asked them. It was a good thing to have toilet paper down here.
Gāng and Yue had been taken to a part of the prison where the most dangerous criminals were to be held. That meant it was guarded at the entrance by Dai Li agents. They were alone in that section, with nothing but a faint light from the crystal on the ceiling to let them see each other.
Compared to the last prison he was in, this was much better to Gāng. Yue didn't feel that way. She could feel the darkness at the edges of the light. It was a like a beast, waiting to come and hunt them down. "Get a grip, Yue," she told herself. She looked across the prison to Gāng. "How can you stand this?" she asked him.
"Practice," he told her. The sound of a door opened somewhere close. "Hm, I wonder if it's time to feed us."
It wasn't food that came to them. It was Ming-Hua. As soon as she saw her sister, Yue burned with rage. "What are you doing here?" she snarled.
"I told the queen's secretary that I wanted to see you," Ming-Hua replied. "I was quite persuasive."
Gāng felt an uncertain tip in his stomach. "Tell me you didn't kill Gun," he said to her.
She barely glanced at him. "I didn't. I might've been locked away, but that doesn't make me a savage."
"Could've fooled me," Yue said with a snort.
She looked at her sister. "How does it feel to be stuck behind bars, Fuy—?"
The Water Paragon surged to her feet and slammed her face into the bars. It hurt a little but she didn't care about the pain. She was too busy being enraged. "Call me by that name and I don't care what's between us. I will beat you to a bloody pulp. That is not my name anymore."
"Ah yes, you would rather wear the name of a dead woman."
"What do you want, Ming-Hua?" asked Gāng. He was sitting in his cell. With his closed eyes, it would've looked like he was meditating.
"I came to talk to my sister, so fuck off."
Yue backed away from the cell bars. "There's nothing we can talk about," she said dismissively.
"Oh, there's plenty for us to talk about. You've just been too stubborn and eager for the fight to talk. Our childhood, for instance," she said.
"What about it? What do you want to talk about? How Yakone favored you? How he ignored me? How he had you beat me when he wanted to train you?"
Anger boiled inside her stomach. "Is that what you think happened?"
"We both know it happened."
"No you don't."
"I do know," she snapped. "I know what happened. You were Daddy's little princess, perfect in every way."
That anger surged forward. "You think that was it? You think I just snapped my fingers and Dad listened?" she demanded. "Dad drove me to be the best. Anything that was less, he'd beat me. Anything that I refused to do, he'd beat me. He cracked one of my ribs when he learned that I wasn't able to Bloodbend like he could. I didn't want to fight you during those spars, he made me."
Yue couldn't believe what she was hearing. She refused to believe it. "You're lying," she declared to her sister.
"I'm not lying."
"Yes, you are. Whenever we got into trouble, you would lie so that you wouldn't get into trouble."
That wasn't true. She tried to tell their father what happened but he wouldn't believe it. He would always think her sister was to blame somehow. "Yue—"
"Shut it, Ming-Hua. You lie. You only care about yourself, not me. You wouldn't have abandoned me if you did care."
"Abandoned you? When did I ever abandon you? If anything, you left me!"
"I did no such thing! When Yakone was finally imprisoned, it was you who disappeared."
"I was taken to safety," she told Yue. "The Red Lotus found me and got me away from the Avatar's clutches. They said that they had tried to get you but you refused to come and security had found them."
"Bullshit," the Water Paragon said instantly. "That didn't happen. No one tried to come get me. You just ran off, decided to be a good little Daddy's Girl and start up his gang again. You could've left that life behind but you went right back to it."
"Do you think I wanted to go back to it?" Ming-Hua demanded. "You honestly think that I wanted back into that kind of life?"
She snorted in derision. "Funny, you didn't seem to complain when you were running the gang."
"The Red Lotus wanted me to do it. I was to control the entirety of Republic City's underbelly and use it to overthrow the government." It was a good plan and she had been eager to do her part in it. "It would've worked if you hadn't gotten involved."
"Oh, so you're blaming me for trying to stop a repeat of Yakone's empire? Not on your life. We had a chance to end it and we took it."
She remembered that. She also remembered what came next. "Yes, you came to end it. And you tried to end me too."
Yue got angry at the memory. "You're the one who ran."
"You honestly believe that I would've gladly gone to prison?" She scoffed at the idea. "You must be delusional if you thought that. Yes, I ran. You're the one who chased after me."
"You think that I would've let you get away? You're damn right I came after you! You were a criminal."
"I was your sister!" she snapped.
Yue found that insulting. She was bringing up that because of the fight? That was low. "When did that ever stop you?"
"It should've stopped you from bringing the fight into that machine factory."
"I had no control over where the fight went."
She shifted her shoulders, making her tentacles a little more obvious. "You had control over this."
The Paragon looked at her shoulders and then at her. "I didn't see the machine was on until I saw the blade come down onto the conveyer belt."
Ming-Hua's anger grew. That sounded like someone trying to make the fault not theirs. "Are you saying it was an accident?" she demanded.
"I'm saying it happened, Ming-Hua. And you did worse to me!"
How could that have been? Yue looked fine to her. She had all her limbs. She hadn't been crippled by that fight. She had been the one who came out of the fight the victor. How could she say that the worse happened to her? That wasn't right! "YOU TORE OFF MY ARMS!" she yelled into the cell.
Her sister rushed back to the bars, pressing her face into them so they could see eye-to-eye. "YOU TORE OUT MY WOMB!"
Those words echoed in the air without end. The fury that had been building inside Ming-Hua, the fury that built whenever she met with her sister and they talked, it vanished completely at those words. "What?" she whispered, her eyes showing her shock.
"Right after you lost your arms and bent water to form tentacles. You bent one into an icy claw and raked my stomach with it. You cut it deep, so deep they weren't sure if I would be able to survive. But I did. I just couldn't have any children anymore." She glared at her with the utmost hate. "And you're the one who caused it."
She stepped back from the cell, her eyes clued to her sister's stomach. She remembered it bleeding during their fight. She had thought it had been a flesh wound, nothing more. But now, all she could see was the wound, bleeding out in front of her eyes. "I…I didn't know," she said.
Yue was scornful. "How could you?" she spat. "You fled the hospital before we even had a chance to talk to one another."
She couldn't argue with that. It was true. The Red Lotus got her out before any of the cops, the Paragons, or even the Avatar could've come for her. But now, she could only think of her sister's womb. How it was ruined. "I'm sorry," she said, truly meaning it.
"Sorry?" Yue repeated. "You're sorry? No, you lost the chance to say sorry, Ming-Hua. You lost it a long time ago. Go away."
"Yue—"
She turned her back on her. "I lost the chance to bear my own child because of you. Of all the things I could've done in this world, probably the best thing I could've done was bring a child into it and teach it to make it better. And you took that away from me. Go away, Ming-Hua." She didn't turn back around until she heard the footsteps fade from her ears.
Gāng finally spoke after staying silent throughout it all. "I'm sorry, Yue."
She looked at him, coming to the bars. "What are you sorry for?"
"I didn't know the depths of hatred you have for your sister. But it also seems like there is a second side to your story, hers."
"I don't care about her side of it."
He gathered that. It was clear from everything he felt from her. "Are you sure?" he asked her. "If you heard it, might you think differently about your past?"
"Gāng, you don't get it."
"I do get it, Yue. I do. I hated Suyin before we came to Zaofu. I hated her so much that I would've rather killed myself than have anything to do with her. You know that."
Yue did know that. Whenever the subject of Suyin came up in his company, he would always frown. If he was asked for his opinion about her, he would never give it. The one time he was pressed for it, he described his sister with the foulest things one could've imagine, ending it with how he wished she would end up in a ditch somewhere. The person who pushed him for the opinion, ironically a representative from Zaofu, was shocked and demanded he take the words back. He refused and called her worse things. The emissary attacked him in rage but was put down with a few strikes from Gāng. As far as she knew, he never recovered the use of his leg again.
But she had also seen how the relationship between the brother and sister changed in Zaofu. "What happened between the two of you?"
"We talked. I told her how I felt. She told me how she saw things. There was some shouting, some arguing, and some other stuff. But she apologized about how she had treated me and I accepted it, something that I never thought that would happen. The same thing could happen to you."
It was an idea. It was even a plausible one. That was what made Yue so adamant. "I don't want to change what I think about Ming-Hua, Gāng," she told him. "I've spent too long hating her. I'm not going to give that up now."
"You should, before it's too late. For all you know, that could've been the last time you had the chance to actually talk to your sister."
