Disclaimer: All rights belong to Nickelodeon, Bryan Konietzko, Michael Dante DiMartino, and all the men and women that created the A:TLA show, books, and comics. I take no credit, and I do not mean to break any copyright rules. This is simply a work of fiction made for enjoyment. No money is being made. The lyrics are from the song "Blasphemy" by Tyler Joseph
Rating: General Audiences. Warning: some scenes contain dark themes and minor violence
Chapter 7: The Final Chakra
Let the water wash away
Everything that you've become
On your knees, today is gone
And tomorrow is sure to come
"Katara," a voice says, echoing in her mind.
She's floating in a strange place she doesn't recognize. Her feet aren't touching the ground, but she's not levitating, either. There are no colors, just blandness.
"Katara," the voice repeats again.
"Who are you?" she cries out. "Where am I?"
"You must find me if you want to learn how to unlock the Avatar State."
She can now recognize the voice as belonging to an old man. There's just a slight rasp to it that gives it away. "How do you know me? Who are you?"
"I am a Guru who awaits you on the Air Temple Island. If you want to learn more about yourself and your destiny, you will find me."
"The Air Temple Island? Where is that? Hello?" Her voice echoes into the emptiness. Then suddenly she feels like falling, and a moment later she sits up straight, breathing hard.
"Finally," Sokka complains, kneeling next to her. "I thought you'd never wake up."
She's in her sleeping bag, laying on the ground in the forest in the same place they camped out last night. She must have been dreaming. She steadies her breathing and finally crawls out.
Sokka joins the others, who are seated around a fire heating up breakfast. Katara combs through her hair with her fingers and makes her way over to them.
"I had the strangest dream," she says, accepting a bowl of food from Suki.
"Were there talking sheep?" Aang asks.
"No," Katara replies, her forehead wrinkling in confusion.
"Did you forget your pants and math test?" Sokka asks.
Katara begins to shake her head, but Toph pipes in.
"Did you dig a tunnel so deep you ended up on the other side of the world?"
Katara's mouth drops slightly open. It takes her a moment before she can answer. "No. What are you guys talking about?"
"Then you didn't have the strangest dream," Sokka says. "But what was it about?"
"I was somewhere that wasn't in this world...I don't think. I don't know, it was really weird. But there was this voice of an old man telling me to come and visit him to learn how to unlock the Avatar State."
"That's not weird at all," Sokka says sarcastically.
"It's probably just a dream," Suki says. "You're stressed about fighting the Fire Lord and the Fire Nation, and you need to unlock the Avatar State to achieve your full power. So of course it's natural you'd dream a way to achieve it."
"But it felt so real," Katara replies, poking at her food. "It didn't feel like a normal dream."
"Do you know who the man was?" Aang asks.
"He called himself a Guru. Whatever that means."
Aang frowns, resting his chin in his hands. "I knew a Guru. He was pretty old, too. A friend of Monk Gyatso's. Gurus are spiritual brothers to the monks and tend to know a lot about the world, especially the spirit world."
"Do you think I could have been in the spirit world in my dream?"
Aang shrugs. "It's possible. Where did he want you to find him?"
"He said to meet him at the Air Temple Island."
Aang sits up straight. "It's him. I bet it's Guru Pathik."
"Are you sure about that?" Toph asks. "What if it's a trap?"
The kid shakes his head. "No way. Getting into dreams is very tricky business. It's hard to lie because the minds are so closely connected." He turns to Katara, looking at her intensely with his big eyes. "You have to go, Katara."
She looks away and plays around with her food a bit. "I don't know. I don't want to risk getting separated. Zuko's already in a different direction, and the more we split up the harder it will be to reunite."
"I'll go with you," Aang offers. She smiles at him, trying to show him that she's thankful for his support.
Sokka pulls out a map. "Where is this Air Temple Island?" he asks. Aang leans over and points to a small island in the gulf of the Northern Earth Kingdom.
"We're right here, on the eastern edge of the Wulong Forest," Sokka states, pointing out a spot not far from the island. "It's a few hours' hike to the coast, and then a few more hours to the island by boat. Probably faster if you bend the current to push you along."
Katara considers it. It's not too far, and if Aang thinks he knows and trusts the Guru, then maybe she should go. She'd be gone about a day and a half, maybe two days. Zuko won't be back sooner than that.
She remembers her trouble unlocking the Avatar State earlier. This could be her chance to really learn, not just be manipulated by power hungry generals.
