A/N: Beginning is quick plot advancing and the rest is filler with purpose trust in ya boy! Nah lol but seriously trust me it is going to add more character development and other stuff for future chapters. Thank you for reading and drop a review or follow or favorite you know whatever.
Chapter 8: See you again.
"They've been in there for over an hour!" Aura shouted at me.
"And? Simon knows what he's doing obviously otherwise he wouldn't've told us he was a blood bender. Look I trust Simon he's taken care of me this entire time." I sighed and turned up my music.
I hummed to the tune and lost myself in the song. I opened my eyes long enough to put it on repeat and closed them tightly. I must've listened to the song 5 or 6 times before someone pulled my headphones out of my ears and I looked at them.
"Hey Simon is everything good?" I tried sitting up a little bit but he put his hand on my shoulder.
"Yeah don't worry about it anymore, she's come to terms with it and I doubt she will have any more problems." He smiled brightly and sat next to me. "She was afraid of what she might've done and what she can do."
"I see, well I'm glad she's OK and how about you I'm sure it must be hard telling people you're a blood bender." My leg started too slid off of the couch so I grabbed onto it and pulled it back.
"I wish I could have kept it a secret longer but now that it's out it's only a matter of time before I have the law after me." He sighed and stood. "Well Akira I'll be seeing you again."
I watched his as he left and looked back to where he was sitting and saw a folded piece of paper. I stayed silent as I picked up the note and read it. I crumpled it up and slid it into my pocket as a single tear rolled down my cheek.
"Akira are you alright? Does your leg hurt?" Aura slid around the couch and grabbed my painkillers.
"I think I'll be ok, could you sit with me for a while?" I felt another tear roll down my face and I could feel my heart start to sink. Aura wiped my face and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
"Yeah just let me finish with lunch and I'll be right back." She hurried back into the kitchen. "Hey did Simon leave?" She shouted.
"Yeah." My chest tightened up again. "He's gone."
I kept seeing the note in my mind over and over again. {Whether it be my next life or yours we will see each other again, but for now just tell everybody I'm gone.}
"Akira lunch is ready and everyone else is at the table. Do you want me to bring you a plate?" Hope leaned over the back of the couch and ruffled my hair. I shook my head.
"No I don't feel like eating anymore but could you ask Aura to come sit with me I want to talk to her alone." I kept my voice from shaking and gave a very unconvincing smile. Hope hugged me and walked away. A minute later Aura plopped down with two plates and set them on the table.
"Hope said you weren't hungry but I figured I'd bring you a plate just in case." She laughed.
"Thanks but all I really need right now is a shoulder to cry on." I turned my head to her and she gasped. She wrapped me up in her arms as I cried silently.
"Akira what's wrong? Are you sure your legs not hurting?" She pulled back a little and looked into my eyes.
"My leg is still numb but my heart aches so badly." I cleared my throat. "Simon's gone."
"Yeah he left you'll see him again when you go back for your check up." She rubbed my back.
"No I mean he's gone." I reached into my pocket and handed her the note. She looked at it questionably and read it. Her expression changed and she folded it back up neatly and set it on the table. She looked at me with wide eyes and placed her forehead to mine.
"Like he said you'll see each other again." I heard feet stop at the edge of the couch.
"Hey Akira so he told you huh? Well he told me he was going to leave us something to remember him by until we meet again." I looked up at Sky's tear filled face. I extended my arm and she walked over into a hug.
"What did he leave you?" I let go of the hug and she stepped back. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small pink ribbon.
"It's just a pink ribbon that doesn't stay tied." She laughed. "He said in a way I reminded him of his daughter. She was in the same situation that I was in but she didn't have anyone to talk to. He said he regretted not being able to see what was wrong and talk to her before it was too late."
"He couldn't save his own daughter." I picked up the note. "He gave me his word that we'd meet again, he used his bending to help people and he was still persecuted for it."
I pulled my wheelchair to me and threw myself into it. I reached down and picked up my plate and set it in my lap and started to roll myself outside. I bent up a small table and ate facing the horizon in silence. Once I finished I rolled over to the hammock and awkwardly climbed in.
"See you again." I sighed and stared at the setting sun. "I hope so Simon, I hope so."
I shifted in my sleep and woke up still in the hammock. I half expected someone to be tucked into mine or the one next to it but no one was there. I looked up at the moon high above me and smiled.
"I look forward to it." I clutched at my reinforced cast and rubbed the scars on my chest. "I never did get a chance to tell them how I messed up my leg the first time. Ugh oh well some other time perhaps."
"Now's as good a time as any Akira." I looked over at Aura walking slowly to my while yawning. "I can't believe you're still out here it's gotten a bit chilly."
I grinned and feigned a shiver. "Now that you mention it its pretty cold too bad I'm not a fire bender or else I could just warm myself up." I said rather sarcastically.
