Gaara's legs gave out from under him. Madara's last attack had been a pain to stop, but he had managed it by using the extra blood-soaked sand that comprised his gourd. It would buy him a few more seconds, until the next clone tried to kill him.

I really shouldn't be thinking like that, the Kazekage told himself before he moved the sand he was resting on to avoid an attack from the Madara clone's Susanno in front of him before temporarily pinning the chakra golem's arm that tried to crush him with restraints of normal sand.

Still, since Madara had created five wood clones per Kage, it had been all he could do just to remain on the defensive. On top of which, inch by inch, the clone's attacks were getting closer and closer to finishing him off.

Even with the reserves that hosting a tailed beast for the early part of his life had left him with, going up against two legendary opponents back to back had almost completely drained him. They had only been dealing with Madara for five minutes, but every part of Gaara's body was already screaming for him to stop.

A cry of pain to his right grabbed Gaara's attention for a moment, and he looked over to see that Tsunade had been caught by the multiple Susanno, with one holding each of her limbs, and the fifth clone using one of his chakra construct's hands to wrap around her neck.

The Raikage wasn't faring much better. His speed had kept him a step ahead of the clones, but the moment he attacked one and punched a hole through its chest, the double grabbed onto him and its feet transformed into roots. Then its whole body came a medium sized tree that held the man in place. A second later, another clone appeared behind the Raikage to latch onto his arm before it could be freed, and the man's lighting armor was sucked away before a third clone came in from behind him to finish the man off.

The Mizukage was doing a little better than the others thanks to her long-range area effect techniques, but she was steadily loosing ground. In fact, the only one who seemed to at least be close to equal ground with his opponents was the Tsuchikage, whose superior mobility thanks to his flight techniques kept him out of range of most of Madara's attacks and let him dodge the ones that were sent his way.

The two screams of pain that came from the direction of their close-combat fighters nearly broke Gaara's concentration, which nearly ended up proving fatal when the clones attacked him from three different directions. He managed to bob and weave his way between them, but clenched his teeth when the two other clones assigned to him appeared in front of Gaara with lightning crackling around them in preparation to strike.

No! Gaara thought as he tried to gather up enough of his red stand to wrap around their legs and throw them back. He was rather surprised when the clones that had him dead to rights suddenly stopped long enough to make it work.

In fact, all the clones had stopped moving…and then retreated to form a circle around the original. A light shot out of the real Madara, and he looked to the sky.

"No! I will not die yet! NOT UNTIL I'VE KILLED YOU ALL!"

Gaara looked up to Madara. He had been expecting to see someone sealing the original away, only…he was greeted to the sight of Madara's body falling apart as he clasped hands together, followed by all the clones doing the same.

"What's going on?" the Kazekage mumbled.

"If I had to guess, the Impure World Resurrection is being undone," Shikamaru told the him after he made his way to Gaara. "Looks like…uh…who did we have assigned to finding this technique's controller anyway?"

Gaara gave his approximation of a shrug. "Don't look at me. All of our sensors were told to keep an eye out, but I haven't received any reports on the matter. Of course, I've been a little busy to receive anything."

"So what is he-" Shikamaru stopped talking when everything fell under shadow. Again? he thought before looking up to see a meteor coming down from the sky… "Oh shit."

…and a second one to the far west…

…and another to the east…

…and the north…

"How much you want to bet there's at least one of those per clone?" the leaf ninja asked. Crap, so what's what Madara did before he died. We could barely stop one of those, and an indirect hit caused massive casualties. Shikamaru wracked his brain to try and come up with something, anything that would allow at least some of there people to survive.

A second later, the Tsuchikage landed beside the other two ninja, and formed the seals to create more than a dozen earth clones. "It's going to take the last of my chakra, but I'll slow them down as much as I can," he told them before taking off into the sky.

Mei, the Mizukage, nodded at the old man. "In that case I'll order our men to retreat to a safe distance. If you can buy us enough time-"

"Don't bother," the older Kage told her. "I got a much better look at the surroundings up there. Madara has formed fifteen of these things spaced out all around us. The impact radius of all of them together will be disastrous. This entire country is going to be nothing but a hole in the ground in less than two minutes, and my clones will disappear when they run out of chakra."

Mei looked own at the ground for a moment as the old man and his clones took to the sky again, then threw out he hand to point to a communication squad shinobi. "You! Patch me in with the army, have all Earth Style users create underground impact shelters. If they're deep enough-"

While the Mizukage gave her commands, Shikamaru continued to watch the Tsuchikage fly into the sky and intercept the meteors, and let out a depressed sigh when it crashed through the clouds, barely slowing down. It was a disturbing sight, but it did give him an idea.

"Wait," he told the older woman. When the Mizukage stopped to glare at him for his interruption, Shikamaru did his best to ignore the killing intent sent his way. "You've got it backwards. There's no fortification we can build that can take a direct hit from those things. We need to avoid them."

Gaara looked over to Shikamaru and cut in before the woman could go ballistic from being interrupted. "How?"

"Have everyone who can perform a summon for something big enough to fit a person in its mouth call their animal and climb in so they can teleport away," Shikamaru explained before looking over to Gaara. "Can you still move sand?"

"Only the kind already soaked with my chakra," Gaara told him.

The biggest hope for the army's escape just dwindling to a hundred at most made Shikamaru groan in anger. "Levitate as many people as you can carry into the sky and past those things. Anybody who has a summon who can fly, bring it out and reach safety, and…that's all I got. If anyone's gone some kind of ultimate barrier jutsu, now's the time to pull it out."

Chapter 3: Inequality

Korra opened her eyes to the dawn's light, then groaned and rolled over in her bed to keep the sun from roasting her optic nerves; or the sun's reflection anyway. The fact that the only reason she was getting up like this was because she had moved her mirror to catch the sun's morning rays made everything even more painful.

Stupid Mako and his 'Our practice is at eight' crap, Korra thought before she felt Naga come over to her bed and start poking Korra with her nose.

With the help of her dog's prodding, Korra managed to roll out of bed and get dressed to face the day. When she got downstairs, Korra found most of the acolytes were already in the communal breakfast area, although Tenzin wasn't there yet.

She knew he had to split his duties between temple master and father, but the old man was usually waiting for her when she got downstairs. Of course, she was never up this early before.

A minute after she sat down, some of Tenzin's students came to give her a cup of tea and a bowl of rice with fish in it. Once they had the table set, the Avatar watched Tenzin finally came in the door with a paper in hand. "Did you seriously fly all the way to the city for a newspaper?" Korra asked after he greeted everyone.

Then again…I always wondered how they got one here so early, she thought.

"The news is important…and they want to charge too much for delivery to the island," he admitted before sitting down at the breakfast table and opening the paper to thumb through it.

A few moments later, his wife Pema came in the room to give him a tray of food and have a short conversation with some of her friends sitting behind Tenzin while he looked through the morning news.

"Oh dear."

The rather depressing way Tenzin spoke drew Korra's attention. "Something wrong."

"It's nothing," he assured her. "Just someone bought space for another Equalist article."

Korra frowned. "A what?"