"I'm going," she decides. "It'll be a quick trip. I'll be back tomorrow night."
"I'll go with you," Aang repeats, standing up. She puts her hand on his shoulder and shakes her head.
"I'm sorry, Aang. But if this is an Avatar thing, then I think I need to do it alone."
He looks disappointed but not surprised.
"We'll stay in this area," Sokka says. "There's a town not far from here where we can find something to do, or at the very least get supplies."
Katara nods. "Good. Just stay out of trouble while I'm gone, okay?"
She packs a small travel bag and is headed out by lunch time. She doesn't need a map getting there because her blood can sense the sea. She just follows her instinct, getting closer and closer to the water.
She has a lot of time to think while she hikes. She thinks about the last couple days, about the craziness with the village in the river and the painted lady. She thinks about her fight with Sokka and how they made up again. She thinks about Zuko and wonders where he is right now and what he's doing. She wonders if he found Iroh and his forgiveness.
But mostly she thinks about herself. She thinks about what she's done, why she's done it, and how she feels about it. Katara has always known that she had a dark side, but it has never come out so clearly as it has recently - with the exception of when she used bloodbending to try to escape the Fire Nation prison with Hama.
The Avatar is supposed to bring balance back into the world. Katara is supposed to be the balance between good and evil, between darkness and light. She always thought being the Avatar meant being perfectly good, but now she's starting to rethink that. Of course she should be good, but she doesn't have to be perfect. Maybe it's okay if she has a dark side as long as she makes sure she always makes things right in the end.
And she needs to be honest about it, too. She needs to tell the others what she's capable of so that they won't be taken so completely by surprise like last time.
Katara reaches the coast by late afternoon. She lashes together a few fallen branches to make a make-shift raft and then she sets off in the water, propelling herself quickly through the waves. She reaches the Air Temple Island a few hours later.
She hikes her way up to the top of the Temple. She's starting to doubt that this Guru is even here when she catches sight of him, sitting cross legged on a flat, open area, his hands on his knees and his eyes closed, the sunset bursting behind him in brilliant colors. She recognizes his meditating position immediately.
The man has a long, white beard and his skin is darkly tanned and a little wrinkled. She waits a few minutes before speaking up. "Hello? Are you Guru Pathik?"
"Indeed," he answers, not opening his eyes. Katara walks up and takes a seat right in front of him.
"In my dream, you said you could help me gain control of the Avatar State. I'm here to learn."
Now he opens his eyes, but he doesn't move his body. "You must gain balance within yourself before you can bring balance to the world."
She had just been thinking about that. Maybe this Guru does know how to help her after all.
"The first step to gaining balance begins with this," Guru Pathik says, holding out a bowl of a yellow substance. "Drink up!"
She takes it hesitantly and then swallows, cringing at the taste but forcing it down. "It tastes like onion and banana juice," she says when she's finished, wiping her mouth off with her sleeve.
"That's because it is!" The Guru slurps up his own bowl. "Yum!"
She stares at him for a minute, rethinking her previous stance. Maybe this guy isn't as legit as she thought. But then she thinks of Iroh and his oddities and decides that maybe the wisest people are also the strangest.
Guru Pathik leads her down to a small river that's divided up into pools by stones. The moon is now shining overhead, bright enough to illuminate the path. Katara feels stronger as she always does at night. She can feel the power of the moon hum within her veins.
"In order to master the Avatar State, you must open all the chakras." He turns to her. "Tell me everything you know about chakras."
She strains her mind, but the entire concept is unfamiliar to her. "What are chakras?"
The Guru sighs. "Oh. I see. I guess we'll start with the basics." He turns back to the pools of water. "The water flows through this creek much like the energy flows through your body. As you can see, there are several pools where the water circles around before flowing on. These pools are like our chakras."
"So chakras are pools of energy spiraling inside our bodies?"
"Exactly! If nothing else were around, this creek would flow clear and pure. However, life is messing, and things tend to fall in the creek. And then what happens?"
She watches the pools carefully. "The creek can't flow?" she guesses.
"Yes. But if we open the paths between the pools -" The Guru uses his staff to pull out a tangle of leaves blocking the narrow entrance from one pool to the other.
"-the energy flows," Katara finishes, watching as the water pours quickly now from one pool to the next.
They return to their meditation place. "There are seven chakras that run through the body," Guru Pathik explains as they sit down. "Each pool of energy has a purpose and can be blocked by a specific kind of emotional mark. Be warned - opening the chakras is an intense experience, and once you begin this process, you cannot stop until all seven chakras are open. Are you ready?"