"That's fine by me." She would be more content fighting her sister. "She has made my life miserable enough. I won't give her the satisfaction of seeing me break."
"It doesn't sound like her life was a walk in the park either," he pointed out to her.
She was quick to say, "She was lying."
"Was she?"
"Of course she was. That's what she does. She lies about what happened to us so she can feel better about herself. I saw her when we sparred. She took joy in kicking me to the ground. I wasn't her sister. I was just her punching doll."
He sighed in defeat. "I'm not going to convince you otherwise, am I?" he asked, despite already knowing the answer.
"No, you're not. I don't bother you about Ghazan, even though you hate him more than you ever did Suyin. Why would you bother me about Ming-Hua?"
"Because even though it is incredibly easy to want it, I don't want to kill him," he replied. "I want him to suffer for what he did." He sighed and got to his feet. "We're not going anywhere with this. I guess it's time to move on."
She looked at him. "Move on?"
He banged the bars in a one-two rhythm three times. As the sound faded, the Dai Li agents that were supposed to guard them came to his cell. "My lord?" the one on the right asked.
"Does the queen have any more men in the Dai Li?" he asked.
"No, my lord," the left one said.
"Good. The Earth Queen has gone too far this time. It's time to fix this." Both agents looked at each other. They were unsure about what he saying. Yue saw that. Gāng did too. "Do you have any questions?"
"Are you sure about this, my lord?"
"Yes. She has kidnapped people to force them into her army, regardless of their opinions about it. She had me kidnapped and imprisoned when she finally had enough of me. It has to end. Do you disagree?" he asked them.
They looked at each other once more. Yue wanted to know what was going through their heads. They finally shook their heads. "No, we do not disagree, my lord."
"Good. Let me out."
She watched with a stunned surprise as they opened the gate for him. "Are you serious?" she asked Gāng as he walked out. "You could leave whenever you wanted?"
"Yes."
"Well let me out."
"No,"
"What? Come on, Gāng!"
He came over to her cell, his hand pressing against the bar. "Yue, if I let you out of this cell right now, would you promise me that you wouldn't go after your sister to kill her?"
She didn't answer right away. She had to think about it. She could promise him that she wouldn't. But they both knew it would be a lie. The urge to find Ming-Hua, to hunt her down and kill, it would be too strong. If she was given the chance, she wouldn't be able to resist it. "No," she said.
"That's what I thought."
"So you're just going to leave me to rot?"
He frowned. "Who do you think I am, Yue? You'll get out, I promise. But with what's going to happen next, I can't risk you disturbing it."
Now she was confused and curious. "What's going to happen next?" He didn't answer her. Instead, he just walked away. "Hey, Gāng!" she called after him. "What's going to happen?" He didn't answer. He walked off with the Dai Li agents.
(Location: Konoha)
"Does anyone else want to throttle that ass in there?" Hiro asked his teammates as they left the Research building. They walked through the streets with an angry pace that matched their expressions.
Arashi's hands were clenched. "Trust me, Hiro. I want to do more than throttle him."
"I'm with backwater boy on this one," Tsukiko agreed. "We did not spend the better part of last night pouring over what we had, trying to find a common point, only to get snubbed by a research assistant." The way he had said that the researchers will take what they found "under advisement" made her want to punch him silly.
They were all angry at how they were dismissed by someone who had only been a few years older than them. The guy was sixteen and already was on his way to becoming a bloated piece of fat. The acne on his face didn't help him much either. Still, he had sneered at them when they came in with what they had collected and looked down because they were Genin. They didn't do anything to him while they were there but it had been really tempting to do so. They had left with tempers running out.
That was how their sensei found them. "Wow, I can see the heat coming off your heads," she remarked as she leaned against the restaurant wall. "What happened?"
"Nothing happened," Arashi said shortly.
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Now I know something happened. Care to tell your sensei about it?" The way she was talking to them, they never would've expected she had looked so trouble and almost withdrawn yesterday.
Arashi considered if she should be told. She might take it in the wrong way if she learned about what they had been researching. But she hadn't reacted negatively when they questioned her about what happened. And she had called the Hokage on them. So they should be fine. "We were handing over the information we collected to the Research Department," he said.
"I see. And that's what made you mad, turning over everything that you looked up and researched?"
Hiro shook his head. "No, it wasn't that. We were glad to give it to people who knew what they would be doing."
"We're mad because some snotwit of an assistant tried to make us feel pathetic because he felt he was better than us," Tsukiko said. "It was really annoying."
"I see. Did you do anything?"
"We wanted to throttle him."
"I was for strangling him," Arashi commented.
"Hitting certain pressure points to make it hard to breathe for him or make him constipated," Hiro added.
"But no, we didn't do anything to him," she ended. "We left him the way we had founded him."
"Unfortunately," muttered her Uzumaki teammate.
"I'm glad that you were able to restrain yourselves from doing something stupid," Rin told her students. "That is something you will have to deal with in your lives, working with someone that you cannot stand. You might want to hurt them or just make them shut up, but it'll just make things worse if you do."
She spoke as if she had been in their situation before. She probably had been. "How do you handle it?" Hiro asked her.
"I usually smile and ignore the person."
"Does it work?"
"Depends on the person," she said.
Tsukiko frown. "We don't like the guy, how could there be anyone else?"
"I think that's a question for another time, don't you? We do have a mission to do today."
They all stopped their grumbling about the asshole assistant and tried to focus on what she said. "What's the mission?" Arashi asked.
"It's a C-rank."
"Cool, that means we're going out of the village," Tsukiko said. She was eager for it. "Should we start packing?"
Rin was quick to say, "Easy there, Tsukiko. I didn't say that we were leaving the village."
She frowned in confusion. "But you said that we had a C-rank mission." Any mission that was higher than a D had to have meant they were going outside of Konoha. That was how she saw it and she knew that her teammates saw it the same way.
But their sensei got rid of that notion fast. "Just because it's a C-rank mission doesn't mean we're not leaving the village. There are things in Konoha that have a higher ranking than D to them." She had been surprised too the first time she heard that. That was why the looks on their faces were so funny right now.
Hiro was the first to shake off the surprised look. "What's the mission?" he asked. "It's not advanced dog-walking, is it?"
Both his teammates looked at him. "Advanced dog-walking?" repeated Tsukiko.
"You know, when we have to walk the dogs that are so dangerous they can't be a D-rank?"
"…I think you just made that up." It sounded too unbelievable to be true. The only kind of dogs she knew that could be dangerous were the Inuzuka hounds and that was either when they were attacking or were close to missing a meal.
Arashi agreed with her. "Yeah, you made that up, Hiro."
"It's not advanced dog-walking," Rin told them all. "You can relax about that."
"Wait, it's an actual thing?"
She smiled cryptically, making him frown. He hated when she did that. So did Tsukiko. But it was pointless to keep asking. "What's the mission?" she asked.
"People have been reporting a strange sight in the nearby playground," Rin told them. "We're to investigate and report to the Hokage."
"What kind of strange sight?" Hiro asked, wanting more information.
She told him, "From what I've learned, it's either a glowing portal or a crack in the air." Both sounded strange to her.
He frowned, trying to figure it out. "That makes no sense."
"That's the report I got, Hiro."
"But, how could it be one thing or another?"
Arashi looked at his teammate. "I guess we're going to find out when we get there." He looked at their sensei. "Is it the playground to the west?"
"It is."
"Let's head over there then." He hopped over the wall separating the restaurant from the street.
Rin looked at his teammates. "He's quite the go-getter this morning, isn't her?" she remarked.
Tsukiko went to the wall herself. "He's probably trying to make sure he can burn off all that anger." She felt the same way. She hopped the wall and Hiro followed her. Rin watched them vanish from sight before taking the slow route by walking.
The playground was one of many scattered around Konoha. It was nothing like the playgrounds in the Hatake complex and it wasn't even one of the impressive ones. It was a simple playground. There one thing that stood, almost glaringly so, and it was the fact there was nobody there. The playground was completely deserted. "Where are the kids?" Tsukiko wondered as she walked onto the playground.
"Perhaps what we're looking for scared them off?" Hiro suggested.
Arashi looked around the playground. Nothing seemed to be wrong with it. "Where is it anyway?" he asked.
"I don't know."
Tsukiko surveyed the playground. "Maybe we should check with our eyes?" she suggested.
"We're already doing that, Iron Claw."
She scowled at Arashi. "I was talking about me and Hiro, backwater boy. Our eyes," she told him. "Unless you've got a Kekkei Genkai that we don't know about?"
"Alright, you made your point."
"Uh, guys," Hiro said, looking at the far end of the playground, "I don't think we need to go looking for it."
