Chapter 11
"Shui?!" Feng yelled in shock, taking a couple of steps backward at the sight of the Fire Nation Soldier, although she didn't look much like one right now.
"Feng," Shui replied softly, taking a couple of steps into the room of the wary teenagers as she nervously wrung her hands, constantly looking between Feng and her hands after a quick glance at the others. "It's…been a while, hasn't it? You're all grown up now."
"Yes, yes I am," Feng stated coldly, a mask of rage appearing on him. "No thanks to you."
Shui opened her mouth to reply but shut it as she lowered her head. Shaking it softly. "I deserve that."
The two of them fell silent, neither of them saying anything as Feng continued to stare at Shui, his hands clenching and unclenching as he stood frozen in place.
"What are you doing here, Shui?" Katara asked coldly, seeing as Feng would not. "You're a Fire Nation Soldier, you should be off terrorizing somewhere else."
"I was a Fire Nation Soldier. I haven't been for years now."
It was true, an absent part of Feng's mind noted, the remaining rational part of it that was only barely holding things together. When he had last seen Shui, she was never dressed in anything other than the dark maroon armor of a Fire bending soldier, multiple layers and all. Yes, she often ignored the helmet, but she had religiously worn the rest of the outfit. Now though, that deep red armor was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Shui was dressed in ramshackle-looking commoners' clothes, the roughspun fabric hanging loosely off her frame.
More than that though was the state of her physical health. She was no longer the pretty young woman he remembered. Her silky brown hair was no longer silky, instead, it was worn and dirty. Her face was no longer clean and beautiful either, as instead it was smudged with dirt.
And she looked gaunt like she hadn't been eating enough.
"Once a fire nation soldier, always a fire nation soldier," Sokka replied, not taking a hand off the blade at his side.
"No, that's not exactly true." Feng's glacial voice cut through the tension, his arms now behind his back in an effort to not do anything rash. "If you look at the statistics, roughly one in five soldiers end up leaving the army by the time they've served 5 years, and it goes up to 1 in 3 after 10. No, I believe she is telling the truth that she is no longer a fire nation soldier, her general state of dress proves it. But you still haven't answered the question, Shui, why are you here, in the home of my dead family that you killed?"
Regret flashed across her face at Feng's harsh words, but Shui bore them stoically. "Because Feng…because just after you left, just after the fires that were started were burned out…I realized just what I had done. Just what the fire nation military had done."
"What, you realized what monsters they are? Well, tough luck, realizing what you are doesn't stop you from being it, it just makes you more self-aware."
"I know that Feng!" Shui replied hotly, almost confrontationally before she realized who she was talking to as she lost that fire in her voice. "I know...alright? When you told me about your bending, I was shocked. I didn't know what to think, to know that an Airbender had been living under our noses for all this time, a descendant of the Monks who planned to rebel against us."
"You know damn well that that wasn't the case," Feng said even as Aang frowned, anger flashing in his eyes as he clenched his glider stick harshly.
"Yes…I guess I do." Shui said with sorrow, looking at her hands. "It wasn't until after we were done that the other soldiers started to talk about how cruel Airbenders were, how they twist the words and beliefs of more proper fire nation folk. But once the shock had worn off, I couldn't help but think of all the time we spent together. The time we had played and just spend hours talking."
Shui's voice shook slightly, taking on a vulnerable quality as Feng's frown lessened slightly, staying quiet as he listened.
"I just couldn't associate those times with all the stories of Airbenders that I had been raised on. On the stories and beliefs, every Fire Nation soldier has been raised on. So, I looked back at the historical records we had on base about the invasion of the Air Nomads, about just what they had done to us to warrant such a response. Do you want to know what I found?"
"Oh, do enlighten us, tell us exactly what you found."
"I found jack shit." Shui laughed darkly throwing her head backward as tears began to stream down her face. "All those stories, all those common beliefs' about the air nomads, and when I ignored the propaganda in the information, I found exactly why we attacked the Air Nomads, exactly why Sozin invaded the country."
"Because he wanted to rule it."
"Yes," Shui nodded in agreement with Feng's words, the others just standing around awkwardly. "Because Sozin wanted to rule. We weren't noble uplifters of the people, we weren't defending our citizens, instead, I found out we were exactly what every other nation thought we were. Monsters, we were monsters, and I had proven myself to be a monster when I turned on my best friend."