Katara takes a deep breath. She's handled intense before. How much worse can this be?
"I'll do whatever it takes," she swears.
"First we will open the Earth chakra, located at the base of the spine. It deals with survival and is blocked by fear."
Katara feels her mind melting away from her body. The mist and night sky around her disappear and she enters onto a different plane of existence, not unlike the one in her dream.
"What are you most afraid of?" Guru Pathik asks.
She can see it in her mind, in flashing memories and vision tinted in red. She sees the Fire Nation destroying her village, columns of smoke and coal raining down on her people. She sees her parents falling to the ground, never to move again. She sees chaos and bodies and snow and she's running, running away.
The scene melts into the next one. This time she's facing off Ozai, standing in that forest outside the prison and circling him. He grins maliciously at her, taunting her to fight him, to earn her freedom.
Ozai's face morphs into that of the Earth Kingdom general, still taunting her but this time to utilize the Avatar State to save her brother. Sokka is sinking into the ground - and suddenly he's swallowed up, gone.
The ground bursts open and Azula appears, smiling cruelly as she holds a knife to her brother's throat. Her arm suddenly jerks across but before Katara can cry out, the scene is changing again.
Now it's herself that she's seeing. She's moving through the Fire Nation palace prison with cold efficiency, bloodbending the soldiers into fighting each other or twisting on the ground in pain. Her eyes are blank, emotionless.
And then that same expression but this time she's beating Zuko, each hit harder than the last. He's on the ground but she's not done. She'll keep beating him until he's dead, until he can never hurt her again.
"Let your fears become clear to you," the Guru says. Katara's eyes open wide, but the vision doesn't disappear.
The nightmare version of herself steps over Zuko's body and glares at her. Then she holds her hand out. Katara feels pressure against her throat. She grabs at it, trying to release the pressure but she can't. Nightmare Katara clenches her fist and Katara gasps in pain. Behind the other version of herself, she can see Sokka, Aang, Toph, and Suki watching in horror - in horror of her.
"Katara, the vision you're seeing isn't real," the Guru says calmly. "You are concerned for your survival, but you must surrender those fears. Let your fears flow down the creek."
Katara fights it for a minute longer before letting her hand fall from her neck. She gives the nightmare version of herself full power. Just as she goes to draw her last breath, the entire illusion fades away and she finds herself facing the Guru once more.
"You have opened your Earth chakra," he declares. She breathes deeply and waits for her heart rate to fall to a normal speed again. He was right after all about this being intensive.
"Next is the Water chakra," he says. "This chakra deals with pleasure and is blocked by guilt. Now, look at all the guilt which burdens you so. What do you blame yourself for?"
Once again she enters the other dimension. This time the visions aren't as instantaneous as with fear. It takes a moment for her mind to find the things she feels bad about.
"I ran when my people needed me," she says, seeing the day the Fire Nation invaded her home. "And I imprisoned myself for a hundred years instead of fighting."
The next scene is of her reaching the Avatar State at the Earth Kingdom stronghold. She's destroying the place, men and buildings flying all around her in her all-powerful state. "I hurt all of those people."
The last vision is of her beating up Zuko. She flinches every time her hand makes contact with his face. "And I hurt people I care about because I was angry and lashing out."
"Accept the reality that these things happen. But do not let them poison and cloud your energy. If you are to be a positive influence on the world, you need to forgive yourself."
And she does. She lets them go with an exhale of her breath. She apologized, she feels bad, and she won't do them ever again. There's no reason to hold onto that guilt.
"Third is the Fire chakra, located in the stomach. This chakra deals with willpower and is blocked by shame. What are you ashamed of? What are your biggest disappointments in yourself?"
She sees herself bloodbending in the prison, following Hama even though she knows that what the woman is doing is dark and wrong. She sees the looks of pain and confusion on the guards' faces. She fears herself for having the power to do something so evil, and she's ashamed of herself for being a part of it.
"I'm never going to bloodbend again," she says quietly. "I can't."
"You will never find balance if you deny this part of your life," the Guru says. "You are a Waterbender, and therefore you have this power inside of you. Learn when it is appropriate to use it and when to deny it control."
She thinks of how she used bloodbending to take back control of her body and to stop Hama. Maybe there will come a time in her life when it's her only option to save other lives and stop evil. She can't just not use it because she's ashamed of it.
She takes a deep breath and accepts this part of her. It's not as clean as the others, but she'll work on it.