"Why's that?"
"Because it's right there," he told them, pointing at the far end.
They looked at it. There was a giant crack hanging in the air. If they hadn't been looking for it, their eyes would've passed over it. They could hear the air thrumming around the crack in a continuous hum. The crack was thin, thin enough to be sharp and cut someone. They couldn't see beyond that thinness.
"Okay, this is a little weird," Arashi said. "Not to mention spooky."
Rin came up behind them. "So that's what it looks like," she remarked, leaning against the nearby wall.
"Hey, Hiro," Tsukiko said, "You think you can look at the thing with your Byakugan?"
It was a good idea. "Only if you do the same with your Sharingan," he said back.
She nodded in agreement. "You go first."
He stepped a little closer to it, bringing his hand to his face. "Byakugan," he whispered. His veins popped as his eyes looked at the crack. "Huh, that's weird."
"What's up?"
"I can't see it."
"Say what now?"
"I can't see it." To his Byakugan, the thing didn't exist. It was like he was just looking at the playground. He looked at his teammates. They were there and he could see their chakra. So that meant it wasn't his Byakugan. "You look at it now," he told her, deactivating his eyes.
She stepped forward, activating her Sharingan. As soon as she looked at the crack, she said, "What the hell?"
"You can't see it either?"
"No." She deactivated her eyes and looked again. The crack was there. "What's going on?"
"I don't know." They both looked at their sensei for the answer.
But Rin shook her head. "Don't look at me. This is the first time the crack has been examined. Everything that we find here is what's first reported to the Hokage." It was a big thing to give to fresh Genin but she knew that they would be able to handle it. Their diligence in trying to find information about Tōitsu told her and Madara that.
They look at the crack again, scratching their heads. "We can't see it with our Kekkei Genkai. How are we going to examine it?" Tsukiko asked.
Arashi rolled his eyes. That was a ridiculous question. "Why don't we just get in close and look at it that way?" he asked. He went to the crack, getting close to touch it. The crack opened and swallowed his head before it could be stopped.
(Location: Earth Kingdom)
Lin's foot was hard down on the gas pedal, pushing the jeep as fast as it could go. Naruto sat in the passenger seat, his Zanpakutō resting against his shoulder. He didn't tell her to slow down. The kids had a day's lead on them and they had to close the gap as best as they could. "Are you going to punish Mako?" he asked her. She glanced at him, the question in her eyes. "For breaking orders, I mean."
"I didn't give him any orders, and he's not here as a cop. I really can't punish him for this. Are you going to punish Asami?" she asked.
"Depends," he answered.
"On what?" she asked.
"On how much trouble she's in when I find her and if I have to help her get out of it or not," he told her. "Being a Paragon means she's going to end up into trouble. When that happens, she'll have to get out of it herself."
"I thought that was life itself."
"That too," he admitted.
She saw something on the road. They were track marks, marks made by a jeep's tires. They had found something. "Hang on," she told her passenger as she followed the tracks to a plateau overlooking the Misty Palms Oasis.
They found two jeeps there. Korra and her friends had only taken one. "I'll check the other one," Naruto said as he climbed out of the jeep. "You check theirs."
She went over to the closer jeep and examined it closely. As her eyes traveled from the front to the back, Naga leapt from the other side, snarling loudly and teeth shining. The sudden sight of the polar bear dog made Lin scream and jump back. But then the snarl died away when Naga realized who it was. She jumped over the jeep and pranced around Lin, giving her a big lick across the face.
As much as she didn't want a big tongue licking the side of her face, there wasn't really anything she could do about it. "First, you scare the life out of me, now you want to lick me," she remarked drily. It got her another lick.
Naruto came back over to them. Naga saw him and went over to his side, ready to lick him too. "Naga," he said, warningly, "I'm glad to see you too but I don't need a licking." She came to a stop before him, looking disappointed. He scratched behind her ear reassuringly but that was the only thing he did.
Pabu popped up from the back of the jeep. He saw Lin, and leapt onto her, squeaking in excitement. She was stunned by his appearance but only for a moment. She grabbed the fire ferret by the neck and dropped him on Naga. She pulled out a few snacks from her pocket. "Here," she told them, "Chew on this and leave me alone." They did so enthusiastically. "And not a word out of you," she said to Naruto.
"Why would I say anything?" he asked back.
She went back to their jeep and grabbed the radio. "Tonraq, you read me?" she called.
Tonraq was quick to reply. "Yes, we copy."
"We've found Korra's jeep, but the kids aren't here. Meet me at the Misty Palms Oasis." She put the radio down and looked at Naruto. "Come on, time to go."
(Location Si Wong Desert)
They had been able to get the ship out of the dune and inflate it. They kept it stable with tether ropes. Asami did her best to repair the damages outside while Korra worked on the inside. When she saw the Avatar and one of the crew, Kong she thought, she asked, "How's it looking in there?"
"I just Airbent all the sand out of the engine room," Korra told her. "I think it's clean."
"That explains the shower of sand I just saw," she thought. It had been pretty, for a moment. Then she got back to work.
"Hasn't been this clean since it floated off the showroom floor," Kong remarked to Korra.
She looked up at Asami. "How's it going out here?"
"Well, she's still pretty banged up, but I think she might be able to limp out of the desert." She looked down at the crewman. "Kong, you want to see if you can get the engine started?"
He saluted and said, "Aye aye!" He turned back and walked into the ship.
Asami did a quick check over her work before coming down to the sand. She put the gear away and waited for the engines to start up along with the others. They heard the engine come to life and watched the propeller begin spinning. "All right!" crowed Arik, the crewman who had the watch on them.
Of course, that's when things got back. The spirit that had been watching them from afar suddenly shot out of the sand, right underneath the ship. It was huge and shaped like a worm. Its massive jaws crushed the ship in half with ease. Once it came out of its lunge, it started angling down towards them.
Both Korra and Asami had fallen onto their butts at the first explosion. Once they had gotten over the initial shock, they got back to their feet and started running, the same as the crew. The creature crashed into the sand again, knocking them down to the ground once more. It was gone as quick as it had appeared.
Korra watched it disappear back into the sand. She realized something. That thing was made of flesh, not energy. "That's no spirit!" she told Asami. When the sand finally settled, they couldn't even see a skeletal remain of the airship. But they were alive. "I think it's gone now."
Arik saw Kong at the far end of the remains. "Kong, are you all right?" he called, running over to him.
He was still in the pilot's seat, clutching the wheel. "What, what happened?" he asked in a daze. "The ship was…it was good. It was up." He looked around. "What am I doing out here? Where's the ship?"
"It's alright, man. You're fine. There was a sand shark. It tore the ship apart." He reached out and took gentle hold of the wheel. "Come on, let go."
Kong looked at the wheel like it was the first time he was seeing it. "What?"
"Let go of the wheel."
"Oh, ri-right," he said, trying to let go. His fingers wouldn't move right away. It took some doing and some help from Arik to get it off his fingers. Once they were free, the next step was to get off the seat and walk back to the others. Again, Arik helped him with this.
Once they were all together, they looked at the wreckage. "What are we going to do?" Arik asked, looking at anyone else for an answer. "All of our supplies were on the ship. We've got no food, no water."
"Easy, Arik," the captain told his man. "Another ship is on the way. We just need to hold our position for a few hours."
Asami saw a problem with that idea. That sand shark was still out there, waiting for them. "We might not have a few hours," she told the captain.
"How far are we from the edge of the desert?" asked Korra.
The captain looked her dead in the eye. "Too far to walk, if that's what you're thinking," he said.
Arik dropped to the ground with a hard frown on his face. "We can't just wait around to for that thing to pick us off one by one!"
"You'll do as you're told, Airman. Now get a hold of yourself!"
Asami looked back at the wreckage. There wasn't a lot, but she could see something out of all of it. "Maybe we can still build something to get us all out of here," she said to them all.
The captain looked at her. "You want to make some wings out of scrap metal and flap real hard?" he asked sarcastically. That was what it sounded like to him.
"No, but we might have enough material to construct a makeshift sand-sailer. Like the Sandbenders use to get around," she explained. "All we need is a sail and some kind of sled to attach it to."
Korra considered the idea. "It's worth a try." She glanced back at the captain, waiting for his reaction.
He looked at the two of them for a long moment. Then he looked at his men. "Gather every piece of metal you can find. We'll give that sandy beast a run for his money yet."
(Location: Ember Island)
Natsumi stared at the books and groaned. "Can we stop now?" she asked. Her mind was full of numbers, figures, and historical facts. She felt like she could pound her head against the table and it still wouldn't all come out.