Shui collapsed in on herself here, wrapping her arms around herself, doing so easily considering just how thin she was.
"When I confronted the others guards about it, they just ignored my words, saying I was delirious and even formally writing me a warning because of them. I handed in my resignation then and there, unable to continue being a part of such a farce. I didn't know what to do after that, to be honest. I had little money, and nowhere else to go to. My family had long since died because of the blasted war, so eventually, I decided to stay where I was last happy, and the place of my greatest regret."
"In Senlin Village," Aang said calmly, his voice deceptively flat.
"In Senlin Village, Avatar Aang." Shui nodded as she briefly looked towards him before turning back to the still cold Feng.
"I knew that I couldn't take back what I had done, I knew that I would be forever haunted by my actions, so I decided not to ignore them, not to move on. Instead, as penance I have lived in this very house since that day, taking care of it as best I could while leaving the evidence of that day intact. No one will deny what I did. No one will deny what my actions caused. If I'm honest, one of the reasons I'd stayed here was I'd always hoped you'd come back one day, and it seems like you finally have. So, I just have one thing to say to you."
"Only one?" Feng snorted, taking an angry step forward to get closer to Shui, using his great height to tower over the smaller woman.
"Yes, only one," Shui said with determination, the first time it had been part of her words as she knelt down on the floor and placed her hands on her lap, tilting her head back to expose her neck. "To have you decide my punishment. Your father died holding us back. Your mother died giving you a chance to escape. You are the only one remaining who I wronged, so it is only right that you decide what is done to me. I will accept any punishment Feng, including my death, so long as you wish it. I am at your disposal."
For a woman who was potentially about to die, she sounded far too calm as the fire in Feng's mind that had been slowly building threatened to erupt, small wisps of air emerging from his body in an erratic fashion as his eyes glazed over, the winds noise building due to their position inside.
"My Father's life…My Mother's life…you are the one responsible for their deaths. Without you, they still may be alive." Feng stated heatedly, stepping forward one more time before leaning down as he wrapped a hand around Shui's throat, squeezing it tightly enough to block the air from flowing into her lungs.
"Feng, what are you doing!?" Sokka yelled in shock, moving forward to intervene before being repelled by the air swirling around Feng, as it had begun to move more vigorously, causing his clothes to snap through the air as the wind howled around the room.
Feng ignored Sokka's actions as he continued to speak, leaning down to look her straight in the eye.
"I had trusted you that day, trusted you with my greatest secret, a secret I knew would get me killed if it got out. You were a Fire Nation Soldier, but I trusted you to keep my secret. How dumb could I have been when I was younger?" Feng said with self-loathing as he squeezed even tighter, causing Shui's face to redden even as she looked up at Feng with accepting eyes. With grateful eyes.
Even now Sokka was trying to intervene, as was Katara, but the wind coming off of Feng was too much for them. They just couldn't push through it. Toph might have been able to, but for as young as she was she was not as kind as them.
The true decider in this however was Aang, a Master Airbender who would have been able to push through Feng's defenses with ease. In a way that was telling, he did not. Instead, he just grasped his staff with both hands tightly as he looked down at Shui with both contempt and disgust at himself. She was just like the soldiers that had killed Monk Gyatso, just following orders.
He may not personally accept killing, as the action was against his core beliefs, but he was wise enough to know that not everyone was. That not everyone would be able to resist the urge, and in this case, for the Fire bender had taken Feng's family from him? He was content to leave the decision to Feng, even if his insides twisted at the thought.
"If I'm honest, I hadn't really thought about you much since I left. It hurt too much to think of the person I trusted turning against me as you did. But now that I'm finally forced to face my thoughts, to face you, all I can feel...is pity." Feng sighed, releasing his grip on Shui's neck as she rapidly clawed air into her lungs, breathing harshly as Feng's hands shook in anger.
"Anything I could do to you, anything at all that would be quick, still wouldn't be as bad as what you are doing to yourself. You are living in squalor, wasting away in the ruined remains of Senlin. I imagine you are one of the only people who live here, in your self-imposed exhale. Well, I have this to say about your actions. Good."
