This is literally gonna be a mosh podge of an AU inspired by Golden Wind (JJBA 5) and Jujutsu Kaisen :D

The AO3 version also has illustrations :) Hope you enjoy it!


The students at the Beifong Metalbending Academy were surprised to see their Sifu show up for once, surprised and slightly afraid of the smirk she wore that day.

"GOOD MORNING, SIFU BEIFONG!" all of the classes yelled during role call.

"GOOD MORNING MY LILY-LIVERED TURTLE DUCKS! TODAY WE ARE GOING TO BE SPARRING!" Toph yelled back at them. "SO FORM A CIRCLE! AND BRACE YOURSELVES!"

The students' hearts all skipped a beat and some of the students shrieked. Toph smiled. She had to admit, she did derive mild pleasure from the feeling of terror they gave off on sparring days.

"Sifu, please be gentle with them!" Penga begged the original metalbender master.

"I will," Toph promised, cracking her knuckles as the students formed the circle.

"They're still learning!" Ho Tun added.

Toph cracked her neck. "We all are."

"Please mercy for the fragile and less fortunate for growth cannot we promote..."

"Don't worry!" Toph assured her school's teachers. "They'll still be able to walk once I'm through with them."

"CEN! TAU! INZANAMI! SHU! DENG! HOTARU! YOU'RE UP FIRST!" Toph rose six metal pillars out of the ground around the courtyard and shaped them each into massive coins.

"WE WILL USE COINS TODAY AND ONLY COINS. THE RULE IS YOU MUST STRIKE YOUR OPPONENT WITH THE FLAT OF THE COINS! NOT THE EDGE! YOU SIX VS ME, GO!"

The students all bent their single, massive coin in Toph's direction at the same time. With a loud, sonorous clang, the coins clashed into each other, the edges colliding to form a hexagon around the metalbending master.

"Great coordination, but terrible communication!" Toph yelled. She turned and raised a hand to one of the coins.

"Should we pull back?" Cen asked.

"No! Stay strong!" Tau replied.

Toph turned away from Cen's coin and to Tau's. With a single finger the World's Greatest Earthbender sent the massive coin flying back at Tau, knocking him into the wall.

The others pulled back.

One of them them tried to get their coin under Toph with metalbending but she just overpowered their bending and sent it back. They staggered trying to catch their coins again.

"She's just playing with us now! Not even trying to take us down!" Hotaru realized.

"It took you long enough to figure that out!" Toph laughed, evading one of the coins so just so that it flew across the courtyard and into Deng.

"Hey! Watch it, Shu!"

"Sorry!"

"But at this rate, we'll never get to anybody else!" Toph dipped into a horse stance and with a deep breath, pushed both hands out, seizing all of the coins under her control and sending them and the pupils flying. They all landed in various positions perfectly in their spot in the sparring circle.

"Next six, UP!" she called.


Toph sat relaxed on the edge of the stage with one leg up and one leg down with her elbow resting on her knee as she watched the students of her Metalbending Academy limp on home or to their dormitories after the days sparring event. Her three teachers stood behind her, all too stunned and fraught with worry to speak.

"Penga, Hotun, The Dark One, pull yourself together," Toph said quietly with a calm, smooth tone they'd never heard from her before. "We're in the presence of royalty."

"Huh?" Penga and the Dark One both gasped.

"Where?" Hon Tun shrieked.

Top pointed behind them.

They both turned to see on the roof of the main building, a young woman wearing a red, wide-sleeved beizi with a dark grey outer garment secured by a crème colored sash tied around her waist. Long, dark bangs nearly covered her tawny eyes while the rest of her hair was pulled back into one main bun atop her head with a crown in it and one at the base of her neck.

Fire Nation!

"Please," she said with a kindness they didn't expect as she jumped off the roof and landed in front of them effortlessly. "Call me Mai."

The three dropped to their knees and bowed with their head to the floor. "It is a pleasure to meet tou, Fire Lady Mai!"

"Please, the formalities really aren't necessary here," Mai insisted.

"We beg to differ, Milady!"

"Even in this new world, after the Fire Nation's defeat—"

"We must show respect for the heroes that ended the world's suffering!"

Mai chuckled nervously. "You can't really call me a hero when I spent that last battle in prison," Mai thought aloud.

"NONSENSE!" Toph yelled, clapping her arm over her friend's shoulder, making her three teachers scream again. "You sacrificed yourself so Zuko and Sokka could escape the boiling rock and go on to help save the world.! That deserves credit, War Hero!"

Mai pressed the palm of her gloved hand to her forehead. "I suppose you're right. Toph, is there somewhere we can speak privately?"