Once he had scanned over the title to get the just of it, Tenzin looked back to the Avatar. "Oh, it's just that no one is willing to print their…opinions in any of the papers so they buy add space and print their rabble rousing inside of it." It did make Tenzin wonder where these dissidents were getting the money for such things. For a moment the horrid thought that it was done through donations crossed his mind, but surely they couldn't have collected enough support for everything they did that way, could they?

"No I mean, what's an Equalist?" Korra clarified.

Tenzin set down his paper and looked over to the Avatar to make sure she was actually serious.

Seeing his obvious confusion, Tenzin's wife went to place the food on the table as she answered the obvious question. "I don't think they have much reach outside the city dear, so Korra's probably never heard of them."

"Heard of who?" Korra demanded, getting more than a little agitated at a lack of an explanation.

"It's a group of non-benders that claim people like you and I are oppressing them," Tenzin explained. "For the most part they just hand out pamphlets and publish things like…this in newspapers and magazines."

Their latest one being a 'shocking' exposé on Republic City's criminal underworld. It went on and how all the major gangs in the city were nothing but benders while the vast majority of non-bending criminals were caught easily; and even went so far as to accuse the justice system of playing favorites to anyone who could read between the lines.

Korra immediately put in her two cents on the issue. "Well that's just stupid! No one's going to buy that!" Then she frowned at Tenzin. "Don't tell me these idiots were the reason you didn't want to leave this place."

The girl's rather simplistic view of the world made Tenzin smile, if only things were that easy. "True, but they do manage to pain a convincing picture. Think about it for a moment. Benders like you and myself do possess an advantage over non-benders. That simple fact helps breed jealousy, and with that clouding their minds, they are willing to believe things like the reason no benders sit on the council is because the council is for benders only. It escalates from there to them saying something such as because we're all benders, that we're oppressing non-benders. From there, it turns to because we're different, we cannot co-exist."

"But that's stupid!" Korra exclaimed, repeating her earlier statement with a bit more strength. "You're on the council, shouldn't you do something to stop them from saying that cra-" she stopped and glanced down at the monks and Pema, "stuff like that?"

Tenzin raised an eyebrow. "So you want me to…what? Oppress them? They are entitled to their opinions after all."

The question made Korra scrunch her face up in anger. "What?… No! That's not what-I mean… But you can't just let them say stuff like this."

"And in doing so I would fall right into their trap," Tenzin told her. "At the moment, all they're doing is printing things such as this and handing them out. They are entitled to voice their opinions, no matter how foolish they are. If I were to stop them from doing so, it would add the only real weight their arguments can hold by making what they're saying true."

Of course, they were suspected of doing other things. Lin had brought the council reports that the Equalists were supposedly training chi-blockers, but even that in and of itself wasn't illegal. In fact, they didn't seem to have any ties to the criminal activity of the city as far as she could tell.

"But there must be something we can do about this kind of stuff," Korra said.

Tenzin nodded. "So now it's we, eh?" he asked. "Korra, this was the very reason I didn't want you coming to Republic City. You are the Avatar, and despite your age, people put more weight into your actions and opinions then even my own. Speaking out against them is all well and good, but when words become action, everything changes."

"Well-"

"And in this case, doing 'nothing' as you put it, is the correction action," Tenzin explained. "I have faith that people will see this movement for what it truly is, and turn away from it on their own."

The rest of breakfast was a subdued affair, with teacher and student finishing their meal with only a dozen interruptions from the acolytes asking Tenzin for instructions on how to deal with the various issues that came with running a temple.

When she was done eating, Korra was treated to the sight of Sasuke coming downstairs. His hair was oddly disheveled and the circles under his eyes told Korra he hadn't gotten enough sleep; much like her. Strangely enough, she was glad the guy who'd kept her up worrying about him a good thirty minutes before he actually arrived on the island had an even worse morning than Korra.

"Hey Sasuke, I'm heading to the mainland. We could go together if you want."

Sasuke didn't even bother looking at her to reply. "Fine. Let's go."

A bit put off by the less than enthusiastic response, Korra watched Sasuke drag himself to the door. Maybe he's just not a morning person, she told herself.

The boat ride was also disturbingly quiet…despite attempts at conversation.

"So, what happened last night? You came in pretty late," Korra told him.

At first Sasuke just shot her one of the glares that seemed to be his usual expression as of late, then his expression softened with some obvious effort. "I…got lost. The city is harder to navigate at night."

With that being the only words they shared on the whole ride over, Korra tied up the small boat at the docks and took a second to tell Sasuke she'd be swimming back to the island so he could use it whenever he needed to head back.

After they separated, Korra headed to the pro-bending arena to start morning practice while Sasuke…went wherever the heck he went in the city. Korra hoped he wasn't still going to the library.

"Mind if I ask you guys a question?" Korra said as she tossed the medicine ball to Bolin.

After he caught the thing, Bolin tossed it to his brother. "Sure thing. What's on your mind?"

Before Korra could ask, Mako cut her off by tossing the ball at her chest. "This is a training session. So need to be focused on training."

She took a moment to frown at him in consideration. What was it with cute guys? Mako was the same as Sasuke with the way he seemed to focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else.

"It's called multitasking. Women can do that better than guys," Korra told him before sending it back hard enough to knock the other player back. "But tell me, what does it mean when a guy won't talk about himself, his past, and is gone all the time? Is he playing hard to get, or what?"

The bending bothers looked at each other for a moment, with Bolin being the one to break the silence. "Guys can play hard to get?" When Mako simply gave him a confused look and shrugged, he turned back to Korra.

"Sorry Korra, but I'm not sure if the two of us are compatible," Bolin said while doing his best to strike a princely pose.

Completely ignoring Bolin's joke, Korra turned to look at Mako. "Seriously, what do you think?" At the South Pole he had pretty much tagged along wherever she went, but they might as well have been strangers now that they were in Republic City.

"Training," Mako repeated before tossing the ball back to her.

Korra pressed her lips together as she caught the ball and prepared to throw it to Bolin. Only, she paused when the door to the gym opened to admit a man in some pretty fancy clothes.

-Republic City's Public Library-

Sasuke looked over the five books that formed a small pile in front of him with disappointment before he raised his head to the female assistant librarian Ling. "So these are all the books you have on past Avatars?"

"No, we have more," she replied. "But these's are the ones that fit your criteria. You said you only wanted the most comprehensive studies, and only one per avatar."

"They don't look very old," Sasuke commented after he picked the top one up, a full biography of Avatar Aang.

The woman crossed her arms and frowned at the boy's comment. "Well, we're hardly an ancient library. Even if you go back to the founding of the orginal city, it's only one-hundred years old. We don't have any source documents from before then. If you want something like that, I would suggest visiting Ba Sing Se. The Cultural Preservation Society is about the only thing that has documents from before the war. I suppose the Northern Water Tribe might also have something, but that isn't really a climate for storing scrolls long term. There really isn't much in the way of ancient historical texts."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at the venom in the woman's voice. "So why is there such a shortage of history books?"

"Two reasons really. During the war, the Fire Nation went about trying to re-write history, and attempted to get rid of anything that argued with what they said," she explained. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the Fire Nation's choice to invade. The end result of Republic City was worth it in my opinion, but…it would sure be a lot better if we had the full story of what actually happened before the war instead of just little bits and pieces."

As he listened to the woman talk, Sasuke gathered up the books. "And the second reason?"