"Uh, Feng, buddy?" Sokka tried to say, pausing as he watched the spectacle unfold, no longer seeking to stop Feng seeing as Shui was no longer in danger of death, at least for now.
"You should regret your actions, and I want you to never forget them. But I also want you to know this. I want you to burn my words into your mind. Can you do that for me, Shui?"
"I…I can." Shui coughed, rubbing at her throat that even now was forming red marks where Feng had strangled her.
"With as much as I personally hate you, time has given me perspective. As much as I want to ensure you suffer, I want you to know this. You. Have. To. Move. On! What you did four and a half odd years ago was a travesty, something that should have never happened, but you are not the only one to blame."
"You…what do you mean?" Shui asked with confusion, even as the others looked on with caution.
"I mean," Feng sighed, pinching the brow of his nose, "you are not the only one to blame. Yes, it was your direct actions that killed my parents, never forget that, but ultimately, it is the Fire Nation that raised you that is at fault. You grew up on the lies of the nation, lies that were forced upon you ever since you were born. Just a consequence of the system, a system that I. Will. Bring. Down!"
Shui looked unsure of how to act, completely out of her depth here.
"You are just one of many like you, it's why the Fire Nation Military has such a high desertion rate. Like you, they too realised that they are committing atrocities in the Fire Lords' names. Even Jong Jong the Deserter was like you, a general who realized what he was doing is wrong and decided to do something about it."
Again, Feng touched Shui, but this time he did so not violently. Instead, it was almost lovingly as he softly trailed a hand down her checks, wiping away the remains of her tears before tucking her strays hairs back behind her ears.
"I once loved you, you know, all those years ago. You were my first crush, as it was before you obliterated that belief. But after that anger cooled, all I feel now for you is pity. And understanding, because like you, I too have regrets. So, pick yourself up Shui, the world is not done with you yet."
Silently, he held out a hand for the young woman who sported a shocked expression across her face as she hesitantly took the hand, letting Feng heave her to her feet in a swift motion before he patted her on the shoulder, somewhat stiffly.
"If you really want to atone, sometime soon we will be bringing the fight to the Fire Nation. Within a few months even. So, I want you to help us fight, to help overthrow the system that made you into the soldier you were, to ensure that the same doesn't happen to other young women just like you. Can you do that for me?"
"I... I can." Shui nodded with determination, a fire forming in her eyes that had previously not been there.
"Good." Feng nodded, turning around to walk out of the room but not before leaving with one final comment. "And for Spirit's sake, take care of yourself, Shui. You're wasting away in your squalor, and you'll be no help to anyone if you can't handle the stresses of fighting. Also, repair the damn house, I just want to put it behind me, not dwell on it."
"Of course, Feng! I will do as you say." Shui exclaimed with vigor as strength filled her limbs.
Pausing to nod, Feng exited, closely followed by the bewildered Team Avatar.
…
"So…do you want to talk about what just happened back there?" Sokka said casually as they walked back towards the clearing Appa was located in, sidestepping the same hole he had previously fallen in.
"Not particularly."
"Yeah, well, I kind of think we need to talk about it, Feng. You literally just strangled a woman before stopping and was thanked for it. I don't know about you, but where I'm from, that ain't normal."
Pinching his nose, Feng took in a deep breath before letting it out slowly, a small stream of it leaving his lips forcefully.
"Look, I'm going to be blunt here, if that's alright with you, m'kay?"
"Rightio big man." Toph saluted cheerfully, causing Katara to sigh but otherwise do nothing.
"Shui…Shui hurt me badly. She is literally the embodiment of everything that went wrong in my life like the Fire Lord is for Aang or the Firbenders who killed your mother when you were young is for you, Sokka and Katara. If it weren't for her, my parents would still be alive, so you can understand why I would be a touch annoyed with the woman. However, as I said, she is not entirely to blame, so as much as I want to hurt her just as she did me, and trust me, I really wanted to, I will not. I will be the bigger man as it were. So if we could just put this whole matter behind us, that would be great."
Silence reigned after Feng's monologue, but the previously strained air had become just a little lighter, a little less grim, so it didn't take much for the gang to agree.