"That chakra opened less like a river and more like a burping bison," Guru Pathik remarks.
Katara imagines Appa burping and smiles a little. "It's a work in progress."
"The fourth chakra is located in the heart," he continues. "It deals with love and is blocked by grief."
Katara's hand instantly goes up to touch her mother's necklace, only to remember that it's no longer there. She lets her land drop slowly.
"Lay all your grief out in front of you."
She sees her parents in front of her, holding onto each other and smiling at her. Behind them pops up everyone in her old life - Gran Gran, Master Pakku, Yue, and all the others from her village. She smiles and reaches out to them, but as soon as her hand gets close they all fade away.
"You have indeed suffered a great loss," the Guru says. "But love is a form of energy and it swirls all around us. Your parents' and village's love for you has not left this world. It is still inside of your heart and is reborn in the form of new love."
She sees her new family form from the mist - Aang and Toph and Suki and Iroh and Zuko and Momo and Appa. And, of course, Sokka. She feels a darkness lift from her soul. It had been sitting there for so long that she'd forgotten what it was like to not feel it. The instant relief brings tears to her eyes that she wipes away.
"Very good," Guru Pathik praises. When she's recovered, they move on.
"The fifth in the chain is the sound chakra, located in the throat. It deals with truth and is blocked by lies - the ones we tell ourselves."
I'm not lying to myself, Katara thinks, but she instantly realizes that that's a lie. The vision that comes to mind is a memory. She's standing on the bow of Zuko's ship. It's the day after the hurricane. She's just told Zuko she's the Avatar and she says, "I'm sorry. I never wanted this."
"You cannot deny your nature," the Guru says, reading her thoughts. "You have always yearned for a bigger purpose. You always sought out the hard path because you thought it was worth it. That was the instinct of the Avatar inside of you. Now you must take control of it!"
Katara knows that being the Avatar means putting the needs of the world before her own personal desires. She knows that being the Avatar means being hunted by the Fire Nation, being chased and beaten and blamed for things out of her hands. But it also means getting the help people, like the river village. It means standing up for what's right.
It's her destiny. She's accepted in on a surface level a dozen times, but now it's time to accept it all the way down to her soul.
I am the Avatar.
She opens her eyes and looks back over at Guru Pathik, who is smiling.
"Good, Katara. You have opened the chakra of truth."
The sun is rising and the mist around the Temple thickens. Katara can't believe it's already been an entire night. It doesn't feel like it.
The chilly morning breeze dances across her skin. She misses her Water Tribe furs right now.
"The sixth pool of energy is the light chakra. It's located in the center of the forehead. It deals with insight and is blocked by illusion."
Katara feels the heat of rising sun warm her body. She turns and looks over the Guru, who is sitting in his meditation form, completely at peace.
"The greatest illusion in this world is the illusion of separation. Things you think are separate and different are actually one and the same."
Katara dives deep into her mind. "Like the four nations," she says after a moment.
"Yes. They are all one people, but we live as if divided."
"We're all connected," she says, thinking of the lessons she learned in the swamp. "Everything is connected."
"That's right. Even the separation of the four elements is an illusion. If you open your mind, you will see that all the elements are four parts of the same whole. Even metal is just a part of Earth that has been purified."
Katara thinks of Toph's metalbending abilities. She thinks of her bloodbending abilities, and Azula's lightning bending. There are probably dozens of sub-abilities for bending that just haven't been discovered yet.
This chakra isn't stressful at all. It's a lesson she's already learned. She breathes comfortably and turns back to Pathik. "We're on the last chakra, aren't we?"
"Yes. Once you open this chakra, you will be able to go in and out of the Avatar State at will. And when you go into the Avatar State, you will have complete control and awareness of all of your actions."
She thinks of the disaster of the last time she went into the Avatar State. Her eyes narrow. "Let's do this."
"The thought chakra is located at the crown of the head. It deals with pure, cosmic energy and is blocked by earthly attachment. Meditate on what attaches you to this world."
To her surprise, the person she sees in her mind is Zuko. She relives their best moments together: watching the fireworks at Whale Tail Island, their first kiss, playing around on the ship. She relives some moments that weren't their best but that are equally important: when he showed up to help her escape, when she saw him again after Azula blackmailed her, and when she saw him free for the first time after he returned from Boiling Rock.
And when she said goodbye to him when he left, giving him her most prized possession so that he would come back to her.
"Now let go of all those attachments. Let them flow down the river...forgotten."