The woman didn't seem to hear him, having gone off on one of her historical rants. "Before the war, no one would have ever even dreamed of a place like this," Ling continued. "I went to school in Ba Sing Se, so I was able to read about what the world was like before the war using firsthand accounts. Let me tell you, it wasn't the paradise everyone who grew up in the last hundred and fifty years thought it was."

A bit intrigued, Sasuke nodded at the woman for her to continue on. "What do you mean?"

Ling seemed to think about it for a moment, then motioned for Sasuke to come sit at one of the reading tables in the back of the room before she began. "Well it wasn't open warfare or anything like that, which probably would have been considered paradise after generations of war, but they weren't sitting around a table sharing meals and ideas either. Each one of the nations simply pretended their best the others didn't exist.

"Take Chin the Conqueror for example," Lin continued. When she saw Sasuke had no idea who she was talking about, she gave a brief explanation. "He was a Earth Kingdom warlord who tried to take over the continent. He actually managed to get his hands on more than half of it before the Avatar stepped in and killed him. Even then, half of the historians out there think she only did it because he was bothering her hometown. Meanwhile, all the other nations saw this guy just swallowing up more than half the world and just shrugged it off because it was an internal dispute."

"Is that a fact?" Sasuke asked as he tried to sound interested. He really didn't care much for the history of the Four Nations aside from a few important details here and there, but keeping in good relations with the woman who knew the library like the back of her hand was useful. That meant paying attention and giving her words weight.

Lin shook her head. "If you look at the last war, you see that the Fire Nation ran right over the Earth Kingdom for years before the Southern Water Tribe intervened, and even that was only after most of their benders had been captured. The Northern Water Tribe just kept to themselves and repelled a few invasions every couple dozen years. They didn't do anything to even help the southern tribe until the Avatar showed up."

Bored with the conversation, Sasuke tried to guide the woman to getting to her point. "So, what're you getting at exactly?"

Ling paused a moment, then leaned in closer to talk quietly. "If you ask me, this whole Four Nations thing is a total scam. The only real difference between any of us is the benders, and what they can do. Their stupid whose better than who arguments have been the cause of every major problem in history. It would be so much simpler for the world if they were all out of the picture. Then, normal people like me and you could live in peace, and the whole world could be like Republic City. Just look at what we've been able to do without those damn benders getting in the way. Technology has progressed further and faster in the past seventy years than it has in the past thousand."

The anti-bender sentiments stirred something in the back of Sasuke's mind. They sounded disturbingly familiar to some of the Ninja Countries feelings surrounding those people with special bloodlines.

"Okay…but didn't the Avatar make this city?" Sasuke asked.

"That's just what they want you to think," Ling told him. "See, Republic City was originally a collection of towns that the Fire Nation had seized control of at the start of the hundred years war, and managed to hold onto for the entire century. Then that damn Avatar showed up with the idiot Fire Lord Zuko, and they told people who'd been living here for three generations to get the hell out and that their homes no longer belong to them. All for the sake of balance.

"It was only after Zuko was nearly killed by the son and daughter of the colony's lord in an assassination attempt that they even paid attention. Even then, the only reason that they even bothered to care was because one of them was a damn fire bender, and the other was a rotten earth bender; a brother and sister who bent different elements. It didn't matter that thousands on non-benders were getting uprooted, but oh spirits forbid if two attempted murderers lost their homes because of the wise Lord Zuko and the noble Avatar Aang. Then, they just decide to 'found' a town that was already there, change its name, and have us build statues in their honor for nothing. They even brought in that blighted Water Tribe, who had no connections to this city whatsoever."

Sasuke frowned at the young woman from Ba Sing Se. "I…see."

"But, a time for change is coming," she said before looking around, then leaning in closer to Sasuke. "Have you heard of the Equalist movement?"

"The what?" Sasuke asked.

-Air Temple Island-

Korra walked out of the island bath house in fresh clothes, clean from her morning practice, with the Fire Ferrets team's latest problem weighing on her mind. Mako had said he would handle the problem, but that didn't stop Korra from worrying about it.

They needed money to enter the tournament…money they didn't have. In fact, Bolin and Mako were actually sleeping above the arena in some shabby apartment they rented out from the arena's owner.

I wonder if Tenzin can give us a loan or something, she wondered. The guy obviously had some money, or he wouldn't have been able to a place like the Air Temple stocked with food and in good condition. Other than that, she really didn't have anything in the way of ideas.

"Well, time for practice," she mumbled to herself. All she seemed to do anymore was train, and the irony was that all this training was ending up a waste. Korra had yet to throw a single gust of wind, and the time spent adapting her fighting style to play in pro-bending would be for nothing if they couldn't come up with thirty thousand yuans by the end of the week.

It was more than a little disconcerting.

The sight of Sasuke walking towards the house brought Korra out of her downward spiraling thoughts and into confused curiosity. "What're you doing back so early?" she asked.

Sasuke stopped and looked at her for a moment, taking a minute before he spoke. It was one of the weird things she'd been noticing about him lately. "They don't have anything that interests me anymore."

Korra wondered what he could have read through in the short time they'd been in Republic City, but didn't bother to ask. "Whatever, I'm off to train." Although she was unsure just how sitting around doing nothing for two hours thinking about air was supposed to be considered training. At least she had manage the forms well enough the other night so getting through the spinning gates wouldn't be such a pain.

"Well if you're going to be here, then can you take care of Naga for me?" she asked with an apologetic smile. "I think the monks are getting a little tired of putting up with her all day."

The look Sasuke gave her was his usual 'you must be kidding' kind of stares, but then he sighed and waved goodbye after heading into the temple. "Fine."

Meditation went pretty much as Korra expected it to. She sat around and thought about air for two hours, or tried to anyway, the problem of the entry fee kept coming back to haunt her. Then came time for lunch, followed by the return of her gate training. However, it was a different than the last two days. While she didn't follow the air bender forms, Korra did manage to dance through the turning gate without getting pummeled. After a few more runs, she was able to integrate more and more steps from the Airbending school instead of simply flowing through the gates as best she could.

Thankfully, Ikki and Jinora were more talkative that most of the other people she'd been around. Of course all they wanted to talk about was her pro-bending career and her team, which made her think about the money problems even more.

By sunset, she had gone through the gates so many times without stopping to avoid discussing the matter Korra was in even worse shape then when she left the bending gym. After completing the circuit for what had to be the two hundredth time, the Avatar needed to grab her knees just to keep from falling over.

Why is it the only thing I seem to do anymore is train? Korra asked herself. The South Pole hadn't been this bad, and the only real purpose of that place had been to teach her bending.

When Jinora and Ikki craned their necks to the left to look past Korra, she blinked in confusion. "Hey he's wearing a scarf," Jinora muttered. "Ohhhh Korra, is that your super cute fire bender teammate? The one that drives you crazy?"

Korra looked back to see what the hell had gotten their attention, then flinched. Why was it every time she ran into Mako, he either didn't have time to talk, or she was so covered in sweat that hanging out with him would be a real bad idea.

"Does he drive you crazy n a good way?" Ikki asked. "Or does he drive you crazy like you like him?"

The thought of the two air benders anywhere near Mako with the mischievous mood they were in made Korra panic and send them flying with an Earthbending technique right underneath their feet. Being air benders, they both just floated down to the ground a few feet away and giggled at Korra's uneasiness.