"Of course. I have an office in this wing of the school," Toph waved for the Fire Lady to follow her into the main building while her teachers watched with their mouths agape.

"Our Sifu is friends with so many cool people!"


Once the door was closed and the blinds drawn, the Fire Lady let out a sigh of relief and wiped the forced smile off her face and fell unceremoniously into a chair with her hands behind her head and her legs crossed.

"Did something happen?" Toph asked flicking on the tea kettle across the room with her metalbending.

"I just— get really tired of the reverence," Mai explained, closing her eyes as she felt a headache coming on.

"I don't," Toph replied, pulling two clean tea cups from a cabinet.

"I'm well aware."

"So what brought you to the roof top of my school?"

"I wanted to talk to you about disguises. I think they may be necessary to protect both of our— established reputations."

"Agreed. Unfortunately I don't have any idea what either of us look like so I won't be much help in brainstorming what to hide."

"No, yeah I got that part covered. Appearances are easy to modify. I was just thinking though, how could we also hide other distinguishing aspects of ourselves. For example, your seismic sense. Sure you have many pupils now and about a dozen or so who've mastered the skill but none with your level of precision... but my voice— starting soon I'll embark on a tour around the world and have to give speeches to members of the various organizations I'm patron to in the Earth Kingdom. Eventually... many people will learn my voice."

"That does put us in a pickle, huh," Toph thought aloud as she poured the tea.

"Thank you."

"What do you have so far for our appearances?"

"We wear black. It's harder to see at night and doesn't overtly give away our nationality."

"I don't need explanations. I trust you."

"Right. You will wear a blindfold. Satoru, Zuko and I agree your eyes are your most distinguishable characteristic aside from your metalbending."

"Fair enough, I don't need them anyways. Are we also going to try to hide my metalbending?"

"No, but maybe your seismic sense. Zuko said you all saw a play a few years back, the Boy in the Iceberg, where the actor who played you used a sonic boom or something to see? Like sound waves?" Mai asked.

Toph laughed and wiped tears from her eyes. "Ahhh good times, yeah I can try that. But without the screaming. Satoru explained the physics of sound and hypothesizes my hearing is stronger than most people's to make up for the lack of vision."

"Cool! So if anyone asks—"

"I'll be ready."

"And we'll hide that you're blind."

"Okay how?"

"Zuko also tells me you learned to bend with just your face from King Bumi of Omashu last year."

"My face? Nah, that's old school. I can bend with just my eye lid now! Observe.

Toph closed her eyes and focused on their surroundings feeling the footsteps of Ho Tun walking back from their printing press with a new assignment for the boarding students. She waited until he was just outside the door then opened her eyes, throwing the metal door open with a loud thud.

He shrieked as he fell to the ground with freshly pressed papers flying everywhere.

Toph rushed to help him pick up the papers.

"Sorry for scaring you. I was giving a demonstration."

Mai came to help too.

"Er... thank you Sifu Toph, Fire Lady Mai!" Ho Tun bowed to each of them before fleeing the scene shaking.

Toph closed the door again.

"So what if you wear the blind fold and say you can see shapes and outlines but everything's fuzzy so you started wearing the blindfold to sharpen your sense of hearing."

"Sounds good,"

"And the blind fold is made of a thin material so light can still break through, but as a defense tactic nobody will know who you're focusing on with your impaired eyes."

"All cool."

"And if you do need to use your bending, do it as passively as you can. I know not many people have bothered to reach that level of mastery but it could be a valuable tool."

"I like intimidating. I can make people think all of the power is in these useless eyes by lifting up the blindfold too."

Mai smiled genuinely this time, appreciative of Toph's cooperation and enthusiasm. "Sure, but don't do it too often or people will pair you to you."

"Right! So I'll only do it for a final move."

"And only if you need to use intimidation to guarantee the win."

"And how about you? What did the guys say your most distinguishable feature is?"

"Zuko says my ass but I stopped listening to him. Princess Ursa tells me my it is my jawline. Jawline and posture. Both are sharper than most Fire Nation noblewomen apparently, so I thought I'd wear something with a high collar to cover the length of my neck and how I hold my head, and a mask to cover the lower half of my face. In most photos, my bangs obscure my eyes at least partially so I'm not worried about being recognized by that."

"Sounds like a solid plan."

"But I won't talk much because— yeah."

"The tour coming up."

"Mhm..."

"So then if you're not talking, then we need some sort of non-verbal code for when we do go out."

"That's where I'm stuck. I spoke to some cryptographers. But most of them use pieces of words and numbers to write hidden messages. None have worked with non-verbal communication before."