Doll looked at her from across the table. "No, dear," she said.
"Please."
"You're the one who wanted to study."
"I know but I still want to breathe." She looked back at the kitchen. "Is the dinner ready yet?"
She lifted her nose and sniffed the air. "No, not yet," she told the little girl. "Go back to your studying."
She looked at the old woman. "How can you do that?"
"I do have a nose, dear."
"But how?" she asked. "I couldn't smell it." And she had been paying to the kitchen as best as she could.
"Oh, that's simple. My nose is better trained than yours. Now study, if you would." She gestured back to the books. "You have to keep going."
Natsumi didn't want to. She knew that she had to study. If she wanted to go to school, she had to study. She wasn't opposed to the studying but it certainly felt like she had been doing it all day. She would read a new book, taking notes as she went, and after a couple of books would take a little quiz. Depending on well she did on the quiz, they would let her continue to the next set of books or have her read the same batch again.
Right now, it felt like her whole world was comprised of these books. She could barely remember the last time that she took a break. It was so close to dinner, it was decided that she would go until it was made and then stop for the night. That was why she kept paying attention to the kitchen, waiting for those two magical words that would stop this torment for her.
Ten minutes later, she got it. "Dinner's ready!" Natsuko called out.
"Thank you," Natsumi breathed in relief, quickly closing the books and taking them off the table. Doll watched her go with a slightly amused look. Watching her heat signature move so quickly was like watching a flame flickering, trying to get more life for itself.
The books and papers were put away and Natsuko carried out the food from the kitchen. "Would you like some help, dear?" her grandmother asked, noticing how her arms were trembling from the weight of the bird.
Natsuko shook her head. "No, I got this." It might be heavy but she was only a few steps away from the table. She could do it.
And she did do it. The bird was able to reach the table without her suddenly tripping or slipping. Natsumi stared at the dinner. She knew it was a bird of some kind but she wasn't sure what. It was probably one of those weird mixed creatures she had seen around. It was funny how she thought it was weird. She had been born on this side of the planet, had a short childhood here, but she still thought the creatures were weird. She wondered if she would ever get over that feeling.
They all tucked themselves into the dinner. Within minutes the bird looked like it was being pecked apart by a vulture (or in this case, a lion vulture). "You've followed your mother's recipe exactly, dear," Doll told her granddaughter. "I'm proud. I knew that this would be excellent training for you."
"Thanks, Grandmother." Natsuko declined to mention that she was good at making this particular meal, coming from years of doing it herself. She was handy in the kitchen, having learned from her mother. "So," she asked Natsumi from across the table. "How goes the studying?"
"Finally glad that I could stop," she said.
Doll looked at her questioningly. "When did we ever say that?"
A regular girl might've panicked and started reminding them of the agreement made earlier that day. Natsumi just frowned at her and said, "That's not funny. You know that I could stop studying after dinner."
"As you say, dear," she replied, giving up the fight before it could even start.
Natsuko looked at Natsumi. "So is the studying going, Nat?" she asked again. She had been in the kitchen for the past hour or so, making sure she didn't destroy the dinner she was trying to make.
She took a bite out of the bird meat on her plate. It had a rich taste to it. As she chewed, she noticed that the flavor got hotter. It wasn't enough to make feel like her tongue was going to be set on fire. It was just getting warmer so she could appreciate the flavor even more. She swallowed and felt that warmth spread through her stomach. "I'm glad that I could stop now," she told her. "It felt like my head was full of nothing but what was in those books. I didn't know if I could keep going or not."
"Whether you could or couldn't, you still would have, Nat," Doll told her.
"Why's that?" she asked.
"I would be here to make sure that you did keep studying."
She could've laughed at that and asked how an old lady would've been able to make her keep studying. But she didn't. Instead, she remembered how this woman was a powerful Firebender with a history she could only hope to match someday. If she had a way, she would've used it to make her keep studying.
"Grandmother, stop tormenting Nat," Natsuko told her.
"Who says I'm tormenting her?"
"I am. You have your tormenting face on."
She scoffed lightly, like her granddaughter made an amusing joke. "Nonsense, I don't have a tormenting face."
"Yes you do. It's on right now."
Natsumi looked at the old woman. There was a slight smile on her lips that could probably be considered a smirk and a vicious one at that. She couldn't say if it was or not because she couldn't see her eyes. The eyes would tell it all. She looked at Natsuko. "How can you tell that's a tormenting face?"
"That's the same look she gets whenever a hopeful comes to be her student," the older girl explained.
"She gets a lot of students?"
"I seem to be in a bit of a dry spell," Doll remarked.
Her granddaughter was quick to dispel that notion. She pointed her knife accusingly at her. "You mean word finally got around about you and they've stayed away."
"Of course not, Natsuko," she retorted, somehow also managing to chide her in the same voice. "They always come. They can't help it. They're just not coming now."
Natsumi swallowed another piece of the meat. It was really good. "Why's that?" she asked the two of them.
The granddaughter answered before she could. "Everyone who thinks they've got the skills to become a good Firebender comes to her so they can learn from her. They all want the prestige of being called a student of the Blind Dragon."
"Okay. And what does that have to do with her having a tormenting face?"
"Because she subjugates any would-be student to hell as they train."
Doll said, "Natsuko, you make it sound like I am some of sort of evil spirit that torments them."
"The last would-be student you took ran screaming out of the house and got away from the island as fast as he could. I've never seen him again."
"So he couldn't handle the training."
"He was there for a day."
"Like I said," Doll said with a final tone.
A chill entered Natsumi's stomach as she listened to all this. The old lady was slowly becoming something else in her mind and it was a little terrifying. "Does this happen often?" she asked.
"Yes," Natsuko answered without shame. "The shortest time anyone spent being her student was an hour. One hour and the kid ran out screaming."
Doll shrugged her shoulders. "The boy was weak, puffed up on his own self-importance. He flaked out after I had him do some exercises."
"Exercises don't usually include someone bending fire at them."
"Then perhaps they should. It helps them think on their feet."
"What about the other students that ran out screaming? The ones you left in the wilds, the ones you left out at sea, and the ones you abandoned in the streets?" She made it sound like a list.
Her grandmother was unconcerned. "If they couldn't handle the training, they had no business being my students."
Natsumi was stunned at what she was hearing from this old woman. She was beginning to sound familiar, like someone had done the same thing or something similar to her. A memory flashed into her mind, making her gasp and clench the table. She tried to force it back but it was strong.
A man shouting.
Pain and tiredness mixing together in her body.
She wants to stop but can't.
She has to keep going.
What they want must be met.
Anything less is unacceptable.
Keep going.
Keep fighting.
Natsuko was by her side in an instant. "Nat," she said, taking her by the shoulder and giving it a shake, "Nat." The little girl came out of it. She was relieved but concerned. "Are you okay?"
She took a moment to breathe, bringing herself back into the present. "Y-yeah," she said. "I'm good."
"Are you sure?"
"I am." She looked at her, saying again, "I'm good."
Natsuko had her doubts but still went back to her own seat. "What was that?"
"It…it was just a bad memory."
Both grandmother and granddaughter stilled at that moment, their familiar arguing forgotten. "A memory of that time?" asked Doll.
"Yes."
Natsuko was surprised to hear that. "I thought you couldn't remember that."
"I can't remember it fully. I just get…flashes of what happened, bits and pieces that make sense only in the short term. The bigger picture is something I still don't know."
She considered those words and thought about what happened to her friend. A question came to her mind. It could've been insensitive but she wanted to hear the answer. "If you could," she asked, "would you want to remember everything that happened?"
Natsumi thought about it for a long moment. Would she want to remember it all? Her last clear memory before finding her hands around her brother's throat had been the night of the fire. Between those two moments there was a blank gap filled without only spots of memories. Would she want them all back? "No," she finally said. "I wouldn't want them back. They would just be filled with memories of pain." Not to mention the possibility of remembering wanting to go back home and wondering what was going on. "I don't want that."
Doll gave her granddaughter a sharp nudge with her knee. Natsuko didn't need it. "Alright, Nat," she said. "If that's what you want,"
"Thanks." She wanted to get off this topic. It felt uncomfortable. She looked at the old woman. "Has there been anyone who's gotten through your training?" she asked. That was a safe topic.
"A rare few," Doll said. "I can easily count the number on my right hand."
She looked at that hand, wondering just how many fingers would she use. "What happened to them?"
"Well, one of them is on the Fire Lord's council, and another is a fisherman."