With the kids dealt with, Korra turned her back on them and did her best to make her voice sound steady. "Oh, hey Mako…what's up?"

"You seen Bolin?" Mako asked.

Lack of manners…another cute guy trait, Korra told herself. "No, I haven't seen him since this morning…and it's nice to see you too by the way." She wondered what made him think Bolin would even come to the island in the first place for. "What's wrong?"

"It's just he's not at home, and he's got a knack for getting into stupid situations." The way Mako grit his teeth and looked away said that he didn't like admitting it. "I was hoping he came here to…never mind. Well see you around," he told her.

Korra pressed her lips together pensively. Bolin is missing? She walked quickly to catch up with him. "Wait!"

Mako looked back, but didn't stop moving. "What? Look, if he's not here then I got to hurry and catch the ferry before it leaves."

"I could help you look for him," Korra offered.

The ridiculousness of the offer almost made Mako laugh. The girl had been in the city for less than a week. If anything, she's only slow him down. "Nah, I got it."

Seeing that the subtitle approach wasn't going to work, Korra reached out to grab the back of Mako's jacket. "Hey tough guy, let me help," she said before giving him a confident smirk. "My best friend is an excellent tracker."

The offer was a tempting one, and when it came down to it, he really didn't know where to go next if Bolin hadn't paid the Avatar a house call. "Okay but let's hurry."

"You go hold up the ferry, I'll go get Naga," Korra told him before running off.

A minute later, Korra made her way into the back yard to find Naga and Sasuke sitting around. "Don't tell me this is all you've been doing all day," she grumbled.

Sasuke looked up at the girl, then looked away with a grimace. "No…the pregnant woman caught me after I got here and had me help her with some…chores," he grumbled.

"Oh what a hard day you've had," Korra told in in a sarcastic tone.

For his part, Sasuke just ignored the girl's comment. Pema was kind and gentle, a woman who managed to get things done with gentle nudges and having other people see her way of thinking with encouraging remarks. The disturbing similarities between her and Sasuke's own mother made him want to be as far away from her as possible. Then there was Jinora and her little sister Ikki. A pair of siblings playing around with each other was even worse than the mother when it came to bringing up bad memories.

Something told Sasuke he wouldn't be getting much sleep tonight with everything that had been drudged up in the last few hours. This would probably be the only day he'd ever spend on the island around the Airbending family.

"You have no idea."

Korra shrugged at the odd comment. "Look, you remember me telling you about Bolin and Mako?"

"Yes."

"Well Bolin's missing and Mako wants my help looking for him, and I need Naga to help track him down. Wanna come with?"

"Is that even possible in this city?" Sasuke asked. He knew a few things about canine tracking units from his time in Konoha, but it wasn't much, and the odd atmosphere that hung around the crowded city might be detrimental to a dog's sense of smell.

The question made Korra think for a moment, and then shrug. "No idea, but it's better than nothing. Now come on, Mako's holding up the ferry for us."

Glad for an excuse to get off the island, Sasuke followed along.

When Korra finally made it to the ferry, Mako looked over to the guy in water tribe clothes and raised an eyebrow. "You're Naga?" he asked, wondering how a guy could end up with a name like that. Unless he was actually a flat-chested girl…

"That's Naga," Sasuke replied with an irritated frown as he pointed to the giant canine.

"She's a polar bear dog," Korra clarified. Not many people in the South Pole had ever seen a polar bear dog up close, and she was sure that no one outside of that environment even knew what one looked like.

Mako could only stare. "So your best friend is a polar bear dog…somehow, that makes perfect sense."

-One Hour Later-

"Are you sure this thing is going the right way?" Sasuke asked as the boys walked down the street flanking the giant dog that carried the Avatar.

Korra rolled her eyes at the lack of faith. "Naga knows what she's doing," she assured him. "I haven't guided her for a single turn yet, and Bolin's…socks…" Korra couldn't help but shudder at the memory of having touched those things, "give us a good trail to follow." Especially since he doesn't seem to wash those things…ever.

Eventually, the trail led them to the square where Zuko's statue had been erected.

Korra stopped a moment to look at the iron likeness of what the old man had been in his prime, then frowned at the flame hovering in his hands. "How do they do that anyway?"

"Probably some sort of gas fed into the palm by a system of pipes," Mako explained before he looked around the square. "Well, this is one of my brothers hangouts…so it looks like your idea worked."

The reluctant praise only made Korra looked down at the boy in agitation. "Well of course it worked," she grumbled. Then she slid off Naga's back to scratch the giant dog's ear in appreciation for her hard work.

A quick glance around the area told Mako where to look next. If they left it up to the dog, he'd probably spend the next several minutes just roaming around the square to find the right trail. However, street urchins were always a good source of information and there were a lot of them in Republic City.

Luckily, Mako spotted one he knew playing with some of his friends and went over to see if the boy knew anything. Once he had gotten the lead boy's attention, Mako motioned for him to come over near the others. "Have you guys seen my brother around here lately?"

The leader of the group, a boy Mako only knew a 'Schoocy' and made a few gestures that obviously meant yes before he held out a hand. "Perhaps, my memories a little…fuzzy."

Mako sighed and pulled out a few yuan for the kid. They were both just lucky he had been able to find substitute work at a power planet earlier that day. "When?"

"'Bout noon," the kid replied. "He was performing some kinda money-rat circus and theeeeeeen," he prompted Mako for more money.

After Mako handed him some more yuans, the kid looked around before he stepped in closer to continue. "Shady Shin showed up and flashed some serious cash. Bo took off with him in his hot rod. After what happened to the Agni Kai, the Triple Threats and the Red Monsoons are muscling up. There's rumors going around that there's some new gang trying to muscle its way into Republic City, and everyone's getting jumpy. There's probably going to be a big throw-down sometime soon."

As soon as the kid was done giving the info, he quickly ran back into the crowd. Mako turned around to see Korra staring at him with a strange expression on her face. "What was he talking about?"

"There's some big turf war going on between the triads and maybe a new group trying to move into the city, and it sounds like Bolin is about to get caught up in it," Mako explained.

Korra blinked. "Oh-kay…but…why? Bolin isn't exactly the gangster type." Then she frowned, "and how do you know these guys anyway?"

The reaction he knew his answer would cause made Mako clear his throat and look away from Korra. "We used to work for them back in the day."

"Back in the day?" she repeated dubiously, "What? Were you like the world's youngest hit man?"

"No!" Mako told her. "I just ran numbers and stuff for them."

"But you did work for them. And you honestly expect children did math for these triad people?"

Both the teenagers blinked, and turned to look at their companion, who'd been oddly silent since coming along. Well, oddly silent as far as Mako was concerned, Korra knew walls had better conversational skills than Sasuke.

Mako gave him a deadpan look. "You'd be surprised of the illiteracy rate among criminals," he told the other boy before his face was marked by a frown. "Now are you guys gonna help me or not?"

"No."

"Yes."

Sasuke took a moment to look at Korra, then rolled his eyes when she looked back at him in confusion. "Fine. Yes."

"Then follow me to the 3T Triad's headquarters," Mako told them.

As they fell in line, Korra leaned over to whisper to Sasuke. "Why don't you want to help Mako's brother?"