"I've gone gambling a few times with Sokka. There are card counters who did things like scratch their nose for an ace or touch their ear twice for a king in and blink once for a shitty hand..."

"I feel like that could be too obvious. A lot of the more powerful criminals are part of gangs that control those gambling dens. I'm sure they'd be able to crack a code like that easily."

"You're probably right." Toph moved to refill Mai's tea, but the Fire Lady covered her cup.

"Thank you, but I should get going soon."

"Where to?"

"I think a dinner with the Earth King's distant niece. His line was kept rather extensively pruned and any time a spare was born they sent it away to some remote part of the kingdom out of fear the spare would try to usurp the heir."

"Interesting. I suppose a measure like that might have saved them from a situation like when Ozai usurped the throne from Iroh."

"Might have but now that the Earth King has been found to be barren, their crown has had to scrambled to find a possible heir."

"Oof. Who did it end up being?"

"A girl by the name of Hou Ting. She's only a year old but they've taken her away from her parents to be groomed for royalty."

"Seven spirits!" Toph gasped. "It's cruel."

"Tell me about it."

"Would you let the Fire Sages or whoever usually oversees Royal education take your children?"

"I'd sooner torch my own country than entrust my child to those backwards nutcases!" Mai replied.

"Same!"

They both sat in silence for a moment before bursting out in laughter.

"Do you ever think about how..." Mai said quietly, gazing down at the gold band around her finger. "I just find even six years ago, we were just children trying to survive that Great War and now—"

"We're ruling it... and thinking about what we'll do with children of our own," Toph finished.

"Yeah."

Toph wore no ring yet but she and Satoru had definitely spoken about a future together. They already shared most of their assets and were saving for a down payment on a house. Toph's father, Lao offered to buy one for them but they refused. "I don't want to be indebted to you," Toph told him.

"Excuse me, Sifu Toph! A carriage arrived to take the Fire Lady to the Four Element's Hotel!" Penga announced, knocking on the door.

"Hm...," Mai thought aloud, not moving. "The carriage is supposed to take me back to our residence on the outskirts of the city. I wonder who is driving.

Just then the window to the office shattered behind Toph as someone broke in.

Toph bent both herself and Mai into the air with a platform of earth and encased the intruder in rock as he landed in the ground, missing a kick to the back of Toph's head. Mai landed back in her chair and Toph sitting on the intruder's back.

"You have quite some gall trying to attack my school while the Fire Lady of all people are here," Toph said to the intruder beneath her as he struggled to free himself from the rock mound that encased his limbs. "State your purpose."

Mai took out a three pronged sai.

"Are you an assassin?" Mai asked.

"I—"

"I—I—" the intruder stammered.

"I'll let you go," Toph said, standing up to look down upon him. "but tell your boss to grow a brain. The Fire Lady may be a non-bender, but will never be an easy capture."

"Take it as a challenge or a warning." Mai added giving the three-pronged sai a twirl before collapsing it and stowing it up her sleeve again.


After Mai left, Toph put on the blindfold Mai gave her and walked around one of the districts she heard her metalbending students complaining about. They were earthbending patrol officers in the Republic City police department. Apparently this District 9 was swarming with liars and thieves. They worked in teams. Children and elderly men and women asked officers for assistance while their comrades dressed as equally unsuspecting civilians passing by nicked everything including jewelry, cash, coins even police badges cuffs and batons off of whoever tried to help.

Toph took a telescoping walking stick from her pocket and extended it, tapping everything in front of her as she went, feigning disability to lure out the pickpockets.

If you can't beat them, join them... she thought. Join the liars and cheats. Find out how and why they do what they do and think what they think.

Two children started running towards her from behind.

Based on their heights and weights— they must have been around ten and twelve. Both boys, both wearing torn clothing and broken shoes. Toph smiled. One bumped into her on the right while the other snagged the contents of her left pocket.

She dipped into an alleyway and took a short cut along the rooftops of buildings, tracking the two children by her seismic sense as they ran, pilfering from more pockets as they went, laughing all the way, pretending to play a game of tag. They slowed down once they reached the border between the market square and some high density housing.

They dipped into an alley way.

"Time to count our earnings!" The twelve year old said, pouring the contents of his pockets onto the table.

"Huh?" They only had one bag. All the rest were gone. "I could have sworn we snagged at least a dozen!"

Toph landed in the dark side of the alley softening the spot where she landed to cancel out the noise.

"I followed... and returned the coin purses to their owners with my metalbending," Toph explained, walking towards them with the blindfold over her eyes, tapping the walls of the alleyway with the cane.

They both scrambled to their feet, but before they could flee, she sealed off both ends of the alleyway with walls of rock, blocking their escape.