"A fisherman?" she repeated to herself. That didn't sound like someone who would come out of training from a powerful Firebender. Was she trying to make a contrast between the two of them? Or was she just trying to show where they ended up? The more she thought about it, the more she had a hard time believing her. "Is that second student just a fisherman?" she asked.
"Well, he's a Fire Sage but he much rather prefers to be call a fisherman."
She knew it. That was two fingers. Now she had to wonder just how many fingers were left. It was probably best not to ask that question. She thought it would've been too personable. "Were they glad to have survived the training?"
"They were satisfied."
Natsuko was quick to add, "But not completely happy."
Doll turned her head towards her. "Is it my fault they came with misinformed hopes?"
"It's your fault for not setting the record straight at the first chance."
Natsumi was confused. It showed in how she scrunched up her face. "Misinformed hopes?" she asked.
"Every would-be student that comes hoping for training also believes that they'll be able to get the title of Dragon too. My grandmother here has only told the ones who manage to survive her training that title is earned, not given. It's like one last crushing of their hopes, if you ask me."
"Utter nonsense," Doll said with a tone of finality. "It's not crushing their hopes, it's getting rid of any remaining dreams they might still have. If any of my students graduate from my training, they do so with their heads here on Earth, not in the Spirit Realm."
"Huh?" said Natsumi. "What does that mean?"
"They don't think they're living a dream and are completely serious," Natsuko explained to her. "Those people are usually the ones who run away first."
All this talk about the old woman's training spooked her a little. But on the other hand, strangely enough, it interested her. That training sounded like a challenge, something to overcome. "Doll, when I'm old enough, could you train me?" she asked.
Her granddaughter looked at the girl with some surprise but Doll didn't react so. "Age has nothing to do with it, dear. Some of my would-be students have been younger than you when they came looking to be training." Those were the ones who were always claiming they were prodigies, rare talents. She cracked on them hard and they ran screaming for their mothers, all claims forgotten.
"Then how about when I'm better with my Bending?" She knew that what she was learning was years behind others, taking baby steps in what the others her age had already learned. If she went to go train under Doll as she was right now, she knew it wouldn't happen and she would probably get laughed at in the process.
The old lady considered what she said for a long moment, taking that time to eat the meal in front of her. She knew both the girls were staring at her, waiting for the answer. She was happy that her granddaughter was taking an interest for Natsumi. It showed that she truly cared about the girl and considered her a friend. Something like that could be easily said but to show it was much different and more genuine.
She put down her fork. Their attention sharpened. "If you become better at your Firebending, we will see," she said.
Natsumi smiled. "That's all I wanted to know." She had a chance, later on in life. For now, she had to focus on her studying.
(Location: Ba Sing Se)
Even though they were lounging and waiting, Zaheer's group was always alert. So when they notice the Dai Li agent walking past their room quickly, they knew something was up. "Looks like he's in hurry," Zaheer remarked, getting off the couch he was sitting on. "Wait here."
He went out of the room, checking the hallways to see if there was anyone else there. Once he knew he was alone, he went after the Dai Li. He had to be thankful of his former sifu for being able to track the agent. Apart from being a Paragon, June had also taught him how to hunt and track potential targets. He followed the man into the throne room, using his Airbending to stay high above and out of sight.
The agent went before the throne and knelt. "Your Majesty, we received a distress signal from the airship carrying the prisoners," he said. "We believed the ship crashed in the Si Wong desert and the Avatar may have escaped."
The Earth Queen's face, already frowning, turned angry. "This is outrageous! Send another airship to retrieve the Avatar immediately."
Zaheer was filled with disgust at the sight of her. "She is a child in the body of a woman." Why hadn't something been done to her was something he could never understand. Forget the supposed authority of the crown and the government, she was simply spoilt and foul woman who needed to be dealt with.
"It's already on its way, Your Majesty," the agent told her.
Zaheer had heard all he needed to hear. When the agent left, he leapt through the door and made his way back to their rooms. As soon as he walked through the door, he said, "We have a complication."
"What kind of complication?" P'Li asked him, sitting up right.
"The Avatar is trapped in the Si Wong Desert. She will be delayed."
They all frowned at that explanation. That was not something they had planned. "What are we going to do now?" Ming-Hua asked.
"There's no way we can track her down in the desert before the queen gets to her," Ghazan said.
"You really think we'd be lucky enough to capture her again?" P'Li asked him. "It's more likely that the old man would find us before we found her." She looked up at Zaheer. "She'll be long gone by the time they arrive."
"It doesn't matter," he told her. "We're through chasing her. It's time to make her come to us." He had a plan for it.
Ghazan saw someone move outside the door and was surprised. "Was that Gāng?" They all looked out the door. It was the Earth Paragon in the hallway. He was walking with a determined pace to the throne room.
"What the…? What's he doing out?" Ming-Hua asked. "He's supposed to be locked up."
"As Paragon of the Earth Kingdom, he has the final authority on the Dai Li," Zaheer said. "He must've ordered them to let him out."
"They let him out but not Yue?" That meant something was going on. They all shared a look and had the same idea: they had to follow him.
When Gāng walked into the throne room, he could feel Hou-Ting's surprise emanating from her body. She never could get a good grip on her emotions. Gun was surprised too but he was also feeling hopeful. He had hope that something was going to change. He was right.
"What is this?" the Earth Queen said.
"Hello, Hou-Ting," he said to her, making his voice sound pleasant. It almost sounded like he was greeting a friend during the afternoon.
"What is this?"
"You said that already."
She scowled. "You dare talk to your queen so?'
He shrugged his shoulders. "I haven't stopped before. Why should I now?" He turned his head towards the Grand Secretariat. "Gun, you'll probably want to leave now."
Gun glanced nervously at the woman he stood beside. "I-I do?"
"Yes, you do."
"Gun, stay right where you are!" Hou-Ting ordered. She didn't have a reason for keeping him, but she wasn't going to let the blind rat in front of her win. She was the queen. She ruled here.
But Gāng said, "Gun, go." The Grand Secretariat started walking for the nearby side exit, trying to make it appear as if he had been dismissed casually. He was also hoping that no one could see the sweat on his forehead.
The Earth Queen was enraged at being ignored like this. Never had it been done so obviously to her face. She would not stand for it! "Dai Li!" she snapped out. "Arrest Gun and throw him into the prison. He's a traitor to the Earth Kingdom." That one order was enough to make her Grand Secretariat run out of the hall like his life depended on it. But the Dai Li did not chase after him. They stayed right where they stood. She looked at them, becoming enraged. "Did you not hear me!? I said arrest him!"
"They aren't going to obey you, Hou-Ting," Gāng told her.
She looked at him like she couldn't believe that he would speak to her like that. "They serve me."
"At my pleasure," he said.
Her face went red. It wasn't pretty. "They serve me! I am the Earth Queen!"
"And I am the Paragon of the Earth Kingdom. The Dai Li have been serving you because I have allowed it to happen."
She looked down her nose at him and smiled cruelly. "Do you mean the Dai Li who took you prisoner and had you locked in a cell? I remember the months without fondly. I'm not going to miss you."
"Really?" he asked. "You think I will go back to prison again?"
"Oh, I don't think. I know it will happen."
He spread his arms wide. "Go on then. Tell them to arrest me."
She did it once today. She would gladly do it again. She pointed a bejeweled finger at him. "Dai Li! Arrest him!" She waited for them to move. They didn't. She looked at them standing and not moving. "What are you doing? I told you to arrest him!" They didn't budge. "Arrest him or I will have you arrested!"
"They're not going to listen to you, Hou-Ting. Didn't you learn that when they didn't arrest Gun?" he asked.
She fumed. "They're supposed to obey me!" she screamed, slamming her hand against the throne like a spoiled child. "I am their queen. They are my Queen's men!" If there was one thing she always made sure of, it was that she was always protected by the Queen's men in her throne room.
Gāng laughed at her. It was a cold laugh that reverberated through the throne room like water freezing into a river. Even though they knew it wasn't directed to them. The Dai Li in the room still felt a chill crawl down the back of their spines. "And again, you've proven yourself to be an idiot."
"What did you say!?" she screeched at him.
If he could see, he would've looked her in the eyes. Instead, he said, "You never bother to know the Queen's men personally, huh? You just accepted that there were bodies and faces who would listen to your every command. You never knew them more than that. That was your mistake."
"What are you getting at?"
"There are no more Queen's men in the Dai Li. They've been purged. Which means their loyalty belongs to me completely once again." She looked like she was about to throw another fit about it. So he ordered, "Dai Li, bring her to me."