The irony of his response nearly made Sasuke trip him but… "You were listening when he said he was a triad member, right?" Of course the criminal part Sasuke had no real problem with, but if the Triple Threat were like the Agni Kai…which Mako being part of them at a young age suggested…

"Yeah so? That's all in the past," Korra told him.

Sasuke decided to let the conversation end there, as Korra lost control of her dog and she rounded a corner on top of the oversized canine. When the two boys caught up with her, they saw that Naga had ran some sort of oversized rodent that looked like a raccoon-tailed weasel with red hair up a pole and was trying to get at it while Korra pulled on the reigns.

"No, bad Naga! Pabu is a friend, not a snack! Down girl," the Avatar commanded while she tried to reign in her ride.

As soon as the weasel thing came down, it ran along the sidewalk and scurried up Mako's body to rest on his shoulders. "Something's wrong, Bolin doesn't go anywhere without Pabu, he even sleeps with the fire ferret."

Mako motioned Korra and Sasuke to quickly follow them across the street and down an alley until they came to a large yet non-descript building in what somehow looked like a darker section of the city than the place they had been a minute ago. He walked up to the door, confusion evident on his face as he looked around. "Something's not right, they're always guards around the front entrance. We should be-"

Korra ran up and kicked the front door in.

"-cautious," Mako finished before he slumped forward while the Avatar looked around at the destroyed room…the part she hadn't had a hand in destroying anyway.

"It looks like there was some kind of struggle," Korra theorized.

Mako walked inside of the room and looked around as he called out his brother's name. The place had been torn up but…there were no scorch marks or water stains to indicate what had happened. Weird, even when the triads are going at it, they usually leave the headquarters alone. While the Triple Threat were by far the youngest of the three, the other two remaining triads had long since worked out a system of unspoken rules to help keep the criminal underworld together, even when they were in the middle of hot territorial disputes. If the Red Monsoons have actually attacked the 3T's main place of operations, this are going to get real ugly real fast.

The sound of a rather loud engine revving up outside drew Mako and Korra's attention, with the latter leading them through the back exit, that she also busted open. Mako caught sight of his brother and some other people tied up in the back of a satovan that was surrounded by satobikes before the door closed and the vehicles started to head away a few seconds later while two of the bike riders stayed behind.

"Bolin!" Mako shouted.

From behind them, Sasuke reached for a kunai, and grit his teeth when he found his bag of ninja tools and weaponry gone. Right, didn't have time to get it…

Sometime soon he'd need to restock his arsenal tattoos, despite the annoyance it would bring.

Since the other two were just standing there, Sasuke took a deep breath through his nose while the bikers reached into a couple of sacks they had on their satobikes to throw a pair of cylindrical objects at them. Deep breath through the nose as you draw in the surrounding chakra before focusing it…

In his mind, Sasuke pictured the people of the Leaf Village happily going on about their lives as they stepped over the corpses of his parents.

then funnel it through your arms as you strike and shield your hands quickly after discharge, Sasuke told himself as he followed the steps before the grenades the two men had thrown could come close enough to effect them.

The results were much less than he was expecting, even with the sun being gone for the night. Still, two balls of flame rammed into the vehicles with enough force behind them to knock them over, even if the men riding them had managed to dodge by jumping above the attacks.

Green gas spewed from the canisters, and Mako looked past the scene with trepidation. If the bikes had been hit by strong Firebending… "Oh crap, the gas tanks!" he screamed before grabbing Sasuke and Korra to haul them back inside the Triad's base.

Hearing an unfamiliar word made Sasuke turn his attention to Mako. "The what?" he managed to ask before a large explosion filled the alley right as Mako shut the door to block the flames.

After the force of the explosion knocked out the door's window, Korra peeked through what was now a hole in the door to get a look around. She didn't see anyone moving around, and was glad for the ringing in her ears that might have covered any noise made by the poor guys that had been caught up in that.

"SO NOW THAT YOU'VE GOTTEN RID OF MY ONLY HOPE OF GETTING MY BROTHER BACK, ANY MORE BIGHT IDEAS SMART GUY?" Mako yelled.

"WHAT?" Sasuke shouted back.

"I SAID ANY MORE BRIGHT IDEAS NOW THAT YOU'VE BLOWN UP OUR ONLY LEADS?" Mako asked him as loudly as he could.

Korra looked down at the two fire benders, and cupped her hands. "I THINK I HAVE ONE!"

-The Police Station-

"YOU'RE THE ONES WHO CAUSED THAT EXPLOSION AT THE TRIPLE THREAT'S BASE?" Lin shouted as she looked down on the assembled teenagers as she paced back and forth in her office.

Korra winced, then put her finger in her ear to clean it out and help cut down on the ringing. "It was an accident!"

She glanced over at Sasuke, not sure what to think. The young man hadn't seemed all that torn up about incinerating another human being. Mako, Korra could understand being a little callus with his brother missing and all, but Sasuke hadn't even blinked when they found the rider's charred body who hadn't managed to clear the explosion radius like his buddy that had scrambled up a fire escape.

"Did you even think of coming to the police first?" Lin demanded.

Mako threw his hands over to gesture at Korra. "I went to the Avatar!"

Completely ignoring the irate police captain, Sasuke looked over to Korra. "This is a waste of time."

The comment drew the full of Lin's ire, and she turned her neck towards the boy. "Excuse me?" she asked in a dark tone.

"We came in here to report a missing person, and the circumstances leading to his abduction to see if you know anything about the group responsible," Sasuke began. "Since then, all you've actually done is shout at us and stomp around this office."

Lin glared at Sasuke that much harder. "Are you telling me how to do my job boy?"

"No, just pointing out your incompetence," he simply explained in an even tone. "You seem more agitated over the fact that we were doing your job than the fact that a crime was committed under your watch."

The standoff continued for another moment, then Lin turned towards the door. "Sergeant!" the captain called out, then waited for the man to poke his head in. "Place these three under arrest. One count of homicide, and two counts of assistance."

Korra jumped out of her seat. "What?" she shouted.

Yet another word that Sasuke didn't know put a frown on his face. I really do need to learn more than just the conversational parts of this language, he told himself. From the looks of things, it didn't seem that Korra or Mako agreed with the charge.

"You can't be serious!" Mako shouted. He didn't know who to be more angry at, the female police captain, or the fire bender who'd goaded her into this. He went for the target that might get better results. "You can't-what about my brother?"

Lin turned her attention on him, but didn't soften up. "We will of course look for your brother, but from your description of his kidnappers, I wouldn't hold out much hope. We don't even know who took him."

While the sergeant slapped the handcuffs on the Avatar and began to read a stunned Korra her rights, Mako stepped forward. "Bullshit! The Triple Triads hangout didn't have a single sign of bending! It had to be chi-blockers working for Amon and those Equalists. If you want to find my brother then try questioning some of them!"

"And now you're a detective?" Lin asked before she motioned the sergeant to come and put the cuffs on the brat.

Sasuke took a moment to look down at his cuffs, then over to the Avatar, then to the police captain. "Korra, what should we do here?"

Korra jumped from being startled by the question, then looked over to the boy. "Uh, what?"

"If you want to escape, now is probably the best time for it," Sasuke told her. The Lin woman seemed to be a little too hard-line to work as a hostage, so…Sasuke figured they could knock her out and take both the woman and the conscious sergeant, who would order their men not to attack for fear of hurting their leader.