"No you aren't but you're a lava bender so heat up some rock and warm yourself." Aura laughed as she jumped into the hammock next to mine. I groaned began spinning up some lava and twirled it and made it look like a small galaxy.
"So do you want to know how I hurt my leg?" I spun the lava faster and slower changing its density every time.
"Definitely if you feel like telling me." Aura turned over to face me. "I like story time."
"Well it was about 2 years after my dad left us and I had been practicing my lava bending in secret. I was trying to perfect my lava swords and was striking some dummies I made. They were working perfectly right up until I started getting careless and decided to make the swords bigger and bigger until they looked like whips.
I thought that I could blend in some water bending techniques and switch up how I moved my lava. I had been watching Tenchi while he practiced his water bending scrolls and thought that I could incorporate those moves. I often heard that towards the end of the 100 year war General Iroh created the Lightning redirection skill by watching water benders and I wanted to be like him so bad."
I grabbed my leg again and squeezed the metal till my hand hurt.
"I was so focused that I didn't see my mother who was standing there watching me. I spun my whips so fast close to my body that I started to form lava around me. I thought I was alone so I tried a lava burst and it worked perfectly. Then I heard my mother scream and I looked as the lava flew towards her and out of pure reaction I stomped my right leg down trying to stop it but I stepped into the lava and sunk all the way in to just above the knee.
I stopped the lava but by the time I was able to get my leg out of the lava the damage had been done. I was very lucky that my mother's healer was still in the city. He managed to save my leg and heal it as best as he could. I had no feeling in that leg for a year and I still wasn't able to walk for over a year after that. I was crippled and helpless because of my power. A power that my mother began to despise. She had gotten a lot worse in those 4 years of my recovery and with each step I took on the road to recovery my mother went down the opposite path.
She was in a wheelchair by the second year and bed ridden by the third. None of her doctors believed she would live beyond another year but she fought as hard as she could and she is still with us now. She shattered every limit the doctors put on her life and even though she hated my lava bending she still tried to show me how much she loved me on the rare times when I was allowed to see her in her hospital room.
And during that whole time Tenchi was too busy training finish mastering earth and the basics of fire and water to see how our mother was doing or even see how I was recovering. Master Kai and Master Jinora showed up the day I was as close to 100% as I could be. I watched them as they trained Tenchi and eventually began to mimic them. Master Kai saw me one day and decided to train me whenever Tenchi took a break which was often so I had basically mastered all the moves before Tenchi did but Kai and Jinora never told him that.
A while later Tenchi mastered air bending as well. We stayed in Zaofu right up until the night before we arrived here. 6 years of being just stuck in that place with the avatar was terrible, people would bow to him wherever he went it made me sick and he just ate it up and his ego swelled. The day before we left I was working on my lava shuriken trying to fine tune it when it got out of control and exploded on me and burnt my chest and arms. It just scarred the skin and didn't do much deeper damage. And here I am now."
I looked at a wide eyed Aura and the small group of people that had formed around her while I was lost in my storytelling. Hope, Sky, Sokka and my aunt Kayna all huddle next to us wide eyed as well.
"That's your full back story like there isn't anything extra?" Kayna pried. "No romantic tirades? No lover left behind?"
"No Aunt Kayna but there was this one girl who always mistook me for Tenchi and that was weird. We dressed totally opposite and had different interests but never-the-less she would always call me Tenchi and hang around me even when I told her I wasn't him she stayed there." I laughed. "She was pretty but none of the other kids talked to her, she was a major outcast because she couldn't bend and in the metal clan only 1% of people there couldn't bend and most of those people were businessmen who moved in to work."
"Name! Name I need a name!" Sokka was scooting closer with every word.
"Ugh let's see if I remember, maybe Hina no uh Hannah? No it was-" I looked at the moon and palmed my forehead. "Duh it was Luna ha-ha Luna Kuei. Wow I was so far off on that one."
I looked back at everyone who had a dumbfounded look on their face. I rubbed my cast again and scratched at my scars. I started to feel awkward with how much they were staring and finally coughed to get their attention.
"Luna Kuei? As in the actress? Direct descendant of the 52 Earth King, that Kuei?" Sky sounded shocked. "I just loved her in 'Earth: No Even Ground' She was so awesome and they say she even did all her own stunts and she choreographed all the fight scenes herself!"
I looked back and forth between Hope, Sky and Aura. Aura shook herself and hopped out of her Hammock and got in my face.
"If I remember correctly she is in town for the release of 'Earth 2: The Flat Lands' Akira we have to go meet her and you need to make it happen!" Aura was almost shouting in my ear.
"It's been so long I don't even think she will remember me." I said half hoping it was true. 'It would be nice to see her again; I didn't know she became a famous movie star.'