One moment, Hou-Ting was getting ready to shout, the next she felt the metal on her body pulling her off her throne. The Dai Lie were Metalbending her off the throne. She was so surprised by the action that her voice was found after she touched the ground. "What is this? You dare to touch your queen so!? I will have your heads! I will see you all dead! I—"
Gāng jabbed a spot on her throat. Her screeching voice faded away instantly. She looked at her throat, stunned by the action. She tried to speak but there were no words coming out. "I told you to shut up, Hou-Ting," the Paragon told her. "I guess I had to do it by myself."
Her eyes blazed with fury. "How dare he touch the queen?" She reached out to grab him, to claw him with her bejeweled nails. But he vanished and suddenly she lost feelings in her legs. She fell to the floor with a loud crash. She tried to get up but her legs wouldn't obey her.
A shadow fell over her. She looked up and saw Gāng standing over her. "Haven't you figured out what's going to happen?" he asked her. "Or are you so stupid that you can't even comprehend everything I'm doing?"
A worry bloomed in her mind at those words. What was he going to do to her? She looked up and saw a silent determination. That horror bloomed into a horror as she finally pieced it together. Her mouth fell open in horror and she tried to speak again. But no words would come out. She was speechless.
He watched her with a grim satisfaction. "I'm going to kill you, Hou-Ting," he told her. "I know that I'm not supposed to, but I have had enough of you and I think so has the Earth Kingdom. You will die and everyone will be the happier for it. Perhaps your replacement will be a better one than you."
He spoke of this like he was describing a way to shop grocery or to judge people at a ball. But with each word he spoke, the Earth Queen grew more and more horrified. She couldn't believe what was happening. She was the queen. No one was supposed to touch her. Her authority and status wouldn't permit it! But here he wasn't, calmly talking about her death like it was something people would take for a celebration. That couldn't be true. She was the Earth Queen. Her subject worshipped and adored her. They were hers to command and order as she saw fit and they would obey.
She reached for his leg, grabbing hold of it. She looked up at him with a pleading expression, trying to say the words. She couldn't even utter a sound. But somehow, for a blind rat, he understood. "What? Mercy?" he asked. "You want mercy?" She nodded, glad that he understood.
It was quickly crushed. "Why should you have mercy after all those people you've thrown in jail because they displeased you didn't? Why should you have mercy after you forcibly conscripted new Airbenders into the military, an action that has been illegal since your father's reign? Why should you have mercy after you had me imprisoned simply because you were tired of me getting in your way? No, Hou-Ting, you won't get any mercy. You don't deserve it."
"No! No!" she screamed inside her own head. This was not how it was supposed to be. She should deserve mercy. It was her right! She was the queen! She pulled hard on his leg, trying to get a better grip on it.
He shook it off. "What? Nothing to say?" he asked her mockingly. "Good. I was tired of your voice." He raised his hands. "Now just do all of us a favor and die."
She could've stopped him, if she had been quicker. He jabbed her chest in several points and suddenly it was like all the air left her. She tried to breathe but she couldn't. There was no air.
There was no air.
There was no air.
There was no air!
She couldn't breathe!
Everything was going dark!
No! She refused to let that happen!
She was the queen!
She would not die because the air refused her to breathe! But no matter what she tried to do, she would not breathe. She couldn't breathe.
Her anger turned to fear. Fear turned to panic easily. "Please," she silently begged the Paragon, reaching for his leg again. When did it become so hard to raise a hand? "Please." She had to reach him. If she could reach him, he would realize his place and give her back her breath. She wouldn't punish him too harshly if he did that. He couldn't just let this happen! "Please!"
As she was about to reach his leg, he moved it out of the way. All of her strength fell as she looked up at him. There was nothing in his face but disdain. That was the moment she finally, truly, realized that he was going to allow this to happen. He was going to let her die.
She screamed inside her mind as the seconds stretched out and the world turned dim and dark. "No! This can't be happening! I'm the queen! Someone help me! I command it! Save me! Please! Save me! I can't die like this!" She could barely see in front of her nose. "Someone save me! I command it…!"
In life, the best description of the Earth Queen had been a screaming pain in the ass of a bitch. So there was a certain irony that she died in complete silence. Gāng stood at her body, relishing in that silence. She was finally dead. He could have a certain amount of peace in his life. Maybe now, he would stop having a damn headache whenever he thought of her.
"Are you going to just stand at the door or come in?" he asked without turning around.
The throne room doors opened and in walked Zaheer's group. Gāng had felt them standing outside the throne room since Gun had left. They were keeping impassive looks on their faces, but he could feel how some of them were surprised by what happened.
"You killed her," Ghazan said, looking at the dead body. He had wanted to do it himself for what she did to Gāng.
"I didn't kill her."
Zaheer frowned. He knew enough of the Earth Paragon to know that he wasn't in denial. He didn't sound like he was in denial or even in shock. His voice was too calm and measured. He was planning something. "What do you mean?"
"I didn't kill the Earth Queen. How could I? The Dai Li opened my cell too late. I tried to make here but she was already dead." He turned his blind eyes onto the Airbender. "She was killed by you, Zaheer, when she decided to throw you into prison for lack of respect to her."
"And how did I kill her?"
"She has clearly died of asphyxiation. Something like this could only have been done by an Airbender."
"Or someone who knows what pressure points on the body to strike," he remarked, keeping his face expressionless.
Gāng smiled. "That is true, but which is more believable? That the Earth Paragon who served and aided her for many years killed her because he was tired of her inability to rule, or a band of escaped criminals made their way into the Royal Palace and killed the Earth Queen to send a message to the Avatar?"
"…You're right, that is more believable. Of course, it would be more believable if the Earth Paragon was killed too." It was a threat. They all knew that it was a threat. What he wanted to see how Gāng would react.
The blind man smirked. "You could do that, if you want the other Paragons hounding you for the rest of your lives. I know that Yue will take pleasure in killing her sister, and Bumi could summon an army of comrades to help him crush you. But the real concern would be Naruto and his reaction. He doesn't say it much, but he considers the Paragons to be a part of his family." He paused for a moment before driving the point. "I'm sure by now, you've all heard what happened after his family was killed?"
They had. They were experienced people, hardened and toughened by the years of their cause and their imprisonment. But even they had shuddered at the news of what Naruto did. P'Li knew him best and she knew that he would do just that, probably even worse, to them. "We heard," Zaheer said.
"You want that to happen to you?"
"Do we look like we're idiots or suicidal?" Ghazan asked his nephew.
"Shall I take that as a yes?"
Zaheer answered for them. "You shall."
He smiled again. "Good. Then I'll leave here along with the Dai Li and leave you to pick up the blame. And we'll keep this between us."
"Someone will talk." It wasn't a threat as it was more of a warning.
The Paragon shook it off. "The Dai Li know how to keep their mouths shut, so the only people who are going to talk are either going to be you guys or me. And I'm not going to talk. Are you?"
"…No."
"Then we don't have a problem."
"We don't." They didn't stop him from walking out of the throne room nor did they stop the Dai Li was leaving either.
Soon, they were alone in the throne room. There was no one else there but them. Ghazan looked back at the door where Gāng had left. "Zaheer, I hope you don't mind my saying this," he said, turning back with a proud smile, "but my nephew has balls."
"He certainly is tenacious," Ming-Hua remarked. She could think of very few people who would've tried what he did, do it, and then pin the blame on someone else.
"That he is," Zaheer remarked. "But he is also short-sighted."
The Lavabender of the four looked at him with injured pride. He wasn't actually insulted by what was said, but he was acting as a proxy for his nephew. "Why's that?" he asked.
"He left us to take the blame." The Airbender smiled a grim smile. "He didn't say or do anything to stop us from continuing it." They all knew what he meant by that.
Ghazan was sent to the wall and they went off to find the radio room. It turned out to be in the outer buildings at the top of the tower. When they walked in, the radio operative didn't notice them until he could hear their feet behind him. As soon as he looked back and saw them, he got angry. "Hey!" he said, coming out of his chair. "You can't be in here!"
"No need for alarm," Zaheer told him. "I just need to make an announcement to the entire city. How do I do that?"
"Who do you think you are?"
Ming-Hua moved, grabbing him with her tentacle and lifting him off the ground. "He's the man who just took down the Earth Queen," she told him. "You want to be next?!"
Zaheer came to her side, stopping her before she went any further. "Ming-Hua, please," he said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "We're here to help citizens like him, not hurt them." He looked up at the now scared operator. "Now, can you help me?"