But that would cause more problems down the line, and at the moment the only way Sasuke was going to get what he needed was to keep in good with Tenzin. Although, if it really came down to it, forcing him to go along wouldn't be too hard.

Lin spun around to put all her enraged attention on the young man. "What did you just say?" she demanded.

"I think it's better to just let Tenzin handle all this…and stop talking like that!" Korra advised.

-The Next Day-

Korra rubbed her wrists to try and get rid of the feeling of the bending restraints that had been on her all night. She didn't know how bending criminals could stand having the things on them all the time to prevent any escape attempts. If anything it proved the opposite of what the Equalists were saying was true. Benders had it far worse than the people who couldn't bend…if they were in prison at least.

She looked up to the bald monk that was her rescuer. "So Tenzin, where's Sasuke and Mako?"

"The boy is downstairs getting his scarf," the air bender explained while he ked Korra towards the elevator. "Your…other friend…Korra, he killed someone. You and that Mako boy being placed under arrest was just Lin being…well, Lin. But…" Tenzin let out a sigh. "Look, what exactly happened?"

Korra looked away from her teacher and tried to organize her thoughts. "I don't know," she mumbled.

"Best start from the beginning then," Tenzin told her.

So Korra gave Tenzin a quick rundown of what had happened last night after Mako had come looking for his brother, how they tracked him down to the square with Zuko's statue, and then heard about his involvement with the triad, as well as what happened at the Triple Threat's HQ.

When Korra was finished with her explanation, she also decided to throw in her two cents about the whole thing. "Okay, someone got killed, and I get that's big. But he was a kidnapper for crying out loud! And the way Lin just…exploded on us… I mean, when I met her the first time she was glad I caught those guys, and now she's mad about this?"

Tenzin played with his beard as the elevator they were waiting for finally arrived. "It's…complicated," Tenzin replied. "Lin's very…territorial and headstrong. The first time, you just bumped into those thugs on the street and took care of things without causing a fuss. This time, you actually went out looking for trouble and cause an explosion that has a body count. There's a difference."

"So now she's mad at me for doing my job?" Korra asked with an annoyed look on her face right as the elevator dinged, and came to a stop. When she stepped off, Korra looked around at the hallway. "This isn't the first floor." If anything it looked like they were underground.

The comment about Korra's job had Tenzin looking at her oddly. "Your job?"

Korra gave him an equally odd look. "I am the Avatar. Helping people is what I'm supposed to be doing."

"What your supposed to be doing is learning Airbending," Tenzin said with his voice becoming slightly raised towards the end, his memories of seeing Korra play in her pro-bending match the other night coming back into his mind. "I'll admit that it was wrong for me to not allow you your freedom, but putting yourself in danger can wait until your are fully trained."

With what she could tell would be another big fight on the horizon, mentally Korra dug in her feet and prepared herself to be more stubborn than Naga on bath day. "So I should just say 'Hey all you Equalists, kidnappers, criminals, and sprits know what else, I'm training right now so go cause all the trouble you want'?"

Seeing where this was going, Tenzin decided to try a bit more reasonable approach. He knew when Korra wanted to be stubborn, the air bender had a better chance as moving boulders with his pinky than budging her. "There are people in this city that are taking care of those kinds of problems until you are ready."

"I'm ready now! And they're not taking care of it. Bolin's still missing," Korra exclaimed as she threw her arms wide, then stopped when they came to a barred door in the middle of the hallway with a metal bender behind it. "Uh, what're we doing down here anyway?"

Tenzin waited for the bender on the other side of the bar door to open it before he answered. "I wanted to talk to your friend before we left."

A few minutes later, Korra found herself standing in front of a maximum security cell, glad that she hadn't been put down here for her one night in jail. While Korra's cell had been just a few iron bars and uncomfortable handcuffs that held her hands behind her back, Sasuke's terms of confinement seemed much harsher.

First, there was his cell. It was a tiny area only measuring 6x6x6, with the only light coming from a single bulb and the entrance being a solid iron sheet that had to be metal bent in order to be opened. Then there were his restraints, a pair of large cuffs held his hands together and were attached to an iron rod that ran down to his feet to connect with another pair of restraints that held his feet. To top it all off, there was a metal faceplate around his mouth, that had a few small holes in the front and a larger one on top with what looked like a funnel.

Just seeing him sitting him on the small bed attached to the wall made Korra flinch. She grit her teeth, then looked over to the guard. "What the hell is this?" the Avatar shouted.

"Maximum restraints for a fire bender who's been deemed dangerous," the man told her before looking over to Tenzin. "You have five minutes."

Lin may be going a bit overboard on this one, Tenzin admitted. "Sasuke, are you awake?"

He knew from previous visits to such people, the slumped over position that Sasuke was in right now was pretty much the only position they could take with the kind of restraints he had on. They either learned to sleep as is, or went without it until they couldn't stay conscious.

"What do you want?" the boy asked in a dead tone after opening his eyes.

"I was told you decided to wave your right to legal council," Tenzin said.

Korra looked over to the old man, then Sasuke, then back to Tenzin. He's chained up so much he can't even move and that's what you want to talk about?

"There's no point to it. My hearing is after the full moon," Sasuke told them. He turned his attention on Tenzin completely. "You are still calling down the moon spirit, right?"

The oddity of the question threw Tenzin for a loop. "Well…yes I suppose-"

Korra quickly stepped over him. "We can wait till this mess is straitened-"

"No!" Both of the benders were taken back by the ferocity of Sasuke's instance. Korra particularly, it was more emotion than she'd seen out of him in…well…ever.

Sasuke slid around to lay down on the bed the best he could with his restraints. "Go on with your training. I'll be fine."

Korra didn't know what to go with: anger at her friend being so…well, him, or just plain confused as to why he was seemingly wanting to stay in a jail cell. "Hey-"

"Don't you still have to go find that guy's brother?" Sasuke asked before Korra could get more than a word out. "Stop wasting your time here."

As much as she wanted to argue, Sasuke had a point. Bolin was still missing, and Korra still had no idea where they were supposed to look for him. She took a moment to look at Sasuke, then let out a humph. It's not like he's going anywhere, knock some sense into him later.

The idiot was probably just trying to show off by acting tough or something. If those things he was wearing were as uncomfortable as they looked, he'd be jumping at the chance to get out of his cell come tomorrow.

"Fine!" Korra grumbled. She shot him an annoyed look, then headed out the door.

Sasuke watched the two people leave, then waited till he couldn't hear their footsteps anymore. As soon as he was out of hearing range, Sasuke performed the escape jutsu, and the restraints hit the floor with a resounding clang.

After massaging his wrists, to get some feeling back in them, the boy laid back on the modest bed to collect his thoughts. Genjutsu would be able to trick the guard who came in with his meals he was still in his restraints, so now all he had to do was wait a few days until Tenzin called the moon spirit to learn where the ancient creature was and he would finally be done with all this.

-Later That Night-

Sitting outside the air temple as she listened to the guards radio, Korra was feeling like a total loser. A second day of looking for leads on Bolin had come up with nothing. Naga couldn't track someone in a satomobile, and no one on the street that Mako had talked to had seen those weirdoes in masks since last night.

