"Water. Earth. Fire. Air.
My grandmother used to tell me stories about the old days, a time of peace when the Avatar kept the balance between the Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomads. But all that changed when the Fire Nation attacked..."
"Hurry up, Auntie!" Her niece shouted from the living room as the opening sequence of her favorite cartoon started. "It's starting!"
"One sec, kiddo, popcorn's almost done." She laughed, leaning against the counter beside the microwave, waiting for the popcorn to finish.
The microwave dinged, and she snatched the popcorn bag out, giving it a quick shake before dumping it into the large mixing bowl on the counter. She could hear her niece's high voice floating from the living room, repeating the cartoon's iconic opening sequence word for word. The bowl of buttery goodness in hand, she grabbed two cold cans of soda from the fridge and crossed the short distance between her kitchen and the couch.
"Auntie!" Her niece squealed and laughed when she hopped over the couch, jostling her roughly. Still giggling, her niece accepted the can of soda, "Thanks, Auntie."
"No problem, kiddo." She said, ruffling the girl's hair briefly. She settled the popcorn bowl between them, cracked open her soda, and settled in to watch their favorite cartoon.
"...But I haven't lost hope. I still believe that somehow, the Avatar will return to save the world..." She and her niece chorused, perfectly in time with the cartoon on playing on her TV.
…
…
The explosion knocked her off her feet, sent her flying across the room like a rag doll. Pain, agonizing, and all-encompassing flooded her body, and she hardly felt it when she hit the ground. Her ears rang, and she was blind, her vision a white-haze edged in black. She struggled to breathe, chest aching in the familiar way that meant broken ribs. A lot of them.
Shit.
She didn't understand, the explosion was meant to go off after she and her team were extracted. What the fuck happened?
She wanted to roll over, but she couldn't even tell if she was on her back or on her front. Just trying to move sent white-hot agony through her broken body. But she had to move. She had to find her team, find out what went wrong.
She blinked rapidly, hoping it would clear up her flash blindness faster. It didn't work, but eventually, the white faded until only fuzzy black spots danced across her blurry vision. Her ears still rang, and all she could hear outside of the annoying high pitched sound was her own thundering heartbeat. The fuzzy black spots grew, and she blinked them away to little effect.
Fuck.
She had to find her team.
She had to get up.
Getting up proved impossible. She couldn't feel her legs. She managed to shift up on to her elbows and crane her neck.
Well, shit, no wonder she couldn't feel them. They weren't fucking there anymore. She flopped back down and stared blankly at the mostly intact ceiling above her. Her team was most likely dead. They'd been setting the bomb up when it inexplicably went off. Fuck. She'd gone to look at something nearby, that's probably why she didn't straight up die like her teammates. Fucking shit.
She never should have agreed to this job. It had stunk from the get-go. If only she'd listened to her damn gut and told her boss to go fuck himself. If she had, her teammates would still be alive, and she wouldn't be bleeding out in some rich prick's office.
The black creeping along her vision deepened. Her body had gone numb, the pain no longer an all-encompassing agony as shock and blood loss kicked in. She sighed, sticky warm blood bubbling from her lips to trail down her chin, and closed her eyes. Exhaustion—death—tugged at her.
Sorry, kiddo... was her last conscious thought, then she knew no more.
…
…
Awareness slammed into her like a fucking truck—or an explosion—to the face.
She couldn't see jack shit outside of a bunch of blurry shapes, and her ears still rang with a high-pitched wail. Hands, huge fucking hands, were touching her, holding her as if she was no bigger than a loaf of bread. Every single one of her hypersensitive nerves screamed. It was too much, everything was too much.
She welcomed the black creeping in from the edges of her vision.
…
…
She hung in some kind of limbo where time was meaningless.
It passed, but she wasn't aware of it.
Everything blurred together in an inconsequential haze, and she hated it.
Until it didn't, and she wanted the haze back.
…
…
She was a baby.
She was a honest to god baby.
She died, had been killed, and now she was a baby.
She was killed, reincarnated, and spent the last six months as a fucking baby.
What the fuckity fucking fuck?
…
…
Okay, okay, maybe she hadn't died?
Maybe one of her teammates survived the explosion, somehow managed to extract them, and now she was in the hospital. She must be in a coma or something.
Yes, this was all some bizarre coma dream brought on by reading too much reincarnation fanfiction. Not her favorite trope, but well, her niece loved—had loved? No. No, loved. Can't be past tense because she's not dead, and neither is her niece—those kinds of fics.
Yes, that has to be it. Reading all of the reincarnation fics her niece recommended before she left for the Disaster Job fucked with her head.
She wasn't dead, and she hadn't reincarnated. She was still a thirty-six-year-old mercenary. She was not a fucking baby.
Right.
Right?
…
…
Her coma dream was set in the Avatar-verse.
Her coma dream was set in the Avatar-verse.
At least her fucked up brain didn't pick the Naruto-verse for her coma dream. She hated Naruto. Fuck magic ninja bullshit.
…
…
She read somewhere that you can't die in your dreams. You'll always wake up right before it happens.
She should test the theory.
…
…
It's not a dream.
It's not a dream.
It's not a dream!
IT'S.
NOT.
A.
DREAM!
…
…
Her name is Kyoko (no, it's not).
Her parents are Yoko and Hitoshi (those aren't her parents' names).
She is a year old (she's thirty-fucking-six, thank you).
Her father is a carpenter (he was an engineer).
Her mother is a Kyoshi Warrior (she is a nurse).
She had no siblings (she has two sisters).
She is a child (she's a fucking adult mercenary).
She died and was reborn (she's not dead, she's not dead, it's just a coma, she's not dead).
She was reborn into another universe (it's not real, it's not real).
Her name is Kyoko (this is real).
…
…
Yay, another fic, this time a Reincarnation/Not-Really-SI Avatar AU. Obviously inspired by the amazing SI/Reincarnation fics like Dreaming of Sunshine and Catch Your Breath and Tell it to the Marines. If anyone follows my AtLA-specific tumblr (mercysatlafics) then you'll probably recognize this from some of the random blurbs I've posted and recognize Kyoko as Katara and Sokka's OC maternal grandma. Updates will be irregular as I'm just having some fun with this nonsense, but it'll hopefully be part of a series of interconnected fics featuring various Reincarnated OCs. Cross-posted on Ao3.
Enjoy y'all.
-Plague