"That's very mature of you, Feng. I'm not sure I could do the same if I was in your position." Katara praised as she moved closer to Feng, patting him on the shoulder. "I never doubted you, though."
"Hah!" Toph snorted, kicking a stone in her path away. "I don't need my bending to know that that's a lie, girly. None of us were sure what Feng would do, not even Feng himself."
"Yes, well…" Katara spluttered as her face turned red, her lie caught out by the group's lie detector. It was enough for Feng to crack a smile at the interaction, finally breaking through his otherwise grim mood.
While interacting with Shui had been hard for the teen, it had been worth it, as even now he could feel just a little bit of his hatred lift, a part of his negative emotions leaving him to be replaced with calm acceptance. He couldn't change what happened, no one could. What he could do, is put the past behind him, and look toward the future.
A future that would hopefully include the Fire Lord's defeat.
"Well, it must be nice to no longer be burdened like that. Freeing, almost."
"That's a good word for it, actually," Feng replied as he smiled, feeling the air rush over him in a soothing manner. "Freeing…yes, I like that."
"I'm sure." Sokka deadpanned as he caught sight of the calm swirls of air hovering around Feng's body, but he was still curious about something. "I got to ask though, back there, you said you have your own regrets as Shui does. What exactly did you mean by that?"
And like that, Feng's good mood was gone, replaced with the familiar sensation of guilt.
"Sokka!" Katara hissed, punching her brother forcefully in the arm.
"Hey! We were all thinking it, I was just the only one brave enough to ask."
"Brave, try stupid numbskull," Toph grunted, turning towards Feng as a grin splayed across her face. "Although, as he said, I am curious."
Feng sucked in a careful breath as he took in the faces of his companions, looking at each of them, in turn, to see that they all looked curious to varying degrees if a little hidden in Aang and Katara's case.
"I suppose that after seeing what I just did, you deserve to know a little bit more about my past," Feng admitted, partially to his friends and partially to himself. It had been a secret he had been burdened with for a long time now, and if he couldn't trust his friends, who could he trust?
"It began a little over two and a half years ago, although the events that set it in motion were long before then. You see after I had to flee my childhood home under the pursuit of Fire Nation soldiers, I struggled to survive on my own. I had never needed to, as my family was fairly affluent by the standards of the village, so I wanted for nothing except company, which is part of the reason I formed such a close friendship with Shui."
"Great, another rich kid. Just when I thought one was enough." Sokka groaned only to be shushed by the other three, each of them listening to the story intently.
"Naturally, being on the run like I was quite the shock for young Feng. I didn't know how to hunt, and I didn't know how to camp. About the only thing I could say that I did know was how to navigate through woodland, but that was only because I would explore the forest around my home so much. It was a tough time for me. Newly orphaned and nowhere to go. So, I traveled, moving from place to place but never sticking to one area for too long, too afraid that I was being pursued by some unseen force."
Feng sighed, shaking his head in contempt.
"I wish I'd been a bit more rational then, there wasn't any such force looking for me. No one at all. I could have settled down almost anywhere and just rebuilt my life, but I didn't. I couldn't, or at least at the time, it had seemed like it. I saw a lot of things in my travels. Wonderful things. Calming things, like natural springs and theatre troupes."
Katara and Aang smiled at his descriptions, imagining themselves experiencing the same things.
"But I also saw a lot of bad things. Terrible things." Feng frowned, sending a blade of wind out from his hand to the woods at his side, the blade easily slicing through a couple of branches.
"Hey, you're getting pretty good at that." Aang cheered, earning a chuckle from Feng as he simply smiled grimily. Aang didn't need to know that he had only produced the bade so cleanly by focusing on his negative emotions that were currently at the forefront of his mind.
"As I was saying, I saw a lot of bad stuff. Famine. Poverty. Starving children, and crippled soldiers. Benders were rounded up by the fire nation, and citizens were too beaten down to do anything to stop it. I witnessed the cruelty of the fire nation as I drifted, and as time grew my emotions turned more vengeful, more angry, until one day, I couldn't take it anymore. Two and a half years ago, as I was traveling through one of my more common routes, I witnessed a squad of fire benders burn down an elderly man's merchant house, laughing at the man's despair as he was restrained in front of it, forced to watch his lifetime of work burn down around him."