What was even worse was that she was starting to think it might be a hopeless cause. Some of the police she had talked to said the first forty-eight hours were the only real window in which missing people could be found with any chance of success. After that, Bolin's odds dropped drastically.

Korra grit her teeth and slammed her fist onto the ground when her thoughts turned to the police. If anything, they seemed to be getting in the way of saving Bolin. When she went to Lin for help like she was supposed to do, they locked her up for doing her job as the Avatar. When she went to go track down leads, following Mako's advice to see what Equalists had to say about Bolin being missing, they found some people handing out flyers. Unfortunately, ever time Korra had tried to gently earth bend them into a corner so she could have a private chat with the idiots giving people pictures of some guy named Amon, there was a policeman hanging around to stop her. Of course when Korra raised hell about it, the several policemen just went on about the Equalist's right to protest!

Benders were protecting a bunch of non-bender morons who were going around shouting how benders were oppressing them. Meanwhile, the guys stirring up hatred and bigotry had their buddies kidnapping benders to do who knew what to them!

The police were actually protecting the Equalists, while the people who were actually trying to stop the bad guys were being thrown in jail. The insanity of it all made Korra want to shout in frustration. It was nuts!

A sudden stop of music coming from the radio drew Korra's attention. "-ere that should do it. Ladies and gentlemen my compatriots and I are interrupting you for a truly historic event. Coming to you live from an un disclosed location, the first ever bending cleansing is about to-oh they're starting!"

A second announcer's voice cut off the first's. I GIVE YOU YOUR HERO YOUR SAVIOR, A-MON!" the new voice said while cheers could be heard in the background.

Korra stood up and jogged over to the radio that the guards had gathered around. "What the heck are you guys listening to?" she asked, maybe a little crabbier than she meant to.

Jinta, the only female member of the security team looked up, although her hand still was turning the frequency dial after she had turned the volume down so that Korra could barely hear anything. "Well we were listening to some new age music till this thing cut into our signal."

"It's on every channel," a Fire Nation guard who Korra thought was named Lee grumbled.

Shoving her guards out of the way, Korra turned the volume back up. "Shhh! I want to hear this."

-City Jail-

"My quest for equality began-"

Sasuke peeked through the small slot that guards were supposed to use to check him before coming to feed a prisoner. "Turn the radio up."

"KEEP IT DOWN IN THERE!" the guard yelled back, then reached over to turn the volume down and smirked at the door that the request had come from. He knew the kid was the little idiot who had decided to get on the chief's bad side. If the little idiot was still student enough to still be making demands, he knew Lin wouldn't mind little boy being put in his place…

"AND IF I HEAR ANYMORE NOISE FROM YOU I'LL BEAT YOU SO BLACK AND BLUE THAT-"

The man cut himself off when the door that was holding the prisoner slammed open, and the boy stuck his head out. The sheer impossibility of a prisoner getting out of his restraints, much less his room made the guard freeze, not sure of what to do.

Then the kid looked at him with glowing eyes and…

-Fire Ferret's Apartment-

"That fire bender killed my father, then he turned his fire on me," Amon's voice said over the airwaves. "It was only through my mother's quick action that I survived. But ever since then, I've had to hide my face."

From his spot on the couch, Mako glared at the box as if it was the actual man speaking.

-Air Temple Island-

Korra frowned at the man's story. In the end, it wasn't some ideology or even real want for reform that drove him, Amon seemed motivated by nothing more than simple revenge.

"What's going on here?"

She looked over to see Tenzin had shown up, but the man quieted down when Korra put a finger over her lips, then pointed to the radio.

"I'm sure you've heard that the Avatar is here in Republic City," Amon continued. "And if she were here, she would tell you that bending brings balance to the world. But I am here to tell you that she is WRONG.

"The only thing bending has brought to the world is pain and suffering. It has been the cause of every war in every era."

Korra grit her teeth almost growling at the radio in anger at the words it was spitting out. She clenched her fists, and managed to keep herself from smashing the damn thing into a million pieces. "Pain an suffering my ass!" she yelled, as if Amon could actually hear her. "You're the one who's kidnapping people!"

"Korra please, I can't hear what he's saying," Tenzin told her.

"-ou're wondering what the revelation is. Well I am here to tell you," Amon said before pausing a moment. "Since the beginning of recorded history, the spirits have acted as guardians of our land, ever watchful for the beasts that wait just beyond our shores. However, their vigilance in looking outward has made them ignore the crises that threatens us now.

"But, they can no longer ignore the cries of their people. They say that the Avatar has failed them. They haven chosen me to usurer in a new age of balance. To do this, they have granted me a great power, the power to take away a person's bending permanently."

The declaration made Korra completely forget her anger. Lost in her own shock, she couldn't even make out the conversations of her guards. But that's impossible.

"Can he really do-Oh we're still on," the first announcer said. "Now let's see, Amon seems to be bringing someone out from backstage. I think…yes I recognize him, that's 'Lightning 'Bolt' Zolt, the leader of the Triple Threat Triads."

-Fire Ferret's Apartment-

Mako felt as if he had been punched in the gut when he heard who was up on stage. He wanted to turn the radio off. He knew what was coming next. But, he kept himself on the couch, waiting…hoping that what he knew what was coming…well, wasn't.

"-and now Zolt is showing us just why he's called and oh, oh my fellow Equalists, our savior has just DODGED LIGHTING! This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen! He's got Zolt in an arm hold…and he just struck Zolt right in the temple!. It-it's amazing my friends, Zolt's lighting just turned into fire, and…and now there's not even that! Wait…wait, Zolt's getting up and YES! OH MY YES my friends ZOLT CAN'T BEND ANYMORE! OUR SAVIOR HAS JUST EQAULIZED THE GREATEST CRIMINAL REPUBLIC CITY HAS EVER KNOWN!" the man shouted as thunderous applause could be heard in the background.

-City Jail-

"-and with that cowardly display of trying to run from the great Amon, the famous Fire Ferrite Bolin won't be playing any more bending games!" the radio announcer shouted while Sasuke looked at the box while checking to make sure the guard was still under his Genjutsu and repairing the cell door.

"As much as they all deserve it, I must insist that these fools not be harmed," Amon said over his microphone. "They are our proof and my message to Republic City! I will not rest until ALL benders have been dealt with. I will bring the Avatar before you all and hold her accountable for her failure. And once even the Avatar has been brought to task, I will have restored balance to the world!"

Sasuke turned the radio off by smashing it into the tables then he leaned back in the chair that his guard usually occupied and frowned in consideration as he squelched the anger burning in his heart.

"So much for being able to just lay around for three weeks," he grumbled. If Korra ended up getting…crippled by this Amon…

-Meanwhile on the other side of the world-

Shikamaru frowned as he went over the papers in front of him the third time that night, then let out a sigh and leaned back in his chair. "It can't be done."

"What?" Temari shouted from her place on the side of his small desk.

Troublesome woman, the shadow manipulator thought, although he was more than smart enough to keep from saying it. He ignored the blonde's outburst, and looked past her. "Sorry, but my recommendation is: tell everyone that decided to come with us they need to find a new place to stay. Then we need to get the hell out of here too."

Across the table from the former Leaf ninja, Gaara, the Kazekage crossed his arms. "Explain."