He nodded and the Waterbender and tossed him into the chair. He quickly set the dials for a city-wide broadcast. Once he was done, he got out of the seat. Zaheer took it and move in front of the mic. "Attention citizens of Ba Sing Se," he began. "I have an important announcement to make. Moments ago, the Earth Queen was brought down by the hands of revolutionaries, including myself. I'm not going to tell you my name, because my identity is not important. I'm not here to take over the Earth Kingdom. I think you've had enough of leaders telling you what to do. It's time for you to find your own path. No longer will you be oppressed by tyrants. From now on, you are free! I deliver Ba Sing Se be into the hands of the people!"
While he had been talking, Ghazan had made his way to the Inner Wall. He ended up standing before it in the Middle Ring. As soon as he heard Zaheer start speaking through the radio, he got ready. He listened to the speech and rolled his eyes at it. Zaheer was always a little bit of a grandstander when it came to speeches. But he did have that charismatic vibe to him that made him so effective at speeches.
As soon as the speech ended, he bent the earth into lava and sent it right under the wall. For a moment, all there was the pool of lava there. It could melt the wall, in its own time. But he wasn't going to let it happen in its own time. He bent the lava upward, right through the brick and mortar of the Inner Wall. The lava gave off a blood-red glow through the cracks as it went up and up and up.
When it reached its breaking point, the Inner Wall collapsed. He watched in satisfaction as the section before him fell upon itself, leaving a gaping hole in its wake. "And now, it begins," he thought to himself, moving out of the way. He looked to the Middle Ring and waited.
He didn't have to wait long. As soon as the people saw the collapsed wall, the air rang with their cheers. They moved to the hole, to the Upper Ring, filled with riches. The movement quickly turned into a run, than into a charge, and then into a full fledge stampede. The ground shook with how their feet racing for the riches.
Ghazan watched them all with an amused look. It was a little funny to see them all lose their minds when they had the chance to get some quick gold and other whatnot. But everything wasn't done yet. "Now to bring down the Outer Wall," he thought as he walked in the opposite direction.
Both Mako and Bolin had heard the speech in the prison. It chilled them because their first thoughts were of their parents. While the other prisoners celebrated what was happening. Mako was trying to melt the cell bars. He had only gotten through one and already he was exhausted by it. They needed a quicker way out. He looked back at his brother. "We have to get out of here, Bolin. Zaheer came here to take out the Earth Queen, and now Korra is next."
"You know that guy?" asked their neighbor. "He's my hero!"
"Shut up!" he snapped. Now wasn't the time for hero-worship. He looked at Bolin. "You have to Metalbend us out of here. C'mon! I know you can do it! This is your time!"
His brother was slumped against their shared bed. They hadn't gotten to figuring out how they were going to share it. "You said before 'was my time,'" he pointed out. He couldn't do it then, why could he do it now?
"I know I did it, but now it's really your time."
"Or," Gāng said as he walked up to the cell with Yue, "how about we just let you two out?"
Bolin came to his feet, surprised. "Gāng?" he said, "Yue? You guys are alive!"
"Of course we are," Yue said. "Did you think we were killed?"
Gāng opened the cell. "Come on, we have to get moving."
The other prisoners watched as the brothers got out. "Hey, what about us?" their neighbor asked. The doors opened suddenly. The prisoners stared at them for a moment and then ran out, cheering that they were free. "Never mind," he said before he ran away.
Mako watched them go before he looked at the Paragons. "You let them go?" he asked.
Yue shook her head. "That wasn't us."
Zaheer walked up to them through the fleeing prisoners. Bolin and Mako saw him and instantly went into fighting stances. Gāng held up an arm, stopping them from going any further. "Stop," he told them.
Bolin protested, "But—"
"Don't do anything."
"He's right there," Mako said.
"I know. I can see him. Don't do anything."
Yue looked hard at Zaheer. "What are you doing here?" she asked. "Shouldn't you be leading the people in looting everything?"
"I'm not their leader," he simply said before turning his attention to Mako and Bolin. "I was coming to see you but I see that Gāng already got to you."
"What do you want?" Mako demanded. They weren't fighting but he knew that it could happen at any moment. He wasn't going to get caught off guard.
"I want to talk to you. I have a message that I need you to take to Korra."
(Location: Konoha)
Both Hiro and Tsukiko ran for the crack as soon as they saw Arashi's head disappear. Tsukiko grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. Thankfully, his head reappeared still attached to his head. They pushed him away from the crack and didn't stop until they were at least five feet away from it. "What the hell?" she demanded. "You just don't go and do that!"
He blinked a lot, trying to get the light back under control. Once his eyesight was back to normal, he looked at her. "You guys weren't doing anything about it," he retorted.
Rin came over to them. She quickly looked her student over. He was fine. "They were doing something about it, Arashi," she told him. "They were observing it."
"They saw nothing, sensei." He looked at them. "You were seeing nothing right?"
Hiro nodded. "He's right, sensei. The Byakugan didn't see the crack."
Tsukiko said, "Neither did the Sharingan."
"So," Arashi said, "It seemed like the best way to examine was to look through it." He hadn't been exactly proud of the idea but it seemed like the only one that would work.
Hiro could see the logic behind what he was saying. Arashi didn't have eyes like theirs so he would think to use his actual eyes to see the crack more closely. He just didn't expect to see the crack react like that. "What did it feel like?" he asked him.
"What?"
"The crack," he explained. "What did it feel like putting your head through the crack?"
"You mean when the crack opened up and swallowed his head," Tsukiko said.
"I'm glad that you care, Iron Claw," Arashi said.
She frowned and slugged him in the shoulder. It wasn't that hard. "Would you stop calling me that, backwater boy?" She said it more out of habit than vehemence any more.
"Guys, focus," Rin told them both, "Arashi, answer the question."
He thought about the question. His mind went back to the sensation of the crack engulfing him. It was strange that much was certain. But when he actually tried to remember the feeling, the exact feeling eluded him. The closest he could come to it was telling them, "It's like sticking my head through still water that was also moving and that's both warm and cold at the same time."
Both his teammates frowned. "That doesn't make any sense," Tsukiko protested. How could it feel like still water and running water? She could kinda understand the cold and hot bit, considering if she fiddled with the dials in the shower she could hit that temperature.
"That's what I felt."
"What did you see?" Hiro asked him.
"The playground," he answered.
"No, I mean in the crack."
"I did too."
They frowned at him. "Would you make sense, Arashi?" Tsukiko asked him.
"I am making sense. The crack showed me the playground. But it was different."
Rin looked at the playground. She took in all the details and then looked at him again. "Different how?" she asked him.
"It was late afternoon, almost evening. There were…" He frowned as he tried to remember the details. "There were kids playing. They were enjoying themselves. Their parents were close by, watching them. They looked proud. But this other kid showed up. He came running into the playground, wanting to join the others. But the parents, they took their kids away as soon as he came in. They just left him there."
"That's horrible," Hiro said. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.
But Arashi said back, "That's what I saw." He thought about what he saw, going over the details. "Now that I think about it, the kid looked familiar." There was something about the hair that seemed like his.
They all looked back at the crack. "You think it's a portal to the past or something?" Tsukiko wondered.
He shook his head. "No, I don't think it's that. If anything, it's a portal to the Spirit World."
"The Spirit World?" she repeated it like a question.
"Yeah, the Spirit World," he told her. She and Hiro gave him odd looks. "Oh come on, I had to have talked about this."
Hiro shook his head. "No, I don't think that you have." He tried to remember anything that might be important later on. He didn't hear anything about a Spirit World.
Tsukiko was with him on this one. "Yeah, you never mentioned the Spirit World, backwater boy."
Rin did know what he was talking about. "Fill them in, Arashi."
He looked at his teammates. "Alright, look. What we're in right now, the world around, that's the Physical World. Everything that is mortal is born, lives, and dies happens right here. But when they do die, they cross over to the Spirit World."
"So it's the afterlife," Tsukiko said.
"Yeah, I guess you could say that it's that." It was much more than that but he wasn't going to argue the point.
Hiro wanted to know more. "Can this world be accessed?"
He thought about it, scratching his head. "Yeah, I guess you say someone could cross over into the Spirit World."
Tsukiko rolled her eyes and pointed at the crack. "We've got the evidence you can cross over right there."
He was quick to shake his head. "No, I don't know what that is but that is not the usual way one can get into the Spirit World. Most people have to be spiritual masters in order just to cross over." There were also the portals at the pole but they couldn't reach them. "That," he pointed at the crack, "I don't know what that is."
They all looked at the crack. It was hanging in the air, causing no kind of problem. But the uncertainty and threat of it loomed silently over it. It was a door that could be opened with the right amount of pushing. The question was, did they want to see what was beyond that door? "What should we do?" Hiro asked Rin.