"That's horrible!" Katara cried, holding a hand to her mouth in shock.
"It was," Feng said simply, giving the girl an understanding look. "What made it even worse is that that particular merchant had always been kind to me. Whenever I looked hungry, he gave me some food. When my clothes became too worn from travel and lack of care, he gave me clothes, and on the cold nights that I would have been forced to sleep outside, he gave me shelter. Mr. Wung was a kind man. A just man. And because some Fire Nation Soldiers decided to be cruel for cruelties sake, he was unjustly ruined."
Feng fell silent for a moment, looking at his hands that even now trembled in rage from the force of his memories, stilling them only through a force of will. He was better than that now.
"When they did that, I was filled with such rage that my vision seemed to turn red, all thoughts of keeping my head down leaving my mind as I gave in to my urges, attacking the soldiers with everything I had, the sole exception being my bending. But I was still young, still unseasoned in battle, and these soldiers, for as cruel as they were, were seasoned veterans. They had been in battle many times before."
"What happened?" Aang asked softly, looking at his student with sympathy.
"What else? I lost and was given a black eye, two cracked ribs, and some burns on my back in consequence. It would have been worse, but Mr. Wung, even in the state he was in, begged them for forgiveness on my part."
And here was the part that he still regretted. Although his actions afterward, those he did not.
"For my actions, for my lack of forethought, those soldiers killed Mr. Wung, right on the spot. It was probably a kindness if nothing else, he was nearing eighty and had no family to take care of him. This just made it quick, but as I lay there, taking in pained breaths, I was filled with a resolve to do more, to retaliate in a way that couldn't get back to those that I cared for. So I donned a disguise, and with careful use of my bending, I got my revenge."
"Good." Katara snarled, filled with vicious fury. "Soldiers like that, like the one that took my mother deserved to be punished."
"Oh trust me," Feng chuckled darkly, "they were punished alright. I ensured that they would never hurt anyone else ever again."
"How did you do that?" Aang asked hesitantly. "Did you like, get them discharged from the army or something? Got them thrown in prison?"
"Did you cripple them?" Toph asked next, far too fascinated by the idea than a girl her age should be.
Feng shook his head, staying quiet as he continued to walk, missing the way in which Sokka puzzled together the facts Feng had given him. Filled with rage, got his revenge for the death of his friend, and dealt with the situation permanently.
While Aang and Toph's suggestions were plausible, that didn't seem like something Feng would regret, as callous as it was, not for people he hated so much. That only left one option in the boy's mind, and if the thought was right, Sokka wasn't sure how to feel about it.
"You killed them," Sokka stated. Not accusingly, not even disapprovingly. Just calm acceptance for the action.
"I did." Feng sighed as continued to look forward. "Every single one of them. That was the first time I ever killed somebody, my rage being so consuming that I didn't even register what I was doing until it was already too late until I had stained my hands red with their life force. After I cleaned up the scene of the crime, the first thing I did was go to a river to clean myself off. It didn't work."
"You…y-you killed them?!" Aang yelled in shock and horror, looking at Feng in a new light. A much less friendly light, as a potential killer seemed a lot less appalling than a confirmed one, at least in the young Airbendiners mind.
"I did," Feng answered his bending master, willing to accept whatever reaction he had. "And much to my shame, they were not the last."
"That's…a loaded statement," Toph began with a frown, giving the taller male an inquisitive look.
"It is, but after I got over what I had done, I got to witness the result of my actions. The result of those soldiers' deaths. I don't know what I had expected to happen. Maybe a bunch of Fire Nation soldiers coming in to investigate, maybe the townspeople themselves, but they didn't. Instead, do you want to know what happened?"
Aang had a feeling he was going to regret this, but he still nodded anyway forging ahead.
"From the Fire Nation, Nothing. Not a single response was given for some little town not worth the money required to pay the guard's salaries. But do you want to know what the citizens did? They rejoiced. They rejoiced, and they celebrated. Even after they figured out that I was the one responsible, I still wasn't given looks of hatred or cries for my punishment."
"They figured out you were the one to do it? I thought you said you covered your tracks?" Sokka asked.