"I've run the numbers. After Madara's…killer rock from the sky jutsu, we lost more than seventy-five percent of our remaining forces, which were less than half to begin with. Then the armies of Waterfall, Grass, Rain…hell, I think I even saw a guy with a Sound headband in there somewhere, showed up and started gutting the survivors. The Mizukage's counterattack gave us time to retreat but there was less than a hundred of us that made it out of there.

"Even factoring in the people that got away via reverse summoning, the ones that haven't been found by enemy villages these past three months…we just don't have enough people to even consider trying to build up a military force, much less a new village…and that's just the first problem for a plan like that."

In truth the only reason they hadn't been crushed before now was that their camp was in the middle of the dessert…nearly half a kilometer underground. Gaara had made it himself.

This time it was Temari to ask the obvious question. "Then what's the second?"

Shikamaru pointed to himself. "I'm Leaf," he explained before moving his hand towards the other people in the room. "You guys are Sand. And hell, she's Rock!"

Kurotsuchi, who was currently leaning against the wall in the back of the room frowned at the boy pointing at her. "Hey!"

"My point is, we're all from different villages that have been trying to kill each other since before any of us were born," Shikamaru explained. "Putting all five of us together in one big group may seem like a good idea, but once the threat uniting us is gone, people are going to start remembering that none of our villages really liked each other all that much, even with the alliances. Then its going to be who killed whose grandfather, and things will only get worse from there. We've already got some fights breaking out between some of the older Mist and Lightning ninja."

Gaara nodded in agreement. Although he was the commanding military officer on paper, several of the other villagers were either slow or completely refusing to follow his order since the Kages that had decided to join the alliance were now dead.

On top of which they had several problems with…he didn't know what exactly to call them. Could people still be called defectors when their villages were no more? But there were numerous reports of Rock/Leaf/Mist/Cloud…even a few Sand ninja that had put on other headbands to join with what people were already calling the new great villages. Others simply turned to a life of banditry thanks to the fact there wasn't a military force big enough to patrol vast stretches of the former five great nations.

"And Naruto?" Gaara asked.

In response, Shikamaru held up his hands in a shrug. "Your guess is as good as mine. But him and the Eight-Tails still have that large bounty out on their heads from all the new shinobi nations…and since we're all not drooling morons that just get along, we can assume Masked Madara's plans hit a snag. Their either dead, or whatshisface is, and all I can say is I really hope it's the guy in the mask."

When Gaara said nothing, Shikamaru urged him on. "So boss, what's the plan?"

"You actually sound like I still have some authority over the unified army," he said in his usual mumblely tone. Technically he did, and there were people who listened to him, but the vast majority of the ninja had gone their separate ways.

Shikamaru let out a sigh. "Well getting everyone from the Leaf to follow me would be too much of a pain," he said. "Besides, you read the intelligence reports. Sasuke Uchiha showed up at my old village a little over two months ago. Since he's still apparently trying to off anyone who ever wore the kind of headband I used to, I'm sticking with the only guy I know that's managed to beat him in a strait up fight."

"Uchiha?" Kurotsuchi asked, remembering the boy from his appearance at the summit. "But…he's with the Akatsuki! If he's still around then…then… Wait, two months…the Leaf Village was rubble by then. What was he doing there?"

Shikamaru shrugged again. "Kurenai and I were more interested in staying alive than asking questions. I just saw him go into some old temple, then we got the hell out of there before he came out."

"You let our only lead on…hell, everything just walk away?" Kurotsuchi shouted.

Shikamaru gave a calm reply. "Getting mixed up with a psychopath that managed to take on the five kages and walk away with all his limbs attached when all I've got is a fat guy and a woman who just gave birth is not a gamble worth making. Since no one's even seen him since, I'm willing to let sleeping cereal killers lie."

The room remained silent as Gaara considered his options. "Everyone should head to their respective people and tell them…I've decided to disband."

"Gaara?" Temari mumbled in surprise.

"Shikamaru is right. As things are…we're too big a target to hide, but we don't have enough strength to defend ourselves," he replied. "My final order as general of the alliance is this: we are disbanding. Our villages are gone, if you need to join a new one to survive…then so be it. That is my final order as Kazekage."

"So just what are you gonna do?" Shikamaru asked.

"After everyone goes their separate ways…I'm going to try and track down Naruto," Gaara told him. "Since none of us are under a Genjutsu, then something must have happened. Since Sasuke Uchiha is our best lead at the moment, it would be best to start with him. Which means trying to retrace his steps to see if we can pick up a trail. I'll take a single team with me. Everyone else will have to find their own way."

I was afraid of that, Shikamaru told himself.

-Ninja Channel!-

"Welcome to NIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNJAAAAAAA CHAAAAAANEEEEEEEL!" Ino cheered. "Okay so we finally got chapter 3...or really chapter 2 out of the way since the stupid author who KILLED ME, ahem… since the author really put out 2 chapters at once when he wrote this thing."

Kakashi nodded. "And now for your quick summary," he said before taking a deep breath. "Amon finally showed up, Boilin's been de-bended…benderized…or whatever, Sasuke's in jail, and Korra's…being Korra. Oh yeah and Gaara's still around…like you didn't see that coming."

"Of course in our upcoming two chapters that will conclude book one, we'll have the real identity of Amon, for this fan fiction anyway, the big explanation of how everything all ties together, and Korra's big death scene when Sasuke guts her for another eye upgrade…maybe," Ino grumbled before mumbling something about the damn crossover tramp. "But now for an IMPORTANT look into the future of this fan fiction, we've got a new segment called crossover character matchup! In this segment, Kakashi will select not two, but THREE characters that would create an interesting romantic plot, with a love triangle sort of thing, and I, your lovely host, will predict the outcome of this romantic rivalry."

She looked over to her partner. "So who do we have today? Naruto/Mako and Asami? Sakura and Bolin/Mako? Sasuke/Naruto and…ugh, Korra?"

"No," Kakashi said as he crossed his arms and lowered his head and reached own behind the desk. "After thinking it over, I have decided on a possible triangle that interests me personally, and thus the fans will want to know."

"Ooooo," Ino asked. "You mean…uh, wait… Gaara…Korra/Asami?" They really need more female characters in this Avatar show.

Without further a due, Kakashi reached down to pull out the matching cards that showed…a trio of dogs? "Naga and Akamaru/Pakkun!"

Ino gave him a blank look. "huh?"

"Well everyone's trying to think about the dull and dry human relationships," Kakashi told her. "I'm trying to spice things up by throwing a canine one into consideration. So, who do you think? I'm partial to Pakkun myself."

"YOU WANT ME TO PREDICT THE LOVELIFE OF DOGS?" Ino screeched.

Kakashi gave her a one-eyes blink. "Uh…yes?"

"For the love of…DOGS? DOGS?" the girl shouted as she quickly grew more out of control. "When I took this #&!%ing job, it was because I'd get time in every chapter! But if you're going to have my expert relationship skills wasted on some overgrown mutant bitch and a pair of horney canines! You can just #&!% your #&!%ing #&!% up the #&!%ing #&!%!"

Kakashi sighed and looked out towards the camera. "Well that's it for today folks. See you next time. Bye!"

"I'll #&!%ing KILL YOU!" Ino yelled as the stage hand ninja tried to hold her down.