Her eyes snap open. "What? Why would I let go and forget Zuko? I thought I was supposed to accept new love as part of the love chakra!"
"Learn to let him go or you can not let the pure, cosmic energy flow in from the universe."
Katara shakes her head. What good has the Avatar State done her so far? Certainly not as much as Zuko has. "Why would I choose 'cosmic energy' over Zuko? Three chakras ago he was a good thing!"
"You must learn to let go," the Guru insists.
Katara shakes her head. This is ridiculous. She's already let go of so much. She's let go of her parents, her entire village - her entire people group! She's also let go of dozens of friends she's met along the way. She's not letting go of anyone else, not for some stupid cosmic energy that hasn't done her any good so far.
She stands. "I'm sorry," she says tightly. "I'm not letting go of anyone else."
"Katara, in order to master the Avatar State, you must open all the chakras," Guru Pathik insists. "Surrender yourself."
She shakes her head. "I've already surrendered myself enough. I'm tired of being passive. I can be the Avatar and keep the people I care about."
"Katara, this is the only way!"
She turns her back and walks away. It was a waste of time for her to come here. All she's learned is that to be the Avatar, you have to roll over and surrender. But that's not her. Katara is a fighter and she's going to fight.
"If you leave now, you won't be able to master the Avatar State at all!" The Guru yells from behind her.
She pauses but continues walking after a moment. She's made her choice.
Katara is just about to get back on her raft when she hears something in the air. She turns and sees a familiar white shape soaring her way. A smiles instantly stretches across her face.
Appa lands on the beach a few minutes later. Katara holds her breath, watching with barely held in excitement as Zuko jumps off. When he looks her way, he smiles.
It's not a wide smile, it's not enough for her to see his teeth, but it's a genuine smile. It's a content smile. Whatever Zuko was looking for, he found.
Katara runs over to him, throwing her arms around him. He catches her and holds her tightly. She pulls back just enough to look at him before pressing her lips to his. He kisses her back.
Maybe her trip wasn't such a waste of time after all. Letting go of her guilt and shame has left her room in her heart to fill up with something better. And now she definitely doesn't feel bad about not letting him go to open up a stupid chakra.
"How did you find me?" she asks when they pull apart.
Zuko digs into his pocket and pulls out her necklace. "You were right about it bringing people back together."
She takes it back, putting it in her own pocket. "I meant that more metaphorically, but I'm glad it worked."
"I know a bounty hunter who can find someone just by a whiff of their scent," he explains. "She got me as far as the coast and then pointed me to this island."
Katara looks apprehensively back up the cliff to the Air Temple. She can't see the Guru, but she wouldn't be surprised if he's watching. "Let's get out of here," she suggests. "We can talk on the ride."
Zuko tells his story as they fly back to the camping site. He explains that Iroh sacrificed his freedom - and maybe his life - for him to escape. Katara thinks it sounds pretty familiar, although she doesn't say it. He also tells her about Iroh's advice for getting his Firebending back.
"So the Sun Warriors were the first Firebenders?" she asks.
"The first Firebenders and the first of the Fire Nation. There's only ruins left, but maybe we'll find some answers there."
"I'm coming with you," Katara promises. "I'm not letting you go off alone again. Bad things tend to happen when we're apart."
He turns to her, a slightly surprised expression on his face. "And what were you doing on that island? Alone?"
"I had a dream about a Guru there that wanted to teach me how to unlock the Avatar State, so I decided to check it out alone."
"You couldn't drag Suki or Toph along with you?"
"It was something I had to do alone." And she's glad no one else was there to talk her into letting everyone go. It's her decision to make, not anyone else's. "The Guru turned out to be a pretty wise guy, though I'm not entirely sure he understands me personally too well. But he did help me let go of my guilt. Told me that bad things happen sometimes - that we do bad things sometimes - and that we just have to let it go." She makes eye contact with him. "I'm sorry about what I did to you. But I'm not going to let it get in the way of us. And I promise it won't happen again."
He stares at her and then slowly smiles. "I feel the same. I'll never let you down again, Katara. I promise."
"And don't go easy on me when we fight, okay? That's just condescending."
The edge of his mouth lifts up. "Trust me, I won't." A pause. "So, are we good?"
She leans up and kisses his cheek. "We're good."
She's not entirely sure what "good" entails, but she's looking forward to discovering it one step at a time. And she's pretty happy with how they've started.
"In that case, can I say that you look really good in Fire Nation clothing?"
She smiles and leans against him as they fly through the night, happier than she's been in a long time.