"Yes, well...I was the one that was beaten the day before, the one who was closest with Mr. Wung, and the one who had disappeared on the day of the murders and shown up not long after looking shaken. It wasn't exactly hard for them to figure it out, not unless all of the villagers were completely unobservant. Now, one or two of them gave me disapproving looks, but for the most part, my actions were celebrated. Rewarded even, as I was given a few different treats, which I naturally accepted even if it made me feel dirty inside for doing so. But that was how it began."
"How what began?" Sokka asked, still speaking calmly even as a guarded expression formed across his face, his thoughts on the matter staying hidden.
"The birth of the Vengeful Oni."
"That's you?!" Toph yelled in shock, taking a small step back in surprise before she held a hand up, moving closer to the man. "Honestly, props Feng. You do good work."
Feeling bemused, Feng returned the high-five as the others watched.
"You know what he did, Toph?"
"Yeah, almost anyone whose anyone knows what the Vengeful Oni is, it's the stuff of legend for the Earth kingdom, and the stuff of nightmare for the fire nation. Do you mind?" Toph asked Feng, looking at him for permission to tell the story.
Honestly, it might come better coming from her, so he saw no issue with it as he gave the girl a nod, giving his permission.
"Okay, about two years ago out of nowhere, news of a vengeful figure began to populate the Earth Kingdom. Tales of an ominous figure clothed in entirely black except for one thing. A vivid red mask. No one ever got a good look at the figure, only ever seeing them from a distance, so the rumors varied wildly about what he looked like, but what wasn't argued over was what he did."
"And what, did he do?" Sokka asked with a strained tone, looking at Feng with concern.
"Why, he almost single-headedly caused the Fire Nation forces across the country to behave. Whenever stories of a Fire Nation General or Commander or some other high-level figure emerged, sometime after a black figure would pay them a visit, dealing with them in a brutal fashion that was left as a message to other soldiers, to not take things too far. The Vengeful Oni, as they called them, singlehandedly made sure that Fire Nation Soldiers treated the citizens under their control fairly, unless they too were paid a visit from someone they didn't want to meet."
The longer Toph talked, the more concerned Sokka's expression became at just how much blood Feng had split, and the greener Aang's face become, a fact that Feng noticed.
"If you would allow me to elaborate a little?" Feng sighed, earning a snort from Sokka.
"Please, do elaborate on just how you slaughtered countless men. I'd like to see what it looks like."
"Thank you." Feng nodded, ignoring the sarcasm at the end as he collect his thoughts. "Firstly, it is true that I traveled across the Kingdom in search of Fire nation leaders abusing their command, I won't deny that. It's also true that many of them died, but what you probably don't know is that only the very worst were the ones I dealt with. The ones I had proof that they were committed vile acts like slavery, pillaging, and worse."
Every single one of them could think of examples of Fire nation soldiers doing this.
"The ones that I didn't have proof on, or the ones where the stories were exaggerated, were left alone. I wasn't some mindless killing machine Sokka, give me some credit."
Sokka looked at Feng for a second, judging his honesty before nodding.
"Anyway, I kept this up for two years, doing what I thought needed to be done."
"You can say that again!" Toph chuckled, placing her hands behind her head. "Sightings of you popped up from all over, sometimes very large distances apart in short time spans. It's part of the reason people didn't think you were a man, but actually a spirit."
"Air bending for the win I guess." Feng shrugged, remembering that during that time he did little else than travel and kill. It kind of blurred together at a few points if he was honest.
"I can vouch for that," Sokka said, "Airbenders can move really fast, just ask Aang, but that does leave me curious about something Toph. Just how do you know that, and we don't? If anything you'd think that a sheltered blind girl, no offense, would be a little out of the loop on the comings and goings of everyday life."
"None taken," Toph shrugged, "but it's more that my Father liked to stay informed, and the guards around the compound were quite chatty with each other. If anything, I would have had to try to stay out of the loop, rather than try to stay aware of recent events."
"Ah." Sokka enunciated in understanding.
"The other reason Toph is aware and you are not is that I stopped a little before you began your travels with Aang. News wouldn't exactly be present in the Southern water tribe, and any news of my actions would have long since fallen to the wayside by the time you made it to the Earth Kingdom." Feng revealed.