"We examined it as best we can, and then report back to the Hokage about what we've found," she told him.
"That's it?"
"Yes. That's all we can do."
"Should we look into it again?" Arashi asked.
All three were quick to tell him, "No."
They went to work, trying to figure everything they could about the crack. But the more they examined it, the more they found they couldn't understand it. The only things they did know was that Hiro's and Tsukiko's eyes couldn't see it when activated and it opened up when someone got close. Hiro proved that when he accidently got close and the crack tried swallowing him. He was pulled back by Arashi but it got his arm for a moment. He felt the same sensation Arashi had.
"You okay?" the dyed redhead asked him.
He pushed him away gently and checked himself. There were no wounds or injuries that he could see. "I'm fine, Arashi."
"What happened over there?" Tsukiko asked from the other side of the crack. She had seen the thing opened but she didn't know why.
"Hiro got a little close to the crack."
"I'm fine," the aforementioned Hyūga told her.
"How could you let that happen?"
RING!
RING!
"Hang on," she told them as she pulled her phone free. "Hello?"
Both Arashi and Hiro kept looking at the crack when she closed the phone. She didn't run but walked really fast to Rin. "Sensei, I have to go. There's an emergency at home." There was a hint of worried panic in her voice.
"What is it, Tsukiko?"
"Itachi's gone missing. Mom doesn't know where he went."
That was all she needed to hear. "Alright, go." That was when her student took off in a dead run. She was gone from the playground faster than any of them could blink. They all watched her run. Rin looked at Hiro and Arashi. "Well? Don't just stand there. Keep working."
(Location: Si Wong Desert)
They had managed to find enough scraps to make a sand-sailer. Asami took over command of the construction. She knew more about that kind of thing than anyone else there. The airmen followed her instructions and the sand-sailor took ship. When it was practically done, she took a quick look over the controls. "She ain't pretty," she told Korra, "But I think she'll do the job."
The Avatar saw something moving in the distance. It was the sand-shark and it was coming towards them. "No time for a test run. Let's move!"
They all hopped aboard the make-shift sand-sailer and Korra blasted the sail full of air. Asami manned the helm and directed the ship away from the sand-shark. The creature stayed on them, gaining an inch by an inch to them. The airmen watched nervously, waiting for the thing to try and pounce on them.
It didn't disappoint, leaping out of the sand right at them. Arik saw its massive mouth, filled with teeth that looked really pointy and sharp, and had only one thought, which was "Holy fucking badgermoles!" If he had eaten before they left he probably would've pissed or shat himself (or probably both).
Asami saw the same thing he did. But she reacted differently. She pulled at the helm and moved the sailer out of the shark's path. It tried it again but she moved the sailor out of the way again. "You'll have to do better than that!" she shouted silently at the shark. "Come on, you gutless waste of a windbag, try and catch me!" She stopped and wondered just how much Naruto was being an influence on her. She didn't usually shout insults at her enemies. She was the one who kept focus in the fight, staying silent.
The sand-shark soon vanished from sight. No matter where they looked, they couldn't see it. "I think he's gone," Arik said. "We did it!"
That was when the shark decided to come up right underneath them. The force sent them flying into air and it followed, jaws agape. It was clear that it intended to eat them. And as the sailor fell into its mouth and the jaws began to close, that looked like the end.
But Korra wasn't going to let it end there. She turned from the sail and bent a large stream of fire down the shark's gullet. If the creature could scream from the pain it would've. And that's what it did, opening its jaws to bellow in pain. That, plus with the boost provided by the fire, had them sailing out of the shark and back out into the desert.
They landed with a hard thump. Korra blasted the sail again and got them moving once more, away from the shark. The shark smashed back into the sand, causing a small tidal wave of sand that pushed them further along, putting even greater distance between them. Soon, the shark and its movements were gone from sight.
Once that happened, they all cheered in victory. "That was awesome!" Arik told Korra, grinning widely. "I never saw something like that before!"
She returned his grin. "Now you've got a story to share."
"Damn right I do."
Asami grinned by proxy. She probably should've been blasé about these kinds of things when it came to Korra and getting out of tight situations. But the tribeswoman always managed to impress her. She was one hell of a woman. "I don't think I would be able to see her turn evil." Her sensei might have something to say about that sentiment but she really didn't care at that moment.
The rest of the day was spent getting back to safety. Thanks to the captain's knowledge of where his base had been and where they crashed, Asami was able to guide the sailer to the safety of the Misty Palms Oasis. It was beginning to cool down as they reached the oasis, parking the sailer right next to a group of Sandbenders. As soon as it stopped, their sail and mast collapsed, falling to the ground loudly.
Asami just looked at the Sandbenders. "You want to buy a slightly used sand-sailer?" she asked them. They could've refused but they always needed more sailers.
After a quick haggling with them, Asami stepped off the sailer and let them take it. "Thanks, Asami," the captain told her. "You got a good head on your shoulders."
"That's the truth," Korra thought to herself, feeling proud for her. She looked at the captain herself. "I'm sorry for getting us stranded out there," she apologized. "I didn't mean for that to happen."
He looked at her and said, "You know, whatever the conflict between you and the queen is, I'm sure it's above my pay grade." He held out his right hand, which was a hook instead. She took it all the same and shook it. "You've got a tough job. Good luck, Avatar." He gave her a salute and went back to his men.
Arik had something to say. "Captain, have we been in the desert for too long? Or is that really a dragon over there?" They all looked at the dragon staring at the two camels tied to the tree. The camels were trying to get away from but couldn't. So they decided to shiver in fear instead.
The captain took one look at it all and came to an important decision. "Ugh, let's go get a drink."
Both Korra and Asami watched them leave. The Avatar was a little impressed by the man. After all he had seen, ending with an actual dragon, he didn't even blink. That was something she could learn. She heard feet pounding against the sand and a shadow falling across the corner of her eye. She turned and saw Naga bounding onto her. She was slammed into the ground but giggled as the polar bear dog licked her face. "Easy, girl," she told Naga. "Did you think we weren't coming back to you?" She snuggled the polar bear dog's face.
Asami gave them a moment before she cleared her throat. "Shall we?" she asked Korra. She nodded and climbed out from under Naga.
They followed the polar bear dog to one of the cantinas. As they walked in, Korra saw her father sitting with Lin, Naruto, and another old man. The burn scar on the man's face told her who he was. Still, she went over to them. "What are you all doing here?" she asked her father.
He stood up from his chair. "Korra, you're safe," he said, giving her a tight hug.
"Yeah, we made it out of the desert," she told him, "Thanks to Asami."
He gave her a quick nod before looking at the second old man. "Do you remember Lord Zuko?"
Zuko stood up at his name. "I met you when you were a very young girl," he told Korra. "It's good to see you again, Avatar Korra."
"It's good to see you, Lord Zuko," she replied.
Lin looked quite annoyed at the Avatar. "Thanks for ditching me back at Zaofu," she said dryly.
"Yeah, sorry about that," she apologized. "But, how did you all find us?"
"I am a detective, you know."
"No need to get snippy, Lin," Naruto told her.
Asami looked at them both. "Did you find Mako and Bolin?"
"Some people at the inn saw them captured by Zaheer's crew. We don't know where they are," the cop answered.
Tonraq asked his daughter, "Did you hear about the Earth Queen?"
"What about her?"
The radio stopped playing music and an announcer came on the air. "Once again, the Earth Queen's reign has come to an abrupt and violent end. Ba Sing Se has descended into chaos. Rioters and looters have overrun the palace."
"That was convenient," remarked Naruto.
Korra wasn't concerned about the convenience. She had an idea about who was behind Ba Sing Se. "The Red Lotus."
Her father looked at her. "What's that?"
"The name of the group that's been trying to capture me and just took out the Earth Queen," she told him, dead serious. "I'm afraid this is only the beginning, Dad."
End
Author's note: Thank you for all the reviews you've sent me.
If there is something I would like my readers to take away from this chapter, it would be Gāng and Yue. I know that I've shown they're conflicted characters earlier but I wanted to make it more obvious. And yes, the issue that was always avoided with Yue was the fact her womb was destroyed. I don't know if a woman can survive such a wound but I'm going to assume that they can.
There isn't actually a kind of sandwich that can be used as a comparison to a hot meat sandwich. That was just something I made up.
I put in Natsumi so the story wouldn't just be a flip-flop between the two sides. It might make the chapter a little longer but I think it makes it a little more rounded. She'll keep popping up in the chapters, maybe even becoming a full character in season 4.
I'll see you all next chapter!