"Are you earthbenders?" she asked.

"No."

"Good. Have a seat. Let's talk." Toph bent a table and three stools out of the ground.

The children gulped and sat down.


When Toph arrived back at the factory, she found a note.

"Come to dinner at Kuang's Cuisine. Dress nicely please, Love Dad."

"Ugh!" Toph crumpled the paper and bent all the dirt from her body with a grunt before fishing through the wardrobe in their one-room closet of an apartment and pulled out a long red hanfu style gown Satoru bought for her. She licked her hand and pushed her bangs out of her face and pinned them to the base of her bun before replacing her green canvas headband with a gold one inlet with rubies pearls and diamonds.

Two carriages tried to kidnap her for her jewelry but the third was nice and got her there just in time for the second course.

"So nice of you to finally join us!" Lao exclaimed with a beaming smile as a server pulled out a chair for his daughter.

"You rented out the entire restaurant?" Toph asked sensing only themselves, six servers and ten cooks in the entire establishment.

"I wanted privacy. I have important matters to discuss with my daughter and my future son-in-law," Lao explained.

"We're not even engaged yet!" Toph groaned blowing a stand of hair that had come loose out of her hair.

"I know I just— assumed because well... you're living together and..."

"Sir, let's just stick with the good news and worry about titles once they actually change," Satoru proposed sending Lao's nervousness and Toph's mounting impatience.

"Right!" Lao wiped his mouth and straightened his back bashfully.

Toph raised a brow and frowned.

"We're expanding the business!" Lao announced. "As profitable as mining and refining minerals has been, we've decided to also venture into production! We're still in the early planning stages but we'll be researching and developing a new alloy for an airship project!"

"Airship project?"

"The Minister for Defense from the Fire Nation met with me last week. As part of the reparations they must pay, they have had to liquidate their entire airship fleet. Well... many of them were destroyed by you and your friend with the sword so there weren't that many to disposition but anyways— there's still potential for airships to be used not as war machines but for commercial travel. So that's where we come in."

"If they were actually for travel, why didn't the Minister of Transportation come to you?" Toph asked suspiciously.

"Because only the Department of Defense has the blueprints for the original airships."

"We have confirmation that Cabbage Corp and Revocs Corp have each purchased an old airship from the Fire Nation and will likely be spending the next year or so conducting tear downs in their efforts to recreate their own version of the flying machines, but we will be the only ones with the original plans."

"Congratulations?" Toph responded warily. "What did it cost the company?"

"Nothing!" Satoru answered.

"The Fire Lord himself chose our company to develop the new line of Commercial Airships for the Fire Nation while Cabbage Corp serves the Earth Kingdom and Revocs serves the United Republic."

"Will that alliegance have a negative impact on our status as an international company?"

"Not at all. We've come up with a plan to restructure the company into two somewhat separate entities with separate boards of directors that still require approval from each other for certain decisions like these big expansions. I'm the head of the Fire Nation branch and Lao heads the Earth Kingdom branch. Besides, even though the research and development labs are in the Fire Nation, the manufacturing will take place in the Earth Kingdom and final assembly here in the United Republic. So, we won't be in violation of the URN's operations permit laws regarding national neutrality. We can do anything as long as we consent to being audited from all three countries whenever they feel like it."

"That sounds great! But I still don't understand why you had to tell me at a fancy restaurant like this and require I get all dressed up when we could have just had take out from Ding's Dumplings and privacy back at our apartment," Toph responded, taking a sip of strawberry soju.

"That thing you call an apartment back at the factory is scarcely more than a broom cupboard. Besides, your old man is only getting older and his knees simply don't do as well kneeling on the floor these days," Lao replied earnestly.

Toph nodded apologetically. That's right... they were all getting older.

"If it makes you feel better, they are serving marinated pork cheek tonight and I made sure they purchased plenty of stock at the market this morning so have all you can eat. I promise I won't comment on how unlady like it is to gorge yourself on meat, but I know it makes you happy."

Toph's mouth curved into a wide smile. "Thanks, Dad..." for finally seeing who I am and accepting it.

"I only ever wanted you to be safe and happy," Lao explained planting a hand on her head and kissing her temple.

"I know," Toph groaned, leaning away while Satoru laughed at her.


This- it was a spur of the moment thing. Maybe I'll make it into a comic actually, if I get tired of writing :sweat_smile:

Oh and I gave Satoru a last name - Obami (usually I use Lee because "there are a million Lees", but this time I wanted it to be different... I guess... to distinguish it from my main AU)

All comments, critiques and what not is greatly appreciated! It doesn't have to be constructive! I just like hearing what people think )))))