"Yeah, the guards were quite disappointed when news of your actions stopped. It was something they always looked forward to. Why was that, anyway?"
They were almost back to the clearing now, Feng noting that the familiar pathway would end in a little over a minute's time, but he still wished it was shorter.
"Because one day, after another death by my hands, I came to a revelation, one that I am still unhappy about."
"What was it?" Katara asked with a closed-off expression, her eyes sharp. "From the sounds of it, you were pretty dedicated to what you were doing. It must have been some revelation."
"Agreed," Aang spoke quietly, breaking his silence for the first time since Feng had started to talk about his actions, the boy still giving his student unsure looks.
"It was just another mission for me. Some Fire Nation Sergeant had been forcing an entire village to obey his every whim and command. For the men, this meant working tirelessly in an iron mine while their wives tended to him. I don't regret killing him, he had long since become set in his ways, but as I was going through his files afterward, I saw signs that it wasn't just the Sargent behind the cruel actions."
"It wasn't? Who else was it? His commanding officer?"
"In a way," Feng replied to Sokka's question, letting his friends come to their own conclusions.
The gang remained quiet for a second, even as they emerged to the fateful clearing to be greeted with a roar from Appa before Aang chose to reveal his guess.
"It was the Fire Lord, wasn't it?" Aang said sadly. "It may have come straight from a higher level Fire Nation Soldier, but you traveled it back to Ozai, didn't you?"
"Yes." Feng sighed heavily, the weight of his words drowning out the clearing. "It was then I knew that what I was doing wasn't the right course of action. It was then I realized that while the individual soldiers may be committing vile actions, that while some of them may have deserved death, not all of them did. They were just pawns in the war, made to obey the orders of someone above them no matter their personal opinion on the matter."
"Just a victim of their own upbringing, huh?" Sokka replied, echoing Feng's earlier words.
"Exactly."
"Is that why you let Shui go? Because you realized that she was just a product of her surroundings?"
"Yes…it is." Feng nodded as he closed his eyes, rubbing them. "If I wanted to truly stop events like what happened to my parents from happening, I couldn't just deal with them at the ground level. No, I had to go right to the source. Right to the royal family. Right…to Fire Lord Ozai. He is the one who must be dealt with for peace to finally reign."
Feng fell quiet as he raised a hand, brushing it over the smooth trunk of one of the clearing's trees.
"But at the time, I didn't know of any way to do it. My bending wasn't good enough to take out a target like the Fire Lord, and I didn't see any way for the Earth Kingdom's Army to ever take the Fire Nation capital, not with how the Northern Water tribe was holed up in their walls. So I went back to just drifting, not really having any idea of what to do. At least, not until I heard of you, Aang. The return of the Avatar. With your return, I finally felt like a new pathway had opened up in front of me, one that I could traverse to succeed in my goal of stopping the Fire Nation. Of stopping those who hurt people just like me. Of giving peace to the little boy who had had his world taken away from him. That…is the story of my origin, Aang. In every gruesome little detail. I just hope that you don't judge me too harshly for it."
Aang opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out before Feng held out a hand, stopping him.
"I don't want you to say anything, yet. No, I want you to take some time to think over what I've done, to come to a decision you're happy with, and then and only then, we can talk. Alright?"
"…Alright." Aang nodded subduedly as he turned away from Feng, choosing to focus his attention on Appa.
"You guys do the same," Feng said to the others as well, giving them a small smile as both Sokka and Katara nodded, walking by Feng without saying a word.
"I don't need to think it over. I trust you big man. Now we just need to see if the others will be able to do the same."
"Yes, we will," Feng said softly as he gazed upon the others in question, watching as each of them occasionally glanced back at Feng with wariness before continuing with their tasks when they saw he caught them.
"But killing is a subject that they will have to come to terms with sooner or later, especially since they will be key players in the war with their involvement with Aang. Many will likely expect them to kill just like I have. Just like many who oppose the Fire Nation have. But right now, I can't see them doing that. I can't see them staining their hands as I have."
Feng took in a deep breath before exhaling it harshly, a stream of wind leaving his nostrils with enough force to ruffle his cloak.
"Which is why I will do it in their place if I have to."